Job Discussion Forums

[tw]

So, for the God-only-knows-how-many-th time in two months since moving here, there is no water. The property management office put out a notice on Tuesday saying that water'd be stopped from 8am Wednesday to 8pm Thursday. As of now, not a drop of water has come out of the tap since approximately 11am Wednesday. A call to the water company a few minutes ago got the answer that yes, the water had been turned on as of last night but it'd take time to reach here. At best, I will have to wait until tonight to get any water. I haven't taken a shower since Wednesday morning, and I have only been able to wash my face. The toilet stinks, and I am down to my last bottle of tap water for washing and flushing.

The last time it took this long for me to get any water was in Hohhot, but it was because of water pressure problem, and the apartment caretaker even sent her son to deliever a big bucket of water to me, and the school let me take a free shower in the communal shower hall.

So, what was the longest period of time you went without ANY water -- not even water delivered to your apartment?

[joey2001]

I live in a closed housing compound with administration office. If there is no water supply you can usually ask them to have someone bring water up to the apartment in a bucket. Water cuts aren't frequent but they do happen. It sucks! I hate it when there is no water, even worse than having no power. We don't have any water here as soon as the public water supply is cut off. Makes me wonder what those two water towers in the compound are for then. There should be more than enough water for the residents to use for a couple of hours! But this is China, and things almost never have a logical explanation The longest I've been without water here was over 24 hours as far as I remember, maybe even longer. It really sucks

[7969]

[tw]

[Ahchoo]

I honestly don't know why some of you guys put up with such nonsense, I'd have absolutely spat the dummy by now and they'd be frantically looking for a new employee.
Would you put up with living conditions like that anywhere else?

[7969]

depends what the reason for the shortage or outage is. if due to repairs in the city, then what can anyone do about it? maybe in this case, the system is so f***** up that noone anticipated an extra day or two. who knows? at any rate, the apartment isnt even on campus.... take the opportunity here to find a local public bath and go chill out there for awhile. i did that in a previous city i lived in.... great way to kill 2-3 hours.

my first teaching job in china was in nanning. in early spring, the electricity was shut off for hours at a stretch. sometimes at night. when i asked about it i was told it was due to low water levels and there was a shortage of hydroelectric power. but when i turned my head to look outside the campus gate, i saw lights on everywhere else. obviously the school just decided to cut the power every now and then to save a few bucks. A**h****!!!

[Shan-Shan]

[Jordean]

Two days last winter when the ground froze my main. Water company tried to thaw the pipe with a hand-held hair drier. A contractor friend helped get things moving again.

Since I'm a home owner, no one to complain to or haul water but me.

Happens lots of places, not just China.

[Teatime of Soul]

You have indoor plumbing? Lucky bat rastard.

Why back in the day, (the golden days of China English Teaching I tell ya) we just hauled water outta the cooling ponds of old Peoples Nuclear Reactor No. 11 in rusty metal drums and counted ourselves blessed as we crawled up the stairs with them.

Class sizes were alway over 1,100 students and at times, we'd teach to a full sports stadium, in the summer, during a drought, with abnormally large solar flares kicking in. We wore welder's masks to keep from being blinded by the sun. Students didn't have showers, period. It smelled like the hold of a becalmed whaler.

Seriously, ya have to grin and bear it. We all experience it to one degree or another. You just earned bragging rights to the extreme end.

But hey, look at the guy who posted what soldiers go through. Really, we haven't got it so bad.

Hang fast and let us know when your Dune episode ends.

Best of luck.

[arioch36]

Shan Shan

[upchuckles]

7969: the funniest icon I've ever seen.. I nearly soiled myself..

[latefordinner]

I've been on the patient end of this several times at various apartments around DL. Usually the water is on again within a day, 2 at most. It's a local matter, so there's not a thing the school can do, unless you're living on campus. Wait, even when living on campus there wasn't a thing the school could do but hurry up and find a place for the FTs to stay because basically the whole foreign guest hotel had to be re-plumbed and re-wired. Once the workmen have started, its their game; they play by their own rules, dance to their own music and finish in their own sweet time.

Just a few days ago the water in our section of the building was shut off on all floors because there was a blocked drain somewhere below us. Neighboring apartments didn't share the drain, so they had water, but everyone above the blocked drain was supposed to do without becuase if we used the water, our sewage would flood the flat on the first floor. Like every other foreign guest in China, I learned long ago to keep a few bottles of washing water handy for times like this. Unfortunately for our neighbor I didn't know what the problem was until the second day, when my reserve ran out and my wife went to the neighbors to borrow some water. Sorry about that down there!

I think the worst was about 4 years ago, when I was living on the 20th floor of a high rise and both the water and the elevator were out at the same time. We all had to trek down the unlit stairs to the basement to hand fill bottles and pails from the only working tap in the building.

The stuff that seems funny sometimes when you look back on it.

[Babala]

My school has been doing construction for over 3 months now. I am living on campus. Last week without any notice they turned the water off. I called and they said it would be back on the next day and if I wanted, I could stay overnight in a nearby hotel. I declined the offer of a hotel because even though it would have water, all my things were at my place and I didn't want a night of sitting in a hotel watching CCTV. The next day, there was still no water. I got a message that possibly tomorrow. I told the school that I would not continue to teach until the water was turned back on. About 4 hours later, I had water.

[tw]

[Ping Jing]

This was in the NY Times the other day -

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28water.html?th&emc=th