An anti-establishment radical caught in a corporate setting

Today I picked up the cash portion of my pay. here at Ctrip.com we foreigners have two different forms of payment:

1) Taxable income that is wired in
2) non-taxable income that is given in cash

The non-taxable income is basically our rent. In the initial negotiations with HR, we were going to hand them a wad of receipts for all manner of things, but when they realized that that would add hours into their workday, they said just hand us a rent receipt and that’s cool.

So in China its pretty normal to have your landlord give you a receipt above and beyond what you actually pay, because the more you can claim the less taxes you pay. And it doesn’t hurt them because I have to pay for the rent receipt.

Anywayz.

Today our cash part had a chunk deducted because we failed to meet our quarterly goals. There are a few things wrong with this and I will list them here;

1) No one really knows what the goals are or how, as a unit, we achieve them
2) Several things conspired to lower tourism numbers this year (Middle East on Fire, Japan underwater, Chinese new year)
3) taking money out my pay and not really telling me why or how I might avoid it in the future is not an incentive. Its a kick in the balls.

A small consolation:

4) Ctrip’s stock fell by a buck.

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I am doing (working a day job) this because I hope to save enough money to escape the rat race (and having a wife and two kids kinda makes it necessary … for now).

Weird, because all my life I was on the run from bullshit like this and now I feel that throwing my hands up and saying: “allright. you got me. I’ll get a real job.” will eventually allow me to .. run faster? walk nonchalantly?

But that’s the fallacy all Bob’s delude themselves with:

My day job enables my night job.