Nothing. But the truth?

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
-George Eliot

Today, and yesterday I ended up making lots of cash and helping fix the transport authority's english problems (next step, taking over the world) and B. because I've been given more part time (making bank) work. Regardless, this is the crap I had to deal with regarding Chinese relationships and truth telling:

So, I hopped aboard the subway to find more part time work, which was explained to me from Rebecca, my agent, to be an editing job for a solo grad student. Turns out it was actually for a think tank, half funded by the Chinese government on transportation logistics. But I digress. After working there for three hours, I was propositioned to do much more work, including some take home editing tasks (reports). I was fine with that. The more work, the better as I saw it. Then, they said they paid Rebecca 200 kuai and hour, yet I only got 120 and hour (quite a steep commission don't you think?). Do the math, she got more than half of my work for not even showing up to help (her boyfriend came instead).

So in typical fashion they said they'd pay me a much higher salary of 160, if they cut her out as a middle man. I acquiesced, but questioned them whether it was ok? "dang ran, of course" they said her job is only to help me find the first day of work. Mei you wen ti (no problem)...Boy was I wrong.

The next day, I went to teach English at Rebecca's school. Although, she was supposed to meet me for pay, she sent her little boyfriend to deliver the cash instead. While there he asked me about more work at this company, in which I mistakenly told him, I have it separately and directly arranged with them, so not to worry. The look of perturb, and increasingly fast chinese was an omen of things to come.

Later that night, I got a frantic text from Rebecca, saying that she would pay me 150 an hour, but she should be involved with this company. Essentially she wanted to get a cut of my white collar labor. I didn't want to respond (feeling very pissed off naturally) and luckily my cell phone ran out of minutes. The next day I added minutes and texted her saying that I would deal with that work individually, but not to worry about future work (although I would be demanding a base line of 150 per hour for any jobs after). Then the shit storm started.

She instantly filled up my text message inbox explaining how she wasn't getting paid for this (even though she wasn't involved whatsoever), that according to the company, I had prepositioned for higher pay (which I did not...fucking liars), that they had told her they didn't need any more editing (which obviously they did) and finally that she was disappointed in me-imagine that, she was disappointed me? What a scam artist.

So I quickly called her back, and explained that I was disappointed in her for taking so much money from me (I told her about the 200 kuai and hour) and that it was her and the company lying to me, not the other way around. She didn't fully get the message to begin with, and when I got upstairs, there was another one of her foreign migrant laborers doing the same job I did, but for the 120 pay. Shit got reaaal complicated.

She called Paul (who will be teaching at the same school with me) and proceeded to bitch. He handed the phone to me, and I broke it down to her saying, what both she and the company were doing was devious, and that if she had a problem, she could talk to them. When I handed the phone off, they argued in lightning fast Chinese, and then Eugene, my chinese helped, proceeded to hang up on her. I wouldn't have cared so much, but she was the one helping me (supposedly) get more part time work and a Z visa, so I needed our guanxi to be ok.

Turns out, all was well (at least according to her smiley face text), although she would not be getting a dime off of my continued labor (which I've done 10 hours of since and still 5 more to go). In the words of Paul, she should have known better, sending her boyfriend (a real guber) to do her job. What did she expect though? Keep making money off of me by doing absolutely nothing. If she wanted a continued income stream, she should have been there during the negotiation. I will say my mistake was actually telling the truth and being a decent human being. In the words of Paul "just keep those jobs to yourself, mate." True that Paul. Tell nothing, especially not the truth.