Sleeping in Saigon

Sleeping on the job!

No matter how long I live in this country I will never fail to be shocked (and somewhat amused) at the ability of Vietnamese people to sleep anywhere at any time of the day.

Walk around the city streets at lunch time and you'll see lines of construction workers taking a nap on the concrete pavement outside their building site or a Xe Om driver curled up on the seat of his motorbike (looks uncomfortable!).

Shop in the market stalls and you'll find workers taking a break under a table, at any time of the day, sometimes with nobody awake to serve the customers!

In office buildings around the city, it's not uncommon for the lights to be turned off for an hour over lunch so workers can have a sleep under their desks (this practice is less common in foreign-owned companies). 

As a foreigner I find this concept bizzare. Not just from the viewpoint that as an employer I would not look favourably on an employee who slept in the office (even if they are using their lunch break to do it) but also because I think sleeping in public is creepy!

I find it difficult to sleep on a plane due to the fact that anyone could be watching, let alone sleeping outside with hundreds of people walking right past me! (Ok, so may'be I'm at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum to the Vietnamese!)

Why is it that Vietnamese need a sleep at some point during the day? In South America the lunchtime siesta is common due to the extreme heat, but if you're working in an air-conditioned office why the need for a nap?

Is it just laziness or a cultural quirk? In Australia if you were caught sleeping on the job it would be grounds for dismissal.

In Vietnam, on the other hand, employers (me included) seem to accept the fact that at some stage during the day their staff will have a nap! Is this due to the fact that wages are so low that employees don't suffer from the guilt of sleeping on the job and the employers, in turn, don't ask too much from their staff? I'm starting to think that might be the case.

Which brings me to the point of this thread. Today I had a sick day (Georgia and Mackenzie were kind enough to share the virus that kept them home from school earlier this week!).

I spent much of the morning either sleeping or moaning about my sore throat, rising temperature and aching body. When I eventually surfaced around 12:30pm for lunch I found my housekeeper asleep on the couch!

Granted, she is heavily pregnant and entitled to do whatever she wants on her lunch break (although I did note that she slept for 1 hour and 20 minutes then took another 15 minutes to eat her lunch!), but what was more surprising is that she had no qualms about doing this knowing I was at home!

Of course I would never say anything to her as I understand it is completely acceptable in her culture, but it does make me wonder what she does when I'm not here!

And why would I not confront her you wonder? Well, I too suffer from employer guilt because I've hired someone who works very hard (mostly!) running my household and caring for my children for way less than the minimum hourly wage in Australia!

Many foreigners, and no doubt local employers, convince themselves that the rate of pay is acceptable because the cost of living here is low.

But, what it generally means for us expats is that if our staff do something we'd normally consider a sackable offence in our own country (like sleeping on the job or not ironing our clothes properly!) we let it slide because we figure we don't pay them enough to whinge! Yet another example of me becoming "Vietnamised"!

Note, this of course doesn't stop me bitching and moaning to Rob whenever I discover our housekeeper hasn't done something I'd asked of her, but usually I'm told to shut up and reminded that we could never afford the luxury of a full-time housekeeper in Australia! Point taken.

Just another day in Vietnam!