Yammie's CyberLog | 亚米的生活杂志

I’m starting to realise why I often heard from people that Martians are very difficult to work with.

Or to make it easier to understand, why Martians cannot work with aliens from other planets. This is because they are not respected.

Well don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the two sides are equal, or people have a false impression on the way Martians operate. I am totally neutral here, and I agree with most aliens on the most common habits displayed by Martians. Yes they are totally different.

Man, that is called cultural difference. But it doesn’t warrant any conduct of disrespect by treating Martians inferior, especially when you are actually residing, or working on Mars, which is a place that does not really belong to you.

To share the other side of the story, I have heard many Martians telling me the same thing. When managed by an alien, many Martians have had the experienced of being finger-pointed and addressed as useless because they were Martians. The gap between “we on (whichever planet)” and “you Martians” magnified through the misunderstandings of culture.

And when Martians feel bad, they are not going to give you what you want, I can assure you that.

Well I am not really a Martian management expert. But from my observation, and from my own experience – the more you respect Martians, they more you get out of this trade. It’s really all about relationships here. The better the relationship, the more successful you are.

Guanxi, as commonly known as one of the most important concept a foreigner has to learn in order to survive on Mars, is still valid on every aspects. This does not only include guanxi with governments and work partners, this really include anyone you connect with.

And somehow, Martians do work on a different mode. They are brought up in a different culture, belief, and protected by a totally different set of labour law. What most people do, is that they would jump into the situation and apply their own believes on the best work ethics onto a (mass) group of people who didn’t even understand why their knowledge of work ethics doesn’t match with their alien manager’s.

That you would actually skip lunch because you have to finish off a presentation for the boss in an hour, for example. Martians in generally would have worried about their stomach.

To date, I still find the best way to work with Martians is to immerse into their culture, make friends, enjoy the relationships and you will definitely get something (good) out of them. Simply treating them as peasants who had never seen a bottle of coke really wouldn’t do.

And so, I’ve chosen to tell Martians that I’m from the Universe, not Earth.

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