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| Meme that says "Brace yourself: HR just sent out another email." Image source. |
Recently at work, HR sent out an email about an annual tax form that everybody has to submit. I've done this in the past- there's an app, you just log in and your salary and tax information is already there, and you click "submit." It's quite easy.
So I tried to log in, but I couldn't. A week later, HR sent out a reminder about it, and I tried to log in again- 1 day before the deadline. Still no luck, so I emailed the HR manager, Jessica, to ask for help.
I got a reply from another HR employee, Anna, telling me that foreigners can't do it on the app, and I have to go in person to some tax office and bring my passport, work permit, etc. And as I said, the deadline is tomorrow.
Ugh, I was so mad! The way she just dumped this on me like it's no big deal, like oh guess what, because I'm an immigrant I have to do this whole complicated extra task, and she just leaves me to it and moves on with her life, while I try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. Like it's totally fine for HR to just tell me, 1 day before the deadline, oh by the way here's the address for the tax office, have at it.
SOOOO MADDDDD.
Here's the way I see it:
Things that are my job:
- Be a software engineer
Things that are not my job:
- Understand all the legal implications of me, an immigrant, working as a software engineer in China
Nope, not my job. That's HR's job. And I've worked at several companies where I was the only international employee, so I've run into this kind of problem a lot. Something I have to do that's different than the Chinese employees, and HR doesn't have a freakin' clue. (A while back I wrote about the worst one.)
I believe in boundaries now, and that means, since I'm the one who will suffer if this bureaucratic stuff isn't done correctly, I have the right to push HR about it as much as I feel is necessary. If, for example, my residence permit doesn't get renewed on time, which of us is worried about getting deported- me, or Anna? See, even though it's Anna's job to do it, I'm the one who suffers massively if it doesn't get done right. So I no longer just "trust" that HR knows what they're doing and they're going to take care of it. No, I tell them "it's time to start the process of renewing my residence permit" and then Anna replies "we don't have to start yet, it only takes 2 weeks" and then I get angry as I remember all the past renewals where various bureaucracy problems came up and it definitely took MORE THAN 2 WEEKS- but I don't show her I'm angry; I need to be polite and calm and professional. But I don't accept her nonchalance about it, and I push her to get started on it now. And if she doesn't, then I bring my manager into it and tell him that the process of renewing my residence permit every year is very stressful for me so I want to get it done as early as possible.
I'm the one whose worst-case-scenario is getting kicked out of the country- even though it's HR's job to do this stuff. So I get to decide how seriously HR needs to take it. That's boundaries.
Anyway, I'm usually good at guessing which legal policies won't apply to me and then asking HR to clarify what I should do. (Even though it should be THEIR JOB to notify me, without me asking.) This tax thing caught me off guard, though, because in previous years I just used the app like everyone else and it worked. Apparently this year the system is different.
So, as I said, I was SO MAD.
Going to the tax office isn't a big deal. I can do that. I can accept that I need to do that, as an immigrant, even though the Chinese employees don't. That's fine, I understand that for practical reasons, that's the way the world works. The reason I was mad, though, was because THIS IS NOT MY JOB. Figuring out how my specific situation as an immigrant should be handled is NOT MY JOB. That's HR's job. If they had told me 2 weeks earlier, that would have also been fine. But 1 day before the deadline, just mentioning it like it's no big deal, no, that's not okay. That's not fair to me. I deserve to be treated better.
And then I thought, you know, if I was still in a "personal relationship with God," I would have accepted it. "Submit", "turn the other cheek", "put others first" and don't stand up for yourself because that's "selfish." I would have just told HR "okay" and gone to the tax office. And then I would remember, and be mad about it again every time HR acted like it was no big deal to just put new requirements on me because I'm an immigrant. Get more and more mad about it every time, as the accumulated list of injustices against me that HR never even acknowledged grows longer and longer. Every time, remembering every single previous incident and how I was wronged and I just suffered it without standing up for myself.
I would have thought that's what a good Christian should do. And that I'm even more sinful for continuing to have feelings about things that happened years ago.
No, now I believe in boundaries and standing up for myself. Now I believe in "that's not my job" and "I deserve to be treated better than this." I didn't know about those things before. I used to just trust whatever HR said, and do whatever HR said.
So anyway, continuing on with my story. Anna came to my desk to ask me if I'd gotten her email, and I tried to take the polite approach of "I'm concerned about if I go there tomorrow and there are problems and I can't get it done" rather than the more blunt "this is your job, not mine." Anna said oh the tax office isn't that far away, you could go and come back in less than an hour, hey how about today you go there and confirm what materials they need you to bring, and then tomorrow you go again.
And I was like "... you want me to go twice?"
And I was like "how about YOU go today and confirm what materials I need to bring, and then I go tomorrow?"
And she said she can't go, she doesn't have time. And I said WELL YEAH I can't go, I don't have time.
(But, actually, I did have time. Or rather, by "I don't have time" I did NOT mean "there are extremely urgent things I need to do today and it's just not possible to rearrange my schedule", I meant "I am not willing to treat this as a higher priority than the other things I was planning to do today [because, even though those things aren't very urgent, this is NOT MY JOB]." So. That is also boundaries.)
So then I was more mad at Anna, and I said she should have told me about this 2 weeks ago.
So later I went to the HR director, Jessica's, office to talk to her. My manager, Han, happened to be there, so that was good. So I told them "I'm concerned about what if there are problems when I go tomorrow and I can't get it done" and we talked about it and they offered suggestions and help, and Jessica called Anna in and told her to call the tax place and get a better idea of what exactly I need to do. I really felt a lot better after this conversation, because Jessica and Han acknowledged that this really is a lot of trouble for me, and really I should have been told about it earlier (but that HR didn't know either because it's a new policy).
Then I was not mad any more, because I felt like they understood my situation and how it's not right to suddenly spring this task on me 1 day before the deadline. See, that's really all I wanted- for them to acknowledge that this is an inconvenience for me and try to help make it easier if they're able.
Anyway, the next day I went to the tax office and submitted the form, and it all went well. And when I got to work, Han asked me how it went. Very nice of him to ask and show he cared.
So, in the end it worked out.
And I'm left thinking about what if I didn't stand up for myself. What if I didn't go talk to Jessica and communicate (politely!) about how stressful it is for me to suddenly be told I have to do these things. I think about things that have happened over all the years I've worked in China- things that HR screwed up and left me to deal with, and I just did what they said and didn't stand up for myself and didn't escalate to their manager. And so I felt like nobody cared, and life just moved on without anyone acknowledging it, and so I'm still mad.
That's what happens when you "submit" and "turn the other cheek" and "trust God to meet your needs."
But instead I communicated about how I felt, and people listened and helped me, and I feel better now. The problem is resolved- and I don't mean the tax form thing, because I would have resolved that anyway. I mean the problem of HR suddenly dumping a new inconvenient task on me just because I'm an immigrant, and acting like it's fine to treat me that way.
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