Let me expand. Translation work is boring if you have no self interest in the job - and it is not going to benefit you in anyway by furthering your intellect or even just amusing you. But I’ve convinced myself that despite having had more managerial roles in the post, I had missed out on the crucial and basic skills one has to gain. Like typing, translating, concentration and submission. Learning the basics is quite grounding for someone who’s in danger of being a little too confident.
However, seeing the managers of departments and others in a slightly senior role than me I naturally feel unnoticed, wasted and, let’s face it, unimportant. The first time I felt like was like looking through the window of a bakery when on a diet-quite sad really. But now there is that knowing nod inside and an invisible pat on my head (‘don’t worry, you’ll get to eat the cake, but after you’ve lost the baby fat’).
Body issues aside, something else that I noticed is the gender inequality and the general inequality in the office. Trust a woman to reference the 3 classic female causes of today’s politics consecutively in my last 3 blog posts right? (Child care, healthcare, gender issues-but I believe one should talk about what one doesn’t know so they learn, write about what one does know).
For a foreign company with overseas operations it’s generally the norm to send male executive types to oversea and manage various departments, with local subordinates. In fact, it has become such a common establishment in Mongolia today that seeing one (female) Mongolian in charge of a department at my current company was refreshing (albeit she was heading up the typical female department of HR).
Why the bipolarity then? It feels almost like a modern equivalent of a 50s office situation, minus the cool Mad Men type attire and cigarettes. Study after study has shown that women tend to be better leaders and managers, if we only get over our inability to speak up and be aggressive, or that pesky little nature’s issue of child bearing duties. The typical Asian response would be that women are easier to work with (read: submissive and easily controlled) or the typical developing country based company response would be that they need someone with experience (read: one of their own and unlikely to cheat the company). I realize that there are many other sides to my above generalizations but the effort to overcome this typical-ness is frustratingly little.
Lower positions of clerk, translators and assistants are predominantly female, and funnily (and maybe saddeningly enough) the IT predominantly male so that the female assistant will at some point have to ask for help about her darn printer.
And what’s more interesting to observe is the fact that departments, different levels of position do not mix at lunch time, in the kitchen or even at after work functions. For a foreign company it can be understandable that the language can be a slight barrier to vertical socializing for some employees but even the competent English speakers tend to segregate themselves and run with their pack. This may be an age old issue that has been discussed, ranted and blogged about from a long time ago by millions of females out there. But considering I’m from a predominantly liberal, small scale and not necessarily a profit seeking professional background I find this setup alienating. How will one learn, gain experience and more understanding if one only sticks to their own department/work/recipe? Is the higher plan to keep the ants working so they can be wielded in one profit margin smashing direction or is it that there is no higher plan, just the reality of what employment is like in Mongolia today?
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