My school gave me a copy of the government calendar. Here are the
Saturdays
we all have to haul ass to work.
March 3rd - because CNY is too long and 2/23 wasn’t supposed to be a holiday.
April 14th - because Thursday, April 4th and Friday, April 5th are holidays.
June 23rd - because Monday, June 18th and Tuesday, June 19th are holidays.
September 29th - because Monday, September 24th and Tuesday, September 25th are holidays.
:s
Not ALL of us, honey. But thanks. This sort of information is always hard to come by in advance.
Yeahy my birthday is on a long weekend! Winner!
[quote=“bushibanned”]My school gave me a copy of the government calendar. Here are the
Saturdays
we all have to haul ass to work.
March 3rd - because CNY is too long and 2/23 wasn’t supposed to be a holiday.
April 14th - because Thursday, April 4th and Friday, April 5th are holidays.
June 23rd - because Monday, June 18th and Tuesday, June 19th are holidays.
September 29th - because Monday, September 24th and Tuesday, September 25th are holidays.
:s[/quote]
Typical DPP-induced Taiwanese nonsense.
What the hell is that? A holiday is a holiday. There’s a lot of nonsense with contracts in Taiwan. It seems they just don’t pay for holidays. If you aren’t working, you don’t get paid. Good deal! It’s like the employer is saying, “It’s not our fault it’s a holiday”. I suppose you don’t get overtime for working on a Saturday. I’d tell them to go piss up a rope.
I don’t work Saturdays - and my boss knows it. Woohoo, lots of days off for me.
Doesn’t anyone remember when the official work week was six days long?
I’d rather lose a testicle than work Saturdays.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any testicles to sacrifice. 
(at least, none of my own…)
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any testicles to sacrifice.
(at least, none of my own…)[/quote]
Well, point is that they’re very dear to me.
My boss is trying to pull a fast one, my contract states that I get a one week paid holiday for CNY. Now he says that I am to work on the Thursday and Friday(so only 3 days off). I thought this was pretty cut and dry. My Taiwanese friend told me that she would interpret that as 7 business days off, however I’m pretty sure most people consider a week to be 7 days including the weekend. Agree? I’m also pissed because I go over the contracts with all the other teachers and this makes me look like an ass hole liar. Counting weekends as holidays when they already are, come on! :loco: I suppose I will viewed as insubordinate, this is rare with the local teachers and they are quite easily taken advantage of.
IT’S A WALKOUT! 
Simply make other plans and don’t go to work. They can deal with it.
It still is six days a week for a lot of TW people sadly, sometimes 7 with only 2 days off a month.
I don’t feel too bad for the OP since I work Saturdays on a regular basis. I don’t like it, but it’s part of the job, which overall is above average. I certainly wouldn’t give up my nuts or I would have been castrated many times over. The best option is to deal with it, take the day off without pay, or if you wanted to you could contest it. Which leads to
Contracts are not the cut and tried agreement we have come to understand in most of our home countries. They should be and it’s worth your time to argue if the contract supports your postion. When you show the laoban the contract the laoban will either concede or breakdown into illogical rhetoic explaining why the contract was just kidding. You need to decide how much ill will it will create with your employer and if the job is good enough otherwise that you would want to chance telling the laoban he is wrong.
It’s like that:
You: “Sorry, I made plans. I was given that time off.”
Boss: “But we have a class. You must come.”
You: “I can’t. I’ll just go by what we agreed on. I don’t have ESP. Bu hao isse (sp?).”
It still is six days a week for a lot of TW people sadly, sometimes 7 with only 2 days off a month.[/quote]
I got a friend in Taichung who works there since a year. Recently he went to his office once on saturday and was surprised to find everyone working. After he made it an issue his boss asked him to come on saturdays too… Now they found an agreement that he pretends to go to chinese lessons on that day 
If I’d have to work regulary on saturdays I’d leave this country.
Ditto - if I had to work regularly on Saturdays, I would not be here. I at least need two days a week which are free of screeching kids. As much as I love them, I love quiet more.
People in my office still complain about the “reduction” from 6 to 5 days work each week. They feel the “loss of money” is “unbearable”.
:loco: :help:
I am happy to report that my boss was very reasonable when confronted with this situation. The end result was the entire week off (a total of 9 consecutive days) for all the foreign staff at CNY. He has also changed his Saturday policy for the local staff. They now have most of their Saturdays free. Very commendable. A softer yet still direct approach has proved to be more effective for me with people here, than a hard close.
[quote=“Icon”]People in my office still complain about the “reduction” from 6 to 5 days work each week. They feel the “loss of money” is “unbearable”.
:loco: :help:[/quote]
I can understand that logic. I work volunteered for a Saturday class. Hell, it’s extra money, and most Saturday mornings I’m just sitting on my ass till lunch anyway, why not make some extra cash. Besides, when you’re married with a kid like me, you gotta rake in all the dough you can while you can. So I’ll take the class you all don’t want to teach. More money for me 
.