Some weeks ago my gym membership was up for renewal and I bought myself a new card.

However, when I some days later went for a work out and handed over my card to the reception girl who scanned it, she looked at me and said:

-Sorry, your card has expired.

-Must be some mistake? I said. I just bought a new one.

-Ah, OK! The girl said and handed the card back to me with one hand, meanwhile waving me through with her other hand.

“Ah, it probably hasn’t gone through yet!” I thought, and went in.

However, the next time I arrived the story was repeated.

-Your card has expired!

-That’s impossible, I just bought a new one!

-Ah, OK, well then you can go through!

When this had happened four times I realized that it wasn’t going to change until I decided to do something about it. The reception girls seemed happy with first telling me off, and then waving me through as soon as I provided them with an explanation. However, I didn’t feel like having to explain myself every time I went for a workout, and also, I’d just bought a new membership card. This really shouldn’t be happening.

So the next time I brought along my membership receipt.

I arrived just before peak hour was about to kick in, so all the reception girls (a total of 10) were at the counter, greeting me with a “Welcome!” as soon as I stepped out of the elevator.

“Excellent, they are all here!” I thought.

I handed over my card and one girl scanned it.

-Sorry, your card has expired, she said.

-Yeah, but there must be some sort of mistake, I said, and handed over the receipt. I just renewed my membership card so it cannot have expired.

-Oh! The girl looked at the receipt then handed me my card back.

-OK, you can go in!

-Yeah but… like… don’t you want to… do something about this?

-No, it’s OK, you can go in!

-But… every time I get here you guys tell me my card has expired!

-It is OK! We know now it hasn’t.

-Yes, but your computer doesn’t know! Every time I get here this situation repeats itself!

-But now we know!

-Yeah but I don’t want to have to tell you every time that I just renewed my membership!

-But now we all know!

At this point I was really annoyed.

-Can’t you just change it in your computer? Something has obviously gone wrong when I renewed my membership!

-I promise you! We will all remember!

I was furious when I eventually went to the changing room. Why couldn’t they just solve the problem instead of stepping around it?

In China, however, people often treat the symptom and not the problem. They solve things temporarily, meanwhile the real problem is swept under the carpet. The fear of problems derives from the Chinese educational system. In school, young Chinese are taught that failure is unacceptable and that problems therefore should not occur. Scared of responsibility (that eventually will lead to being responsible for a problem, because let’s face it, all people make mistakes at some point, they shy away from it, and sometimes take extravagant measures in order to avoid facing problems.

A friend of mine works at a big factory in Suzhou. They use a machine for painting the product that they produce. One day, someone discovered that a small part of the products wasn’t painted by the machine. How did they solve this problem? Did they report it to the manager? Did they try to repair the machine?

Of course not. Instead, they hired someone to paint that small, unpainted part of every product.