Job Discussion Forums

[harrietthespy]

I spent my first year in Taiwan working for Hess. I had contract B, combination kindy and bushiban, and lived in Taipei county. I would have to say that the best thing about Hess is that they pick you up from the airport in a black Mercedes. From there, it all sort of goes downhill.

Working with the Hess recruiter back home, I was advised to get a health check before coming to Taiwan. The reason, I believe, is to speed up the paperwork for processing the ARC. Since I didn�t have health insurance back home, I ended up putting hundreds of dollars on my credit card and spending endless time trying to get all my documents stamped. During our week of training at Hess, some of the new teachers left to go to the hospital to get their health check done. Turns out, it costs about NT$900, and only a few hours, to get that done here. Compare that to the US$900 I spent.

I worked for two different branches of Hess, one for kindergarten, and another for bushiban. The split schedule gave me about 35 hours a week. Usually I worked 3 hours in the morning and another 4 in the afternoon, with a 3 hour break in the afternoon. This meant waking up early and getting home around 9:30 or 10:00. The break in the middle of the day quickly became naptime. Another thing about Hess is the Saturday mornings. All first year teachers work Saturdays, you cannot get out of it. For the first few months my classes started at 10:30, but later I picked up another class and had to start at 8:30, every Saturday. Hess requires you to clock in 20 minutes early, and this makes for no Friday nights and pretty much a one day weekend. Another thing about Hess is that you have to take whatever classes they want you to teach.

My main issue with working for Hess was the vast amounts of required paperwork and unpaid time. This was much more prevalent at the kindergarten, and I have heard from other Hess teachers that my branch was especially unreasonable in its expectations. We had to prep a daily fun time, write communication books to parents, lead the ever so humiliating exercise time, decorate windows, write plays, put on skits for birthday parties, prep students for speech contests and go caroling at Christmas. Every month, it seemed, there was a new performance or parents day that we had to be madly preparing for. We were not paid for prep time or the many hours we had to work to keep up with expectations. I was once admonished for doing paperwork when my students were occupied doing an activity in Chinese, and told �You know you can�t do paperwork during paid hours.� Since I have quit working there, I�ve heard that Hess has cut the paid hours for morning kindergarten, so teachers now only get paid for 2.5 hours instead of 3. This pay cut doesn�t come with any reduction in duties.

My experience at Bushiban was much better, although there was a lot of correcting to do there. By the end of the year, I could prep a good class in ten minutes, less if it was a lesson I�d taught before. I got to know a lot of students pretty well and enjoyed teaching most of them. Correcting homework and quizzes can add an extra hour each night, especially for big classes of 24+ students.

After a year at Hess, I was really ready to call it quits and strike out on my own. Mainly, I wanted the time to take privates and learn some Mandarin. Working a split schedule and Saturday mornings gave me zero opportunities for private lessons and travel. I would have quit kindergarten before the year was up if it wasn�t for the contract breaking fee. (I�m still unclear if this is legal) If you break the Hess contract, you have to pay NT$30,000. I think this is why payday is on the 7th, so they can keep your last check if you want to quit in the middle. (The way around this is to take a sneaky vacation at the beginning of the month, come back to collect your pay, and then split! I know a couple of people who did this.)

I know this is a pretty negative account of my year at Hess, and I fully admit that I went into it knowing mostly what I was in for. Generally, I don�t like working for large corporations, and Hess definitely fits the bill of a large, bloated bureaucracy. Nonetheless, I wanted a safe landing for my first job abroad, and I don�t think I would have been able to make the leap to overseas teaching if I hadn�t had a job lined up already. I think that the curriculum is pretty good, especially for inexperienced teachers. Hess is a well-known and respected school, so I have found it extremely easy to find new positions with the one year of experience on my resume. Most of my friends in Taiwan work for Hess, and some of them have for years. It�s a nice community of English teachers and I�m thankful for all the friends I met working for Hess.

Looking back, it was a rather grueling year, yet I don�t see how I could�ve done it any other way besides working for another chain. I didn�t have the resources or know-how to just show up and find a job. I like Taiwan and plan on staying awhile. I like Taiwan a lot more now that I can enjoy a full night�s sleep and two-day weekends. It�s the little things that count.

[markholmes]

A quality post indeed.

[sbettinson]

I like the posting. At first I thought it was another "flame the hell out of Hess because I had a bad experience" but the last part was pretty balanced.

I work for Hess and have done for the past year and a half. I agree with pretty much everything that you was posted and it doesn't suit everyone. There are many opportunities that Hess can offer new teachers and it is a good way to break into Taiwan for those who don't feel 100% confident about coming here without something lined up.

Experiences vary from branch to branch depending on management and relationships with colleagues.

Mine has been very much positive but it's not all plain sailing.

Shaun

[trukesehammer]

Oh, man! Did it really take you a full year to jump off the hippo? You poor fella. Must be a slow learner, enit?

Back in '97 when I tried 'em out, I took advantage of that 30-day escape clause in their contract. THANK GOD!

Not that I'm knockin' Hess or anything, but if you're an experienced old coot like me, chances are you won't like taking orders from a bunch of crappy, snot-nosed second lieutenants

[jason_seeburn]

[Ki]

Consultant companies are the very thing you would want to avoid. This is possibly the worst advice you could offer yet seeburn. Never sign a contract with a recruiter. Especially don't sign a contract with a consultant company. You will only have problem after problem. Signing with a consultant company IS hell. The same problems you have at HESS you will have with the recruiter and many many more.

At least at HESS they will give you real training, and not just pretend to train you. And they are at least a viable option.

[Aristotle]

harrietthespy

Quality post indeed. We don't get a lot of feedback from teachers who do actually make the plunge.
Of all the chain schools on Taiwan, Hess is probably the best. Mind you that does not make them a good employer by any means, it just makes them the best Taiwanese chain school and the biggest. I have come to the opinion that when it comes to Taiwanese employers there is no such thing as a good job!
Nova from Japan has just started up a franchise on Taiwan. Let's hope they can raise the bar a little.
There is an saying that has been going around Taiwan since ESL first started taking off here in the late 70's.
"Be happy if you get paid at all"
Thanks again for the post.
Good luck!
A.

[wix]

Interesting post. Given the hundreds of teachers that are employed by Hess each year posts like this are still rare.

Anyway you said your experience and comments were very negative. Actually there is very little in there that actually says anything bad. The only really bad thing is the fee for breaking the contract. Otherwise it was pretty much par for the course.

I think the biggest problem is actually that the job just didn't meet your expectations. Your recruiter probably made you believe all sorts of things about the job and about Taiwan. The reality that you discovered after you arrived probably couldn't match it.

Most teaching jobs require preparation time that is unpaid. There is always going to be some conflict about what is a fair amount of time for preparation and other tasks related to the class. But you can't expect to turn up the moment your class starts and leave the moment it finishes.

[Dr_Zoidberg]

[jason_seeburn]

[jason_seeburn]

[Ki]

Okay, now I don't necessarily disagree. If it works for you then great though it may not work for everyone. I personally would hate all the hand-holding crap that you described at a chain school. New teachers may find the mcmethod a blessing to the disorganisation you mention at a smaller school.

The signing the contract directly with the school and NOT the recruiter is the important point I wanted to make. When you sign a contract with a recruiter or consultant company they in turn become the dictatorial middle managers. They then act only for the school's benefits as they already have you by the proverbial balls.

[kuberkat]

Like several other posters, I must congratulate harrietthespy on a post that tells it like it is without trading credibility for revenge. A balanced and mature post- thank you.

Much as I once pined to work in Asia and teach English, I was also a bit horrified by the idea of working for an ubercorporation- and in those long-ago days the hippo was the logo. Hess sure isn't heaven, but the truth is that many of the complaints levelled against Hess are complaints against intercultural cooperation, the working world and life at large. Working for Hess is a lot like working for MacDonalds. You may not learn haute cuisine, but you will learn to make a pretty damned fine Big Mac. And that is worth knowing.

After reading the many flames against Hess on forums like this one, many newbies decide against the big yellow hippo- and eventually run into similar problems elsewhere. Had they joined Hess, they would have had not only the black Mercedes airport pickup, but also a TEFL certificate backed by very decent training, some very worthwhile experience with staff development feedback, a possible award or two in tow and a reasonably good reputation in the world of ESL, as far as this goes in Asia. And while not everyone wants to teach English forever, this is about as good a stepping-stone as a beginner can get. TESOL is a helluva day job if you play your cards right.

Two years at Hess was what earned me a sought-after job at a Taiwanese private school, and two more years of that (and some training) opened the hallowed doors of the Middle East, where a year contract involves eight months of teaching four hours a day, two months of admin and two months of airfare-paid leave, all at the salary of working kindy and buxiban in Taiwan. And did I mention this is untaxed? If you hang around, you get to do all the haute cuisine you want. Flipping Big Macs for Hess may turn out to be well worth it for those who have patience.

[jason_seeburn]

[Ki]

An MA won't necessarily improve your chances of a job unless you are seeking work at a university, then it is mandatory. The two years of solid teaching experience sounds like the more important of the two for non-uni work.