Job Discussion Forums

[Markness]

As I cannot name the school publicly I will make it so that you can avoid it easily.

I just quit today at my small training school that I was working at for a little extra money.

It is run by one foreign dude and he is a very nice guy. The problem is, is that you have a contract that is for 20 hours and your hours working there are a lot closer to 40-50. He will not put in any effort to try and make your classes close together as he believes it is customer first, all the time.

If a student is late.. well, you are going to teach late. I had a student come 45 minutes late for a 2 hour class, and guess what, I still had to teach the full 2 hours. This was my first class of the day (just after lunch), and I had basically a 3 hour window of time with the guy. This doesn't include me having to get ready/uber to work too. So overall, because of one kid, it cost me 4 hours of time, and only got 2 teaching hours in.

As I mentioned before, the hours will be as stretched as possible, and this means that even though you are only contracted to work 20 that you will have to work close to 40 or 50. It was common for me to start around 2, and leave around 10ish, and I would have to do this 5 days a week, even though I only had to teach only 20 hours.

The other kicker was that the guy claimed that he had lots of students ready for me, when in reality there was only HIS students available to be taught. The first week was great, all my classes were put together and it worked out to be close to 16-18ish hours. Not bad I thought hey, for the first week? Well no, apparently I needed more hours desperately... even though it was my first week. The second week came along and my hours were all over the place with different students, third was the same...

I seldomly saw him teaching, maybe just if we had classes at the same time (mother/daughter kind of thing), otherwise it was pretty much ALL me doing all the teaching.

This week (today actually), I was scheduled to start at 12, and then have lunch and play with kids for 3 hours. After this 3 more classes got thrown into my schedule just this morning, and I still had to do 3 classes after that.. so 9 teaching hours in one day, with a 1 hour lunch break (can someone say overtime?), well no, actually that was just expected.

I told my boss yesterday if he could be a little bit more accomodating with the hours because I didn't want to put in 40+ hours a week for only 10k, and he said "that is just how training schools work, these are our services", so 10 hours a day is normal? Since when? I understand how people put their blood, sweat, and tears into a company when they're running it on their own, but if they hire someone to relieve them then you would assume they would try to be nice to them, well I guess not.

Another red flag was when I first met him he was going off on how "foreigners are always irresponsible" and kept going on and on about it. And I thought to myself that I'd just let it go. I know tons of foreigners who yes, match the description, but also a ton that work their arses off to make a living and do a good job doing so. He told me how he liked to exploit the work force he and take advantage of the cheap labor. Foreigners are no exception I suppose.

When I asked about when pay day was, it seemed like I had just shot his favorite dog. And was told "there is no set date". Bear in mind, he did pay me for the first week, but after today I doubt he is going to pay me for the last 2 (since he rage-deleted me off of wechat when I told him I wasn't coming in to work today).

Another thing to mention, was when I told him I will no longer be coming into work today he told me that "you're just like the other foreigners, irresponsible and lazy", or something along those lines. Well if I don't like putting in 10+ hour days I guess that really does make me lazy. No mention on my professionalism though. Never late, and I actually got him quite a few students in my small period of time there.

Just a cautionary tale, if you read a job posting in Chengdu that says something along the lines of "Are you tired of working for Chinese bosses? Can sponsor your own visa?", etc. then avoid it. If you want the name of the company then let me know because it is only 1 foreigner running it and 2 Chinese staff there.

Take care guys and be careful out there.

Mark

[SH_Panda]

No mention of your professionalism?

Didn't you just quit on the day you're supposed to be teaching, in the middle of a contract?

I'd say that's pretty unprofessional. At least give the guy some notice.

Also, you were working 20 hours a week 'for a little extra money'. Where are you supposed to be working? Do you even have the right visa to be working?

So much doesn't add up here.

[Markness]

[Babala]

Sounds to me like you weren't working part-time you were his full-time teacher. Things like office hours, split shifts between classes, payday... are things that should have been discussed before agreeing to work there. People make the assumption that if a foreigner runs the school then it must be okay which of course is not the case.

I don't fault you for quitting but you should have given at least a week's notice. It's not fair to the students you bailed on today. The fact that he is unprofessional doesn't give you permission to be.

[7969]

[Markness]

[Markness]

7969.. the post is messy enough as it is and I'll reply to you like this.

Point 1, he hired me to teach, yes. He also hired me to do a certain amount of hours.Those were not respected, and I would have to relieve him constantly because he was "sick", or hung over. Please do not forget this and avoid this point in the future. He had 30-40 teaching hours available so it is quite common sense that he would be doing teaching too if I am hired to do 20 hours, right?

Point 2, so the fact that he is running an illegal operation makes it OK to pull off these stunts? If you were a lawmaker you would say it was okay a prostitute were to get raped because her work is illegal?
He is the one who needed help. He made it very clear that was why I was hired, if you need help then you obviously respect the person who provides it, right? Or no? I am no idiot and know that I could have obviously gotten screwed, but come on man, this is not something to nit-pick.

Point 3, there was no "saying no", it was either take it or I would have been fired.

Point 4, no contract, it is a small company (only him running it), so we had a man to man honor that we would respect the ways of working there, I did, he didn't.

Point 5, no contract, so payday was wishy-washy (red flag).

Final note: It is hard to find people who can do what I do where I am. I have qualifications and work at a reputable school.

What doesn't add up again 7969? I think it is your common sense/having a chip on your shoulder about our history. You're a China defender (OH THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING WRONG MARKNESS!), and I am a neutral man, therefore I am the enemy in your eyes. I never have seen you ever say anything negative about China. Therefore I question your nationality/wonder if you're just a wumao like "nihaodajia", except you have a higher TOEFL writing score.

[guobaoyobro]

Woof.

Name the place.

I'd love to hear his side of things.

[Markness]

[LarssonCrew]

But..but...but Markness, you aren't allowed to demand those things, in China we are all slaves remember.

To be fair in most PT jobs they ask 'would you like to do 9-12 Sunday' instead of saying 'you MUST do 9-12 Sunday' so I feel for you.

And I hate PT jobs that go something like 9-10:30 11-12 1-2 3-4 So you end up spending hours in a place and get paid for 4. Best PT job I had just bunched all the classes together so I had 9-10:50 11-12:50 1-2:50 etc. so 6 hours was literally 6 hours.

And why weren't you asking for 500 RMB an hour like most people on this board claim to charge for part time?

[Markness]

[jimpellow]

You certainly have a habit of picking the winners amigo. Then again, I don't think there are many winners in the PRC.

It seems that a good percentage of the foreigners in China who are in positions of ownership and management have the same low level of ethics as the PRChinese. Or they are rather weak in business acumen.

Seems a commonality with expats in non First World countries.

Take comfort that he will get his butt handed to him. Allowing the Chinese to walk all over you never ends well.

Anyways, I have to say that these reoccurring issues you have for getting burned in the butt are not normal, even in the land of scamsters. Those that bring a high sense of self-value to the interview process, set a winning "frame", and have mutual expectations set before the position begins, are rarely on ESL boards blacklisting schools.

[7969]

[JB140767]

[asiannationmc]