When I got to the second branch in Yunnan my supervisor showed me the offices and introduced me to the accountants. I realized that he did not show me one of the rooms and so I obviously asked what was in the room he didn't show me. He replied that it was the office of the boss of the branch.
Now, culture differences are also huge when it comes to the boss vs. coworkers and I was not aware how big the differences are. Let me show you another great picture by Yang Liu:
This image really couldn't be better described. However, at that point I wasn't quite aware of this and wondered why my supervisor was so reluctant to enter the room. He whispered to me that if we do meet the boss that I need to bow in front of him and I just thought..... what???
I met the boss' two secretaries and was very polite, but actually was not nervous at all whereas my supervisor seemed to be dying next to me. His friend had disappeared at that point, because he seemed to not be able to handle the anxiety.
My supervisor brought me to the bosses room and very shyly introduced me to his boss. I bowed as I was told and my boss seemed satisfied. He invited me to sit, even though I really did not want to, because my supervisor was so incredibly scared of this situation. Our lives seemed to be depending on these next ten minutes. (that passed increeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedibly slowly).
Turns out my boss owns an apartment in Shenzhen and we were able to bond over that. We leisurely talked about my experience living there for 6 months and everything seemed fine.
When we left the room it appeared my supervisor was reborn and finally was able to smile again.
What an experience. I was NOT aware this was such a huge deal.
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