Sunday, May 10, 2009

Taiwan lifestyle: Thoughts on work in Taiwan

Why don’t you just get another job? My friends would ask when I complained about Mickey. Isn’t MTI a famous company in Taiwan? Aren’t you a senior manager now?

I had got my stocks and MTI was now one of the top companies in Taiwan so it should be an easy matter of sending out my resume – many of my colleagues were using the company name to jump ship for higher positions - but Taiwan was a funny old place – and most of the problems I originally had still existed. For work in Taiwan Acer was still employing only Taiwanese with MBAs from Harvard; and recruiting in America for its American offices. That only left me with only the up-and-coming local companies and you still had to go through the usual hoops: why do you want to work in Taiwan? Can you manage local Taiwanese? And spot the cons: need white guy to make the company look good for a couple of months…And, actually it was harder than before because my next move was as a director or head of department. I had no doubt I could manage local staff but the locals weren’t so sure – Even if, as at MTI most of the people went to school in America or Canada, and I was more Taiwanese than them.

Josh, who had sailed up the ladder quickly, had now opened his own business because he was sure there was a glass ceiling.

The few people I knew who were directors had done it by staying in the same company, and ingratiating themselves with the management, using their connection, allowing themselves to be carried up.

Several times I felt that the only way to move up was to leave the country, but I wasn’t ready to leave my adoptive home…Anyway, a story for later was that the right position did come along.

No comments: