Job Discussion Forums

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

Yes no_exit, my heart goes out to you too. I hope the branch school can recover the huge debt by collecting a breach-of-contract penalty. As others say, if it means she won't be on that plane in a few days, then so be it. You have done all you can, now it's time to forghet about those two and move on.

Somehow, I suspected that the guy would not be returning to the Mainland in the near future and the girl would be going too.

Songbird · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:51 am Post subject:

Wow, what a story, I'm glad the school got rid of them. I've been sitting here for the last week GRIPPED by what's been happening, what a shocker Shocked

.

I had a couple of visa issues when I arrived here 2 months ago (don't know why, everything was fine last year) with a possibilitiy of having to go all the way to Hong Kong for a visa change. Thankfully I didn't end up having to do it (I don't care if the school paid for the trip or not, it's still a pain!) but I still scrounged living on bread and butter and saving all I could until my FAO told me everything was okay. I didn't buy a single thing for the apartment until about 3 weeks ago. I wished others like this couple would have the decency of doing this. I think I'm in perhaps one of the best schools in China, fantastic FAO, always there for us.....I could never imagine one of the teachers here doing something like that to this school.

No exit, I hope this doesn't put you in a bad light with your school, occassionally you get some rotten eggs. Forget about it now, move on and hopefully all parties have learnt something from this experience!

Lobster · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:00 am Post subject:

Now, as a person with some responsibility for hiring, you see that there's more to check into than just teaching qualifications. The crux of the matter is the guy's overstays on previous visas. This was the behaviour that led to his re-entry being denied. I guess that's a lesson for us all.

RED

Belmont · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject: overstays?

no_exit · Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Posts: 565 Location: Kunming

Thanks again guys.

The girl is currently kicking and screaming about being asked to pay the breach of contract penalty. She even tried going to both the PSB and the Embassy to rat us out for having her work while her visa was in processing, which she figured might have been illegal.

In any case, we now have both the embassy and the PSB on our side, as they could see that the girl was unstable, and we had the proof of her and her boyfriend's debt, the contract she signed, and the proof from the PSB that her visa was in processing and she was clear to work. She might have gotten herself into even deeper trouble, because she completely lost any sympathy she might have had from the branch, which was at this point feeling sort of sorry for her. No longer.

We also got word from the PSB that they saw nothing on the boyfriend's visa that indicated he should have been denied. Apparently they can check this through computer. So he might just have been making it all up. Crazy people.

In any case, the branch and headquarters see this as a freak occurance. Apparently they once lent a teacher an even larger sum of money for some emergency occurance, but the money was returned with no problems, so they thought this situation would be the same. Lesson learned all around. But now I'm saddled with the responsibility of finding replacement teachers extremely late in the semester. Joy. Rolling Eyes

adamsmith · Joined: 27 Jan 2006 Posts: 259 Location: wuhan

If I hear of anyone looking for a job I will steer them your way to talk anyway. PM me your contact details. I do know someone (a friend of a friend) who is married to a chinese lady that was looking last week.

prof · Joined: 25 Jun 2004 Posts: 741 Location: Boston/China

I'm still curious as to what no_exit was offering his employees.

I doubt that anyone would play around like this if the offer was respectable.

But if you are offering less than 10,000/month with a one year contract and airfare with no other benefits..who exactly do you expect to apply for the job?

Belmont · Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:48 pm Post subject:

no_exit · Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Posts: 565 Location: Kunming

The teachers for my company get from 4000-8000RMB a month. These teachers' salary was basically right in the middle, give or take, of that range. You've got to be dreaming if you think that anyone who waltzes into China can get 10,000RMB a month, much less a couple of 20 somethings with college degrees only, one of whom had no experience teaching, and the other having had some unverifiable experience 3 years ago. In fact, the majority of people posting and reading this forum don't make 10,000RMB a month prof. You don't even know *where* they were working, which makes a huge difference in salary -- you know where I'm based, right? Lowest salaries in China, but tell the thousands of foreigners working here that they're getting ripped off and they'll just laugh. And *of course* there was airfare and the other normal benefits, and they were working less than 20 hours a week, with no mandatory office hours and in fact no other obligations besides teaching. But I don't feel like I have to put the entire contract up for your approval anyhow. At the end of the day, they signed it, period. if you want to turn this into yet another discussion of why people take jobs for less than 10K a month, then start a thread, but this one isn't about money.

Trust me, the salary had *nothing* to do with their actions. When they heard I was offering them as much as I did, they were quite pleased. It annoys me though that the assumption from some is that the school *must* have caused this situation somehow. These people, even the girlfriend, who I was sympathetic with for a long time, have proven themselves to be complete and total nutbags. The girlfriend most recently went crazy at the PSB, jumped at a cop who was holding the receipt for her passport, grabbed it from his hands, tore it up, and took off running.

The school didn't treat these teachers badly or give them an unfair contract, or break any promises. Their, and my, mistake was in trusting people who turned out to be untrustworthy, period. Live and learn, but that won't happen again, unfortunately for future FTs who might be fully deserving of trust.

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

Lobster · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:36 am Post subject:

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

Steppenwolf · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 1769

Belmont · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject:

Lobster · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject:

Wonder no longer Steppy. I'll tell you right now, even though I know you've been here at least twice as long as I have and you already know all this stuff. Here's the "magic" formula that gets me 250/hr and more work than I can handle. If you don't meet the criteria now, but want to stay in China, start working on it.

1. A good, relevant degree from a respected uni.
2. Post-graduate EFL training.
3. Over 10 years of teaching experience.
4. Good basic Chinese and negotiation skills.
5. A calm demeanour and a positive, energetic classroom presence.
6. Being flexible about everything but money -- knowing the market.
7. Staying in one place long enough to establish a good reputation.
8. Developing connections with schools and teachers.
9. Having a full range of quality materials and presentations ready to go.
10. Solid subject knowledge that includes all aspects of English teaching.
11. Confidence about my own value and my ability to meet student expectations.
12. Having enough cash on hand so that I never really NEED the work.

Now, often contacts will just forget it when I tell them my going rate. That's ok. Some people want a BMW, and some want a VW Santana. Then there are those who want to pay a VW price for the BMW. Those are the ones who call you and moan about their "poor" school. But you know damn well that each of those 30 students is paying 20-40 rmb for the lesson. So, out of that 600-1200 rmb/hr that they're getting for your work, do you think it's unreasonable to ask for less than 50%?

I'm just a product that I market, and I market myself to the high end. I'm also a mercenary teacher and am honest about that. I won't do oral English unless it's at a key school, because either they have the funds to employ me, or they don't care if they make money because they enhance their prestige and increase enrollment.

Now, there are certainly places where this formula won't apply; tourist magnets with an over-abundance of holiday teachers, and backwater locations where the economy's so depressed that people just don't have any money. Stay away from those places and hit the cities that have both cash and demand. Basically any city with over 5 million people will have a large enough market to accommodate high-end instructors. Get out of your funk and go get 'em, tiger!

RED