Are you sure it was the "height of her ambition"? Sounds like she was primarily focused on practising her English and didn't mind too much about the work.
From personal conversation (in Chinese) with another person:
> What do your parents do?
> They're normal people.
Or, from a Chinese girl's online dating profile:
> 爸爸是农民。妈妈是工人。 [My father's a farmer; my mother is an employee.]
The elevation of the concept "job in an office" isn't a problem with insufficient english; it's something Chinese people in China do while they're speaking Chinese. I've also seen a banner at 复旦大学 (generally considered the third best university in China) advertising a lecture on... becoming an "office gentleman" or "office lady" (those terms were in english, but the rest of the banner wasn't).
