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johntpartee
Joined: 02 Mar 2010
Posts: 3258
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 Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 8:03 am Post subject: |
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| China, what's going on? |
A lot, apparently. SEVEN PAGES!
We're all energized. |
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Lack
Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 252
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Big Worm wrote: |
| I'm beginning to understand why you can't get a job. |
I have a job. Are you talking to the OP?
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| I'm sorry to break it to you, but you are not God's gift to China. |
Never said I was. What I did comment upon was that foreigners have the advantage in China because jobs are so plentiful that many thousands go unfilled every year. And my qualifications and experience give me access to a great deal of those jobs. So I'm not going to settle for what is effectively minimum wage.
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| You sound like a real pain in the "you know what". |
I get the same feeling about you guys. I suspect some here have been or are managers or DOSs, and that's probably why there's so much vitriol against me while letting the employer off the hook for his own obligations.
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| Businesses EVERYWHERE try to maximize profit. The idea in HR dept's is that foreign "teachers" are easily replaceable.....and that's because they are. There are oodles of resumes coming in everyday. You really aren't special, and shouldn't act like it or expect it...unless you want to have difficulties finding a job. |
It always depends on where you are. Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, sure, you're replaceable. Third-tier, middle-of-no-where, podunk China is a different story. No one wants to come here and for good reason. It can be damn hard to replace a teacher out here. My employer has trouble finding new teachers and I've had no trouble getting job offers.
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| Culture is "indirect" here. Confronting your boss and demanding things, telling him you are going to walk and tell the internet about him being corrupt is laughable. He probably laughed at that after you left. |
Don't care. In the end, I'm the one who ended up with what I was owed.
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| Contracts are generally frameworks of understanding. |
In China, they don't mean anything to employers. Since that is the case, I'm not going to hold myself to obligations when employers won't do the same for themselves.
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| I actually think and expect things to come up that aren't in the contract. It is completely unreasonable to think you can plan for every contingency that might come up within a year into a document. |
Of course. One can never plan everything. That's fine. But schools routinely hide major things that an employee will have to do. These things rarely get mentioned in the contract. The employer conveniently fails to mention those things...until after the employee signs the contract. That's dishonest and unethical.
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| I'd go on, but I suspect you are just going to tell everyone how YOU expect everything to be how you want it, and how if it doesn't happen the other person is sabotaging you with their corrupt practices. Cuz, yeah, business owners love to sabotage their business. |
Chinese companies are notoriously corrupt and try to sabotage...well, everyone, routinely. Business owners, especially once the companies grow to a certain size, do sabotage themselves as well, actually. This isn't specifically a Chinese problem, though. This is the nature of corporations: they sacrifice long-term and mid-term profits for the sake of short-term ones. It never makes sense, but many businesses end up this way. And the Chinese are very greedy. So, for example, a common mistake is to raise prices until the customers leave. |
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LarssonCrew
Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 1308
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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So everyone slates Lack but he ends up getting more money, just like he wanted, and no doubt once the s hit the fan his boss did the normal Chinese Sum Ting Wong impression, panicked, sweated and ended up caving in.
Oh well, at least this thread generated a solid $10 for the coffers of certain people.[it's obvious btw] |
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muffintop
Joined: 07 Jan 2013
Posts: 803
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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The only thing obvious is that you fail to understand another thread.
Seriously, how childish and idiotic do you have to be to continue to insinuate folks here are wumao. You're a running joke.
This is what the thread was about (partially)
| muffintop wrote: |
| Lack wrote: |
| I have a degree and experience working with kids, and when I first came to China my boss tried to pay me less than what the other foreign teachers were making. He had given me a different contract than them, which stated a certain pay range was possible. Of course, he paid me the lowest possible amount according to the contract. I told him I didn't care about the contract and to either pay me the going rate or look for a new teacher. (I did get the going rate after that.) |
The above was your first post in this thread. You rolled in here like an internet tough guy who put his boss in his place. I guess you were disappointed more folks didn't cheer you on like you were some kind of a hero and have been trying to justify your actions ever since. Problem is, you can't justify it. So all we have now is a lot of posts of you spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. This is all your doing. Had you been an adult and come in with less of a chip on your shoulder, you'd have been far more respected than you currently are. Something along the lines of....
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| This is my first year teaching in China and I ended up signing a crappy contract because I did not know any better. Fortunately, I was able to renegotiate the terms with my boss. |
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Instead of something rational and reasonable like the above, you keep trying to make the school into the bad guy. In this you have failed completely and the more you try the less people think of you. |
Also..he kept saying how the school was corrupt and I forget what else. Nobody, not even you (though you often surprise me) can argue that the school was in the wrong. Yes, we can all agree it was a crap contract but nobody was forced to sign. I'm glad he was able to 'renegotiate' but from the way he puts it....it sounded more like demands. The childish demands of a spoiled brat. Not a reasonable discussion among adults. And if you bother to read his posts, you'll see he is incapable of having an adult conversation. |
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choudoufu
Joined: 25 May 2010
Posts: 3325
Location: Mao-berry, PRC
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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you're assuming 'lack' is not a troll......s/he does seem to enjoy baiting
us with seemingly ridiculous posts.
but anyways, let's assume s/he's for real. i get the feeling s/he came
to the middle kingdom on a tourist visa, with an oral agreement based
on a job advertisement......not with a signed contract.
seriously, has anyone ever seen a contract with a pay range? of course
not. nobody, not even the infamous hewlett, would sign a contract
with a monthly salary of (for example) 5000-7000 rmb. never happen.
either a set monthly salary, or a minimum base amount plus overtime,
or perhaps performance bonuses.
on the another side of the coin, we've all seen pay ranges on job ads,
with the actual pay based on qualifications, experience, and (ta-dah!)
performance. 'lack' claims to have the first two, but methinks s/he
"lacks" the third.
judging by his/her interpersonal performance here, i'd say s/he didn't
quite meet the performance goals, so dinna get the "implied" bonus.
he may however have been able to extort the boss out of a few extra
grand a month until a suitable replacement could be found. |
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muffintop
Joined: 07 Jan 2013
Posts: 803
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| choudoufu wrote: |
you're assuming 'lack' is not a troll......s/he does seem to enjoy baiting
us with seemingly ridiculous posts. |
I've been wondering about that for some time now. The guy is just trying too hard to make the school out to be evil when there is nothing at all that suggests such a thing. Corruption? Bullying? Bait and Switch? Where.....? The only 'bullying' I see came from Lack.
| Lack wrote: |
| I told him I didn't care about the contract and to either pay me the going rate or look for a new teacher. (I did get the going rate after that.) |
| Lack wrote: |
I didn't threaten him. I simply told him the truth: that I would have no other reasonable choice than to spread the word about the corrupt practices of the school. Telling the truth should never be off limits or considered a "threat." Fair is fair. |
Corruption? I am not sure he understands the meaning of the word. Ditto with...truth and fair.
The guy does not want fair. He'd be all up in arms (and rightfully so)if the school said they did not care about the contract and would now only pay him 4000 instead of 5000 a month because it's the 'going rate' and blacklist him if he didn't like it(example). Fair is such an absurd concept to bring into the workplace anyway. In almost any job...if you go running to your boss and spout of about what is and isn't fair, you'd be laughed at behind your back and likely be looking for a new job in short order.
He goes on and on about how easy it would be for him to find another job but...he still took this one. Apparently the only job in China with a salary range. What the....?
And to keep this thread educational for the newer folks......this is exactly how not to renegotiate a contract. |
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minsie
Joined: 16 Apr 2014
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:38 pm Post subject: I think I see what is going on here |
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This is in answer to the original question post. (I only read the first couple of pages that stayed on topic - apparently things really went sideways after that)
You taught in Korea, so you passed the "appearance" test. You got an interview, so your qualifications are great. However, at the interview you didn't get answers to your questions and you didn't get hired.
Perhaps they didn't understand a word you said. Where I worked in China they mostly hired teachers from Canada and USA with neutral accents. When they hired an Australian woman, the students were mystified and always asked me to translate what she was saying. The same thing happened with a group of visitors from UK. There were some who the students couldn't understand at all. These were third year English Majors. We did have an Australian couple who taught successfully for years, but they only had very slight accents.
It might depend on what part of the country you are from. I know I have problems understanding some Australians, so it must be really difficult for the Chinese people. So explore that possibility. If you find that's what's going on, you might be able to adopt a neutral accent, much the way actors do for movies.
Just a thought, offering one more possibility, so please don't anybody go getting offended. Hope it helps with more insight. |
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