Job Discussion Forums

[Capergirl]

Do you get along with your boss? Is (s)he crazier than a loon? I was thinking the other day how different it is working for my Canadian boss than it was working for my Korean bosses and especially my Taiwanese boss. My Taiwanese boss was absolutely certifiable...a scary man behind a big phony smile. All of the Taiwanese teachers were petrified of him. I had two bosses in Korea (they co-owned the company and shared responsibilities) and they were always smiling, too, but appeared to be relatively easygoing for the most part. They did seem to have a slight truth-telling problem, though.

So this is just a question out of pure curiosity...what is your boss like?

[denise]

I've had both extremes: My current and previous supervisors are/were both thoroughly professional and supportive, and are/were actually educators, not administrators, so they actually know a thing or two about teaching. If I need help, they offer it, and if I make a suggestion, they respect it. Yay!!!!!

The negative ones weren't too bad, because I always had enough freedom to basically do what I wanted, but still, there was a bit of power-tripping and incompetence.

Interestingly, as I got more qualified, I got better jobs, and the supervisors got better. Hmmmm...is there a connection there? (Capergirl--weren't you the one that posted the thread about professionalizing the industry?)

d

[Ben Round de Bloc]

If variety is the spice of life, I've had lots of spice regarding bosses since I began teaching EFL.

My first EFL job was in a private language school. The owner of the school was a businesswoman and a good one at that. She also had the background experience (years of teaching EFL) and the education (MA in TESOL,) although during the time I worked there, her duties were strictly administrative. However, the director of the site where I worked was the main reason I chose to look elsewhere for a job.

In my current university job, there have been several different department heads during my time there, ranging from excellent to the opposite. With only one exception, all of my bosses during my EFL career have been women. Based on my entire teaching career (nearly 30 years as a teacher, 8 of those years in EFL,) in general, I'd have to say that I find men easier to work for than women, although one of my worst bosses was a man and one of my best was a woman.

Also, at the risk of generalizing, in my experience as an EFL teacher in Mexico, I'd have to say that American bosses are far better organized than Mexican bosses. Granted, I haven't had a huge number of different bosses during my EFL career so far, so admittedly my perception is probably limited.

[dduck]

My mexican boss has a background in teaching, though I doubt he has any qualification. He's also claims to have years of experience co-ordinating teachers, which may be the case but he certainly is rubbish. In part, his rubbishness is due to his lack any formal training in man-management (though I think he's do well in the military where listening isn't important) and the general poor management of the school.

Iain

[Corey]

[dduck]

[khmerhit]

My first western DOS boss in Cambodia was a friendly if quiet Brit who went to jail for a few months. Whether he was guilty as charged I rather doubted at the time.

My second western DOS boss was another conspicuously quiet Brit who was never charged with any crime, but probably should have gone to jail to teach him a lesson. A friend of mine gave him a thrashing.

My third DOS boss was a beautiful and sympathetic Cambodian woman who was also very funny. That was the best school.

A prospective boss was a mad Malaysian Baptist woman who asked such questions at interview as: Do you have any tattoos? Are you gay? Have you ever been charged with a crime? She did not wait for replies, however, thus making the interview process almost useless.

[guest of Japan]

In my current job I have so many bosses that I can't even get a uniform job description.

Let's see if I can name them all;

Dispatch company owner-the one who actually give me my salary.

Principal-responsible for me getting a salary.

Vice-principal-in charge of all day to day duties of the teachers.

Aministrative Manager- He controls my house and paperwork.

Curriculum Developer- enough said.

Head of Disciplinary procedures- He helps me with the bad kids.

English Department Head- Supposed to be my on-site boss, but rarely makes a decision on her own.

In addition to these there is also a board of directors for the school and at least another half dozen folks of power, but whose titles I have yet to discern.

I bow a lot at school.

[Cobra]

I took my boss under my protective wing with the attitude that just maybe I could train him to do his job correctly and thus allow me to do mine professionally.

After one year together he now calls me his older and wiser brother.

I like my boss and we get along well both at work and socially. He is Chinese and no longer untrained for his supervisory position.

I could have taken the position that I detested working for the ignorant SOB but that would have been the easy way out.

[Roger]

Cobra is right - you need to teach your boss the tricks of the trade sometimes!

In China, TEFLers have a lot of bosses - there are several principals at one school, there also is the waiban person, and sometimes the accountant has considerable power over you. I will dwell on PRINCIPALS only for practical reasons.

- First school: 4 principals, but only one with power, but REAL power,
which she used ruthlessly!
She was about 50 years of age, thus most likely one of those students
who in the heyday of the Cult Rev put dunce caps on their teachers'
heads and paraded them in public for humiliation.
She once told me a Mao line, "if students don't like your choice of a
textbook, they are free to choose any other book, even comic strips
for their English Literature course!".
Well, I somehow disagreed with her, and lost my job over this.
- My second boss was an upstart operator of a private training centre.
His wife promised me "3000 yuan a month, 12 hours of work a week".
I moved house, saw my boss, the husband of that woman, and he
moved the goalposts somewhat: 12 hours a day, 2500 yuan a month!
We had to haggle and negotiate (that was back in 1995!). Finally,
I accepted spending 24 hours in his office as a very decorative
office pet, and a further 6 hours of teaching duties a week.
Business was good, and our boss was a bit of a braggard. One day,
he claimed "wo she shangdi" - a deity like COnfucius or Buddha!
And, being rather voluminous, he actually did remind me of a sitting
Buddha complete with a goatee! As a Shandonger, he found the humid
and hot climate of Guangdong hard to bear. I had to wear long-legged
trousers and a shirt, preferably with a tie; he would come to office,
and there in the airconditioned cool he would roll up his trousers' legs
to reveal his unsexy white legs up to his knees; he would also take
of his shirt and be seen in his yellowish undershirt!
But the same guy could be quite chummy! He would ask me out, without
his wife (who would later that week give him a vociferous quarrel in
office!). He would pick up two or three very young girls and drive me
to a restaurant or a Karaoke parlour!
Our relationshiip ended when he made a serious miscalculation,
posting me to his native Shandong, together with his wife (!, pre-
sumably so he could go on womanising undisturbed in Guangdong),
which was illegal since I had a Guangdong visa. The police were not
long in detecting the sham, which cost me my job, and my boss
a fortune!

[Ben Round de Bloc]

dduck,

Clue us in, please. What is man-management? I admit I'm one of those who has never heard the term before. Is it similar to personnel management, faculty and staff supervision, or something like that?

[khmerhit]

As opposed to duck-management, no doubt. Maybe it means managing human resources, a subset of the resources a manager manages. Did I manage a correct definition?

[yaramaz]

I'm not even sure who my boss is at my school, as there seem to be about a dozen or so identi-clone suits with big hair and mustaches who run the business end of things, and another half dozen men with slightly less big hair and smaller mustaches who supervise the various school blocks (I only learned halfway through last year that I CANT call Mr. So-and-so when I'm teaching grade seven and need disciplinary help because Mr. Such-and-such is their deputy headmaster... even though my grade sevens are right beside the 5s and 6s on the same floor...THEY get Mr.So-and-So...aaaah )Compounding my confusion is the fact that I work in the primary school's English department, which is run by a kindly and relaxed fellow with severe organisational and management disabilities (and no mustache). I can't tell you how many meetings I missed simply because he forgot to tell me. O, and every day he sweetly reminds me that he really wants to have sex with me some day and that he'd divorce his wife to have the chance . I take the stern, dominatrix track with him, rejecting him with frighteningly stern words--- he seems to like that too. Luckily, I spend almost no time in the department and my foul language has yet to cause me problems in my job...

[dduck]

[j-ang]

When I was working stateside in middle school special ed. I really ticked
the 'director of sp.ed' off when I said I had about 20 bosses. She thought
she should be the only one.
Now, the director of my school may set policy and make administrative
rules but I consider myself to have about 200 real bosses. These bosses
tell me what I must really do every minute of the school day and some-
times outside of school, too.
These bosses are called students.