Foreign student speaks out against Sydney sleaze
By Austin G. Mackell
Tracy (not her real name), is a Chinese student studying accounting at Sydney University. Keen to get some experience in her field before she graduates, she answered a job in the University’s casual employment database at a small Chartered Accounting firm in suburban Sydney that wanted someone with both accounting skills and fluency in Mandarin.
Things were strange from the beginning, with her prospective employer asking her to send a photograph along with her CV. Keen for a job, she complied and a couple of days later was called in for an interview where she was hired on the spot.
Excited to have a job, she came in the following Friday expecting to have some training and start work. When she arrived she was surprised to find that there was “just me and him in the office, no one else.” After some brief, unstructured training, her new boss announced a pre-noon lunch break, and invited her for lunch at his place. Tracy by this stage, was deeply uncomfortable, but worried about giving up a great opportunity, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and hopped in his car. Besides, she thought, ‘he even mentioned that he has a daughter 10 years older than me,surely he can’t be thinking like that’.
After lunch though, she says, things got “really awkward”, with her new boss casually announcing he would be taking his customary post-lunch shower. When finished in the shower he called out to her from the bathroom, explaining he had “skin problems” and asking her to come in and help him apply “medication” to his back. She refused. He eventually came out, partially dressed, and finished dressing in front of her. He then gave her a tour of his house, including the bedroom, before heading back to the office. A brief period of normalcy followed, with Tracy being left to familiarise herself with the office software. Then at three p.m. she was told to turn off her computer, and taken for a walk, during which he explained that as she had no clients and was bringing in no income, she would not be paid. She paraphrased him as saying he would “pay you once you can really do something for me.” When asked whether he meant bring in clients or apply substances to his body she replied, “I don’t know”.
Tracy, disgusted by the vulgar manner in which she’d been treated, was even more alarmed when she discovered that another girl from her university had been subjected to a similar experience with what sounded like the same man. She had already informed the SRC, who had removed the man’s advertisements from the system, but she decided to go further, holding an event at the university where she shared her experiences with fellow students, members of the SRC and representatives from the NSW anti-discrimination board. She said she was appalled by the way foreign students were targeted. Desperate for experience, away from family and in an unfamiliar culture, she said, they were perceived by such predators as vulnerable.
