Job Discussion Forums

[adamthenerd]

I worked for this company briefly and did not enjoy it. I answered an ad on computrabajo For ICOACH Servicios. I recieved a reply from one MOD EDIT and he immedietly begged me to come to Porto Viejo from Quito. He offered me 700 usd plus 100usd for living expenses, plus legal working visas. I decided to take his offer. After arriving and starting with the comapany I quickly saw why he was desperate for teachers, in fact all the ones I met seemed to be new within a month or a few months. They are using a system called master key english that if I understand correctly was made by one of the employees of ICOACH an Ecuadorian. It is riddled with bad English that all the higher level students notice very quickly but the latin teachers try to pass off as misprints. I sat in on some classes of one of their local teachers and I kid you not he was teaching "Who´s color favorite is..." and other really bad English, and using Spanish the whole class to teach English.

They asked me to go to Esmeraldas for one week I did not really want to but thought what the heck I will try it out. So I went there the other teachers were about the same and they were teaching in spanish on average 75% of the class having students only repeat the English lines in the book after them.
I asked the other teachers about the pay and I got similar responses from all, that they are regularly late and have problems with the pay but in the end the teachers get their pay. I was very concerned at this point.

A week later I returned to Porto Viejo. Overall the staff were very nice and friendly. The sole exception being MOD EDIT. I found him to be rude, arrogant and with an I am the boss and can do whatever I want attitude. His nephew also was not very nice to me. When I arrived the secretary was being very friendly with me and I later found out he was sleeping with her. I walked in on them making out in the school in class hours. A little sidebar , his nephew actually lives in the Porto Viejo school, parties there on the weekend MOD EDIT like mad in the school, sometimes with some of the other staff. I know as I witnessed it twice .

MOD EDIT would change my schedule on me adding hours without asking, just tell me MOD EDIT your working more hours from now on. Upon returing to Porto viejo one of the 2 other teachers quit no notice when he got his cheque. No notice, did not say goodbye just left in the middle of the night after recieving his cheque. I was starting to be really concerned at this point but I decided I was half way through the first month I would wait until payday to see if he was completing my visa and also,of course recieve my pay.

The schedule was really bad 2 hours in the mornings , 6 hours at night and 5 hours on Saturday mornings. Days before it was payday I called MOD EDIT and asked him about the pay he told me no problem it was ready on the 5th. The end of day came on the 5th no one said anything about pay , after I asked I was told it should be tomorrow. I told the acting manager I did not like that and if they could not secure the dates that they pay whatever day it is I would not be staying.

Shorthly after I recieved a call from MOD EDIT telling me the cheques should arrive tomorrow no apology nothing just matter of factly. I stated I did not apreciate being told last minute my pay was late and when it "should" arrive. He lost his temper and aggresively told me listen and so what if your pay is 25 hours late.I gave my notice at this point. Instead of accepting my months notice he fired me on the spot. The next day I recieved partial payment from him, and was told the rest would follow in days.

It is amost a month now and he has not paid.I told him I was leaving the country he started ignoring me and telling his manager that he never heard anything from me. He then called me and asked me to revise all their masterkey English books, and then read the materials at a recoding studio so he could play my voice to teach his classes. Hahahah that was so pathetic of him. I turned him down of course.

So he went back to ignoring me. It is fine I provoked him to responding finally in an email by repeatedly contacting his acting manager. He told me on 3 different days the final pay would be would ready and defaulted each time while ignoring me. So I once again provoked his acting manager and he responded acknowledging the debt ,my illegal employment and whole experience. That was very nice of him I then turned it all over to the embassy and it is being investigated.

Goes to show beware of lack of contracts and starting before the visa is ready. Lesson Learned.

A funny note the webpage has various gringos , but I was the only gringo there. I met Ecuadorians, Colombians, A Danish girl but not one other gringo and certainly not one other gringo from their webpages.

http://icoachservicios.com/desarrollo-organizacional.html

[adamthenerd]

This is just to verify that I never did receive my pay from these crooks.

[Chandangupta]

If I talk about my experience being with Icoach that’s totally amazing and I love working here, I was hired in the month of December for Esmeraldas, I was there for around 20 days thinks that were expected by me or with other teachers too, I always tried to give my best, I enjoyed my work and never felt any kind of pressure or any kind of hard and fast rule as there weren’t, I always felt myself as a part of family and was very thankful to everyone, those 20 days that I spent there never going forget. When I came to know that I had to head to Portoviejo as we needed a teacher at Portoviejo, I didn’t deny but I felt a bit sadness as I was accustomed to that place and office and hadn’t travelled to Portoviejo before, since I came here I felt the same environment, supportive peers and everybody was very friendly and helpful like Esmeraldas’ office. I did my job well and meant to my work only, I never seen or paid attention on the things that could be noticed strange, the fact noting was strange or snatched my attention, throughout the stuff was very nice to me and always supported me whenever I needed, even Icoach helped me for my visa stuff too, I didn’t even spend two months at Portoviejo’s office and become coordinator, I never admire myself but I believe that in all the offices people appreciate my work. I still remember when my boss interviewed me he told me that if I give my best he would help everything , I just followed that I said and my boss did whatever he committed to me, I have worked with Bank of America and United Health Group and never faced a single problem there neither, hardly matters wherever we work, all the organizations are good it always depends on our attitude and our professional ethics, I believe in right approach and my work, criticism comes when we don’t follow that’s expected from us, obviously if I hadn’t proved myself, I wouldn’t have been working as a Branch head, I was hired as a teacher, I have become a coordinator and now the entire branch is taken care by me, because of my work and the trust between Icoach and me and that I am never going to breach. Many times we pay our teachers in advance when they face challenges in their lives, we place them in hotels and the best that we can offer them we do from our hand. If I talk about Portoviejo all the employees love working here without having a single comment or problem, and of course it’s happening in our all the offices, It’s being only 10 months that I have been a part of Icoach and in these 10 months we have opened 5 new offices and many more to go in future, we are expanding and growing day by day.

Thanks to Icoach and every one of our family to make me proud working together.

[HLJHLJ]

They hired you as an English teacher?

[adamthenerd]

OMG that is brilliant. That is a fantastic question, rhetorical of course but fantastic. It proves exactly what I am saying about the quality of the place. I would say chandangupta is happy there because they look past his short comings so he looks past theirs.

[Higo]

Who is the "We" and the "I" here? Also, the sentence is exhausting.

"Many times we pay our teachers in advance when they face challenges in their lives, we place them in hotels and the best that we can offer them we do from our hand. If I talk about Portoviejo all the employees love working here without having a single comment or problem, and of course it’s happening in our all the offices, It’s being only 10 months that I have been a part of Icoach and in these 10 months we have opened 5 new offices and many more to go in future, we are expanding and growing day by day."