Job Discussion Forums

[Kipling]

[7168Riyadh]

This thread has historical value...

[Wicked_Witch]

I�ve been following this thread about the canceled vacation.
Two questions
#1 what did the teachers do during that week while the students were on vacation?
#2 what happened to the teachers that complained?

[veiledsentiments]

#1... well one can surf the net perhaps? or sit about and stare at each other...

#2... Best case they were ignored... few are the jobs where complaining will get you anything good...

VS
(no I haven't been there... this is just the common sense answer that works anywhere in the Gulf in this sort of situation...)

[boysfromtheblackstuff]

The teachers who were not taking holidays (at the last minute a compromise was reached, and if you took the whole week off, you got 3 days paid and had to take 2 out of your holiday allowance), went into work and sat around. as they did for the last 3 weeks at the end of the last semester. 8 hours a day of thumb twiddling and drinking coffee.

very motivational

And the teachers on the male campus who complained in emails - well, they were sacked.


[/quote]

[Grendal]

"And the teachers on the male campus who complained in emails - well, they were sacked."

I'm not surprised. You know what Saudis do with the squeaky wheel also?

They call a guy from the Philipines to supervise 2 Bangladeshi men to replace the squeaky wheel.

Even though they have oil coming out of the yin yan.

G

[killthebuddha]

[johnslat]

Dear ktb,

Aha - notice the company he's in:

Marx, Lenin - Commies; Hegel - proto-Commie; Aristotle, Plato - dead Greeks who had their heads in the clouds (Aristotle thought earth, air, wind, and fire were the constitutive elements of the world, that the heart was the organ where thought originated, that women had smaller brains and fewer teeth than men, that women were "mutilated men" in fact, that the leader of a hive was the "king bee", etc., etc. - and Plato's "Republic" HA! What a joke); Shakespeare - a scribbler who didn't even know proper grammar: There really is no excuse for writing "more strong," "more strange," and "more sweet" in some plays and "more fitter," "more corrupter," and "most poorest" in others. And while we can forgive Shakespeare for not attending Oxford or Cambridge, can we ever forgive him for not knowing the distinction between "who" and "whom": "Who wouldst thou serve?"; "To who, my lord?" (King Lear l.iv.24, V.iii. 249); "Who does he accuse?" (Antony and Cleopatra Ill.vi.23); The Bible - yikes, don't get me started on the Bible; and Freud - well, a sex-obsessed charlatan.

Illustrious indeed (tee-hee)

Regards,
John

[killthebuddha]

[johnslat]

Dear ktb,

Umm, much as I hate to bring this up, you're the one who started it with "illustriousness by association"

"Indeed, Professor Chomsky is in illustrious (well known and very distinguished; eminent) company."

Regards,
John

[killthebuddha]

[Grendal]

Markzists, Lemonists, Cubans, North Koreans, PRC, anymore other forms of governances and social systems?

Well Chompers is one of my many over-read understood Arthurs too but wow man. Weeza gawna awfa tha trak. phew. KSU....... Hmmmmmm.

What was that I heard in the background? KSU. Ok I think it was KSU.

Any news?

Thanks guys?

Grendal

ps. troll? me? but seriously now, do I look like a troll? Don't answer that.

[Oreally]

So getting back on the topic of the KSU Preparatory Year Project (PYP)��.It is so much like the Sergio Leone classic, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. In case you don�t know this film, it is set in a desert with 3 characters whose lives are unusually intertwined and their union ends tragically with one of them killed, another one in a precarious position and the 3rd is riding into the sunset with all the gold. It is up to you which one is Obeikan, Bell and KSU. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is also a poignant way to discuss the PYP itself. There will be / have been a lot of reoccurring themes when people post. I will attempt to offer something different. While I do editorialize, It is all based on fact. So with no further delay��

The Good
1.A respectable salary
2.Health Insurance
3.Allowing some teachers to transfer to other jobs
4.A laptop is provided
5.A vast and abundant resource room
6.Interactive smart board and e-podium in all classrooms
7.Across the street from a supermarket
8.Experience in a dynamic environment
9.Room for Professional Development
10.Reasonable class size

The Bad

WAITING IN VAIN
When you are hired, Bell will tell you to drop everything and be ready to fly at a moment�s notice. People are informed it will take a maximum of 2 weeks. Some people wait 5 days and some have waited as long as 5 months. Bell informs prospective teachers they will be compensated for the time they were not employed. But in post, Obeikan went from waiting as long as possible to pay out, to not paying at all. When you tell them what Bell communicated to you before you came, they won�t deny it is the case, they will simply tell you that they are not going to pay.

BIG FISH, SMALL POND
The people with authority at the PYP are more interested in the trappings of power than using it beneficially. If you are looking to be constantly dictated to and sent in many directions, this is the place for you. Rules and policy change all the time or are just made up out of thin air. Everything is last minute and needs to be done NOW. Days before leaving, they ask us to write class reports for the semester. The books have been handed in, the test graded and the students are not a fresh memory. But they expect detailed and accurate data NOW. And to add a bit of pressure (as all control freaks do) we were not allowed to go home or know our employment status for the upcoming year until it was completed it. Why? Because �someone� from the university wanted it��NOW!

HANDS ON
One of the more controversial control measures was the electronic attendance system. There is an unused system in every classroom to take biometric attendance. It DOES work but KSU is not interested in the students being accountable and responsible. However, the teacher is to a fault. If we are late by even a minute, wages will be garnished. How do Obeikan know this? Because they have installed a separate biometric attendance system for people they are responsible for. Obeikan�s insistence that the university requested the device flies in the face of fact as other contractors in the English department do not have one.

SPEAK NO EVIL
Obeikan, unsurprisingly, try to control the flow of outward information. Early into the 2009-2010 contract, they issued a �secrecy� amendment to the contract. All property, procedures, policies and methods are trademark and releasing this information will have �consequences�. In other words, tell people on the ESL cafe all the crap things they are doing, and you will be fired. But this opened Obeikan to ridicule as they asked us to amend a contract most of us were still waiting to sign.

DON'T MOVE
Obeikan are also obsessed with controlling your freedom of movement. They do not want to issue multiple exit/re-entry visas. First they claimed it was some government problem, but then it came out they just did not want staff having access to such a liberating item. Even when they will let you get away, they play games and do not want to give you your documents until the 11th hour. People have been known to miss seminars and holidays that Obeikan knew of weeks in advance with the excuse being they were �busy� and could not get the visa. This is a bold face lie as it takes 45 seconds to go into the government website and print one out. They must be afraid that people will go away and not want to come back.

SAFE KEEPING
And of course your passport seizure is part of their method of control so you really have no avenue of escape (Bell never tell you this will happen in the interview). There is no country in the world where a non-government entity has the right to seize your documents. It is not written ANY where in the laws of Saudi Arabia that you cannot have your passport and Iqama on your person. I personally went down to the Ministry of Labor to confirm this (I would love to share with you the labor code in English as promised to me by the Ministry of Labor, but would it be Saudi if they kept the promise of emailing it to me?). There are people in the PYP building who have both of those items with them as well as multiple exit/re-entry visas. The truth is passport seizure is unstated Obeikan company policy designed to remind you without saying any words that the sponsor is your master and you are subservient to him. Obeikan are so unprofessional, they think it is acceptable to run a business by edicts and innuendo and thus cannot provide you with any documentation when their policies are queried. And even if they did have these documents, the people you need to see are �sick� or on �vacation� when you want to get things sorted. This is exactly what happened with the Obeikan HR manager at the end of 2009-2010 academic year. With everything that happened, and all the bad feelings, how is it anything but incompetent to take your holiday during the time the contracts are ending and people are trying to go home and settle up? There is no accountability.

SHOW ME THE MONEY
When all else fails, they will try to control you with your money. There were several times when we were not paid on time and there would be deductions that would be explained �later�. When your contract is over, you will not receive the monies owed to you. That�s right, after you are on the plane and gone, they will send your final settlement. Unlike Obeikan insists, it is NOT standard business practice to wait for the physical end of contract to pay people. Most of the time the monies arrive later than they tell you. You can count on the bank transfer fee being taken from your settlement. I wonder if Obeikan own the remittance service they send the salary to you from? Any how, many times the number is wrong and it is not unheard off for them to simply not pay you at all.

SO WHO IS IN CHARGE?
Compounding all these issues, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. A perfect example is the CELTA debacle. After changing work requirements about the CELTA and several teachers requesting to have one on-site in the summer, this idea was declined earlier in the year by people on-site (Obeikan). Teachers made plans, booked tickets and prepared to travel far and wide to take the CELTA. Then days before the school year ends, Bell was actively trying to set up an on-site course over the summer! Classic PYP.

JUST TELL US UP FRONT
The PYP management is (unsurprisingly) very cliquish and power hungry. This affects ALL the HR decisions. Summer school 2010 has been a sad manifestation of this. They knew weeks in advance the majority of who would and would not be invited to return for 2010-2011 academic year, and thus who they would �reward� with summer school. Despite the teachers looking for clarity as to how to move on with their life, management strung us along until mere days before the summer school started. They said it was because they did not want people to be vindictive and not fulfill their work duties. But it is the Obeikan/Bell/ KSU team that have proven to be vindictive time and time again.

Several clever people saw the relationship as only having diminishing returns and did not stick around. This led to there not being enough �in favor� teachers and it was necessary to ask if those available could do both sessions of the summer school, an unthinkable inquiry previously. But this need for teachers did not stop management from being spiteful. When they found out some of the summer school teachers decided not to come back for 2010-2011 academic year, the more power hungry members of management tried to have them removed from the summer program altogether, even though they needed the people. Professional to the last.

INMATES RUNNING THE ASYLUM
If the students complain, you are assumed guilty. You are just done at that job if students complain about you. If a class goes through 3 teachers, is it the class or the instructor where the problem lay? If the students say their teacher is not good at English because they don�t �look� like they speak English, is it the correct move to reward the students� racism by removing the instructor? There is no recovering from a student�s complaint against you. There is no due process and you are not permitted to face your accuser, as they are worried that you could give lower marks to the students as retribution.

The Ugly

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY
The main thing that makes daily existence at the PYP so difficult is tone. Because of the disorganization, laziness and (to be honest) inability of the locals who are at the top of the pyramid, there is a lot of wasted energy showered down. Instead of trying to raise their game, the locals deflect by barking edicts and berating the non-local middle management. Middle management then pass it down to the teachers. The Jordanian chair of the English department is infamous for this. When it cascades down to the teachers, it manifests as an air of constant threat over sometimes serious, but mostly trivial things to keep the staff in line.

*Taking home your attendance sheet is �a dismissible offence�
*If you do not �surrender� your passport to master they �will conduct a disciplinary meeting with you�.
*Sending students to the relevant authorities for problems you can�t handle �could result in suspension�
*Not signing an amendment to the contract (before even receiving the contract) could result in �termination�.
* AND THE EMAIL AND NOTICES THAT ARE SENT/HANDED TO YOU WITH THIS INFORMATION ARE DONE IN BOLD UNDERLINED AND CAPITALISED FONTS SO YOU ARE AWARE THAT THE LATEST EDICT IS BEING YELLED AT YOU!*

Tone is the heart of the carte blanche, cavalier attitude that the Saudis have over their serfs which is the core of the Ugly problems. With this in mind, there were three really unfortunate events this attitude precipitated.

YOU DON�T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU HAVE TO LEAVE
The retention process for the academic year ending 2008-2009 cannot even be called sophomoric. Instead of informing the teachers privately who would not be retained, Obeikan/Bell/KSU posted the names of those who would be asked back on the main notice wall. This caused great embarrassment and humiliation for those not on the wall. But�

�this list meant nothing. After people had made housing, vehicle and school arrangements in the knowledge they would be returning, KSU made amendments to the eligibility criteria AFTER contracts were signed and intent to return was made. This left several people in the lurch and Obeikan/Bell/ KSU asking people to come back to Saudi Arabia so they could be fired.

That draconian situation was not to be repeated for the most recent retention period. This does not mean that their actions were much improved. Obeikan/Bell/KSU waited until 14 days before the end of the contract to give a sample contract for 2010-2011 for those who were interested in returning. Some had to wait as long as four days before the contract ended to know if they would be asked back. After communicating to staff how important it was to the project to retain teachers, they turn around and offered several of those potential returnees longer hours and lower pay. They do this knowing that many of the other jobs have been taken by this point ( late July) and you are forced to stay with them. Not a case of the devil you know being better than the devil you don�t.

MO MONEY, MO PROBLEMS
The all staff meeting is usually when they drop something heavy. Towards the end of the 2008-2009 academic year, we had a meeting where it was mentioned in passing by the HR representative that there would be no annual increase in the salary. One of the teachers immediately went online to the project website and showed the HR representative that the documents online showing something different. He claimed ignorance of this information. That is a bit curious since he made a point of telling us that salaries had been lowered throughout KSA. Below is the email sent to us a day later.

Dear All,
In yesterdays staff meeting some of you raised an objection to the news that there would not be an increment for returning teachers next year. In particular you told me that there was a policy document on the website that clearly states that returning teachers would get a Sr500 increment.

I told you at the time I was not aware of such a document and would look into it.

I can now confirm that the document in question was put on the website during the first semester. At that time there was some confusion amongst teachers as to the scale used when recruiting for 2008/2009, so for that reason the document was put out in order to remove any confusion.

I hope this clarifies your concerns and as a side point all the documents on the web site will be updated shortly.

Axxxxxxxxn


In other words, even though we were told there would be a yearly raise in the initial interview and the project website corroborates this, Obeikan are just not going to pay it. One of the more vocal teachers challenged the HR manager via email.


In response to your post on increment/s, please find my comment below:

Yesterday in the meeting I alerted you to the fact that there was/is a pay policy document on our Bell/PYP internal website. I am astonished that you were not aware of the existence of this document. The document in question forms the basis of pay negotiation.

In a recent email, Ricxxxd Lxxt informed us that terms and conditions of employment would remain unchanged next academic year. The pay policy is a very important part of those terms of employment. Those of us who joined the project did so on the basis of that pay policy, which logically applies to 2009/10 for those who joined in 2008. To change the policy retroactively is an extraordinary action, one that you have not satisfactorily explained.

In the meeting yesterday, you stated that a Sr500 increment was available to those taking professional development certificates. Those of us at the top of the qualifications table, and those who underwent training in February, also expect a Sr500 pay increment--this was always a part of the bargain, and that bargain should be kept.

Xxxy Xxxxh

And in the all too familiar carte blanche, cavalier attitude of management��

Xxxy,

I'm afraid that your astonishment, that you refer to, needs to be attributed to your misunderstanding about the policy document you were referring to. It should certainly not have been because in the meeting I said I was not aware of the document that you were referring to.

I have clarified in an earlier post the history and intent of that document so I won't go through it again. The purpose of this egroup is to share information, a place for people to listen and reflect on each other's views. Can I suggest that all of us would benefit from pausing before posting.

Axxxxxxxxn

The wording could not have been more clear. �Returning for second/subsequent year +SAR 500�. Just like the topic of the salary increase, the e-group was killed soon after this dust up.

HAVE A BREAK
The salary debate pales in comparison to the handling of Spring Break for 2010. The first slight was despite classes ended on January 24th, the break was scheduled to start on February 10th. But denying teachers those 16 days was not enough. Instead of letting people go on holiday, Obeikan /Bell/KSU canceled the entire break with just 2 weeks notice. This break had been on the Academic calendar since September and they knew people had made plans with this information in mind. Obeikan/KSU say we have no leg to stand on as it is written in the contract the Holidays are at the schools discretion. That is true. The contract also says that the housing allowance will be paid in two installments and without notice or explanation Obeikan made it three. So the contract is not really a hard document for them is it? Bell stayed quiet on the whole matter. This arrogant, dismissive behavior caused nothing short of a rebellion. All the resentment and loss of faith could no longer be bottled up. A forum was made. Things were said. People were suspended and fired for breaking code and ethics which were in a handbook that was never produced. But there was a silver lining. The �benevolent� nature of Obeikan /Bell/ KSU came to the fore as we were granted a partially paid holiday as a compromise. Or was there compromise? The underhanded way management operates, they appear to be setting a precedent for offering the holidays as unpaid leave, and letting Obeikan keep more money. What else could the following email be about?

Dear All,
Thank you for your patience in waiting for the contract for next year. Attached to this email is a sample version of the contract for you to read through. Should you have any questions then please email [email protected] and we will respond to your queries. We are currently finalizing retention details with KSU and will be in contact regarding this matter shortly.
With regards to vacation during the mid-semester break next year, we are continuing to discuss this with the university, but teachers wishing to leave during this period will be able to do so and days will be deducted from annual leave balance.
Kind Regards,
Bell-Obeikan team

THE FINAL CREDITS
The question is why. Why does a place with unlimited resources, and a stated aim of being the best fail so horrifically? Al-Jazeera had a documentary about the plight of migrant workers. You can watch it from this link http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2007/08/2008525185333546126.html . Teachers are just better paid migrant workers. Slavery was abolished (not ended) in Saudi Arabia in 1962. Someone forgot to tell the leaders of KSA they would have to prepare a domestic workforce. Since the majority of Saudis have not been prepared to participate in the modern world, treating all hired hands poorly bumps of their low self esteem. You can�t even get a drivers permit without the signature of your master. This attitude is omnipresent at the failings of the PYP.
To wrap it up, try and stay away from the BELL/ Obeikan/ KSU PYP project. It has been painful to watch the decline of a program with so much potential. Even now in the doldrums, it would not take that much to improve the situation. Maintaining the e-podiums, paying people on time, stopping this demeaning passport seizure and having a handbook with clearly defined rules and regulations would be easy and immediate steps to implement. But as things are now, even the former Bell executive that Obeikan brought in to tighten up the entire organization only stayed for a year. KSA has moved forward with infrastructure and its presence on the world stage, but the way people think is still in the 10th century. Everything is in place for the PYP program to change this except the willingness of KSU/Obeikan/Bell to do a good job. They prefer collecting monies and passing the problems on to the next generation. There are worse jobs, but it is not a race to the bottom.

OR

[veiledsentiments]

[Oreally]

Well sugary donkey, your handle implies your demeanor:) . I am impressed you came out swinging and that you used egotistical, drivel and concocting in one sentence. That requires talent. The chair you are sitting in at the PYP must be comfortable to allow your thoughts to flow so well. In spite of your herculean efforts to make me feel bad, your very large and spiteful words don�t hurt me. It just reflects the entrenched attitude and miss management that fill the PYP. No one likes to see an ugly reflection in the mirror. Don�t break the mirror���fix the face!

Calling me a racist to shut me down? That is just not gonna get it done. You disrespect your own intellect with that sophomoric rhetoric. You can call my post drivel, you can call it therapy you can call it what you like except untrue. The behavior at the PYP is �Par for the course in TEFL�? Well thank you for that. Anyone with any doubt about the PYP will surely have them exercised now. And since you say the job requires no talent, why should professionals go anyway?

I do dislike having my documents seized. If I had been told it happens, then I would never have gone. Don�t try to act as if it is not mental control. Freedom of movement is a comfortable thing. Being able to confirm your identify at your embassy if you need their help is a comfortable thing. Keeping you uncomfortable is a Kafeel thing. And it is just not legal. Lets see if these rumors that exit-reentry permits will not be issued till the end of the contract become a fact. That will give you plenty of time to go to the Ministry Of Labor and check yourself on the legality of document seizer.

And just to let you know, I took 2+ hours to type that. I did it while watching the football. Us banal, dull, diatribing, racist, self aggrandizing patronizing people are not that slow. Thank you for making my last post about the PYP memorable. Thank you for putting a smile on my face sugary donkey. You are a sweet ass. Goodbye and good luck.