Shanghai Public Transportation

There's a fascinating thread in progress on the Ditiezu forums, initiated by a young college student who is asking people for career advice. Should he continue his subway train driver training, or take a job he is being offered at China Mobile?

From this thread we can glean some insight into a Shanghai subway driver's job:

• Pay starts at a measly RMB 2000 a month, and can rise up to about a base of RMB 2500 plus bonuses for kilometers driven. Take-home after tax for the year is about RMB 38,000 (USD 4,900). Benefits are pretty good, though.
• Drivers work a "2-on-2-off" schedule: the first day they work daytime schedule from 8am-5pm; the second day they work a nighttime schedule from 5pm to 8 in the morning with 4-8 hours of sleep crammed in there; the third day is pretty much spent at home sleeping, and the fourth day is off.
• There are no public holidays, though there is overtime pay. New drivers get 3 days of paid vacation each year, 7 days after completing 5 years of service.
• Recruitment is done internally and through word-of-mouth.

At this point, public opinion in the thread is unanimous: driving a subway train is high-pressure, low-reward work. The only reason to do it is to move up in the organization, either to the control room or to become stationmaster. Pretty much everyone is telling the original poster to take the job at China Mobile.