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[H_Finkel]

I had the experience of dealing with Robert Phillips, a well known TESL recruiter based in Taiwan, last spring. It was an experience that I don't ever wish to repeat.
I didn't find him; he found me during my job search around late winter of '06. I was working a stint as an English instructor in another country at that time. The job wasn't working out, so I elected to advertise myself online for another job. Interestingly, I didn't advertise that I wished to work in Taiwan, but Phillips must have been on a teacher fishing campaign because he contacted me via email. He seemed to be a pretty articulate fellow and a big fan of Taiwan. He elaborated on the greatness of Taiwan: the tropical weather, pretty girls, and laid-back lifestyle. True or not, this should have been the first warning sign of a blowhard making unvalidated claims. I also talked with him via cellphone once, but I thought he was nothing special. Mostly we were mulling over the travel agenda and the visa process used down there.
At my other job, I had given my notice and I was prepared to leave the country only if I couldn't locate a suitable replacement job where I was. As I mentioned, Taiwan wasn't first on my preference list of places to teach in at that time, as it didn't offer as much salary and no relocation or visa processing costs were reimbursed. As it turned out, the other guy I was going to cooperate with in securing another job bailed without notice pretty much at the last few hours, leaving me holding an empty bag. My previous employer had gotten the keys back for the teacher's residence and I eventually decided to head for Taiwan because I had gotten such a bad scare being temporarily homeless and being without the paperwork to process another visa there. Enter Robert Phillips.
This time I contacted him and accepted his offer of placing me in a Taiwanese ESL school. We settled on my arrival time at Taipei airport where I found the driver of the van that would *eventually* take me to Phillips' place. It was quite the ride. It felt like we were racing along a highway in a video game. The guy's van was floored almost the whole way as it weaved in and out of Taiwan's notorious traffic. There were a couple of other passengers, too. The three-hour drive from the airport to the teacher's "house" that Phillips had, was often stopped to drop off the other passengers and to switch drivers. I had to race from van to van with my luggage - it wasn't a relaxing trip to say the least. And when we finally arrived at Phillips' place in Doulio city I found myself being stuck with the cost of the trip despite Phillips saying that he would foot the bill.
The teacher's place that he owns isn't much to look at, and neither is he. I was worried when I first laid eyes on them. The house was in a rather dirty, dark semi-urban area with loud dogs howling around. He was wearing a tanktop with shorts, sandals and with sunglasses dawning his forehead. He looked to be in his early forties with an average build and badly receding hair. I hadn't envisioned the recruiter I was communicating with earlier to look like an old Beach Boy.
I was growling a bit about the drive when he invited inside the teacher's house. There was another young teacher there who I was introduced to who seemed O.K. The humidity was incredible inside. I checked around upstairs and noticed the clutter lying around. There was also a mold problem in several of the rooms along with one of the bathrooms which was really gross. Before Phillips headed off that night to his own place, I asked him to find my a job asap, as I didn't want to stick around the teacher's place. He said it wouldn't be a problem, so I reluctantly stayed at the house for the weekend.
On Monday, we went via scooter to the school that was a busride from Doulio. There we met with the school's management. The school was in a city, but I had no idea that the city was so small, less than 70,000 people, which is really small by asian standards. This would haunt me later on. I met some of the native staff who were friendly, but I was the only foreign teacher. My financial status wasn't good and I didn't want to go back to that teacher's house in Doulio so we arranged to have me work a demo class that evening and set up my pad close to the school. The first demo class seemed awkward. And as the night approached, I realized that this school definitely didn't want a teacher but rather an entertainer. One class consisted of nothing but me watching the native teacher bang on the whiteboard with a plastic hammer while having the kids endlessly repeat basic letter sounds. I wasn't at all impressed, and I let the co-manager know this. She said that this was how the school taught its students.
That night, I decided that I wouldn't show up for work the next day and to wait until someone from the school showed up when I would tell them. Strangely, nobody came so I went to the school late that night and told them. They were disappointed but seemed reasonable. I expected that they wanted me to clear out of the place right away and I would be headed back to Doulio, but the co-manager told me that the rent had been paid for the month. They wanted to be reimbursed; I told them to contact Phillips. Meanwhile I spent a depressing week there again waiting for someone to come and tell me to hit the road. Again, nobody came. That is, until Phillips comes with the co-manager to muscle the money out of me for the rent. My bank balance was really low and I knew that it was going to be real trouble for me to pay it. I told Phillips this but his offer was to either essentially stay stranded at the place or *let him find me another school* - fat chance! With the rent paid, I had a roof over my head, and I could quickly find another school around the city, right? I told him that I would be going solo and stayed at the apartment. The next day I would find another school to work in (or so I thought).
In the morning, I left the apartment to find the ESL schools in the area. It was a real chore to get around; there were no sidewalks and the scooters were buzzing all around me. In some of the cornered off parts of the city, you could see the pockets of smog-laden air. As the week wore on, I realized that finding another school was not at all going to be easy. The city was too small. There were probably three or four schools in total and none of them were hiring. But I knew dealing with Phillips was trouble, so I elected to transfer emergency money to my hybrid credit card (PayPal), which I knew would be a godsend in a situation like this. However, anyone who has a PayPal card knows that it can be lengthy process to transfer funds to it from a bank account. For Canadians it takes 6 - 8 business days. I knew it was really risky for me to wait out this length of time, but I'd do it rather than dealing with that man again.
It was basically more than three entire weeks that I spent holed up in that apartment. It was the monsoon season and it did nothing but rain day and night. I survived on instant noodles and bottled water; I figure that I lost about 10 lbs during that time. I occasionally talked to other recruiting agencies based in Taiwan, including ESL Dewey, who were helpful (They also mentioned that Phillips was known to make inappropriate teacher placements, primarily in southern Taiwan.). But it didn't work out because the schools that they wanted to introduce me to were based far from the city I was staying and I literally didn't have the busfare to get to the interviews!
Man, it was a bad spot that I was placed in. I remember when I *finally* received the money on my card at the ATM - I cried on the spot. To summarize the whole thing, I got really pissed and decided that I was taking a stand by not letting a guy like Phillips make easy money on me. The lessons had been learned: Never work in a area that even the natives don't know about and take special care when dealing with one-man recruiting agencies like Phillips has.

[ghost]

One feels sorry for you.

Ghost worked in Taiwan in 2005-2006, and had two jobs, and was fired from the first one because of a disagreement with a student who disrupted the class and ghost remonstrated with the unruly student....resulting in an ``invitation`` to resign from the position.

The only reason ghost stayed on in Taiwan was to study Chinese (Mandarin) at Providence University, Shalu, Taichung county.

Without the Chinese study, ghost would have left Taiwan...much sooner.

Ghost found Taiwan to be polluted and other aspects unattractive, and the people....well they are fine....as far as being inoffensive, but basically as a foreigner it is difficult to relate to the Taiwanese, who in truth do not really like ``waiguoren`` apart from the benefit we bring to them by teaching them English, for their sole motivation of making money.

Ghost, McGill University

[Toe Save]

Oh Mr. Finkel. Your wild accusations didn't find responsive nor supportive ears at f.com. What makes you think they'll fly here. Luckily for you, I have to teach a class in 5 minutes. My complete reproach to your post will have to wait a few hours. But count on it, it's coming. And if you think f.com was unsympathetic, you ain't seen nothing yet. You are now my weekend sir. In between snaps of the football and drops of the puck, I'll be cutting, pasting and shredding your post into tiny little bits.

Consider yourself warned. You have maybe 4 hours until I copy your post as it is written and begin my dissection. 4 hours. Change stuff up mister, or suffer the scathing wit of Toe Save.

[poof]

Sorry to hear that you didn't like your experience. However, I can't quite see how exactly it was that you were badly treated. Someone offered you a job. You went to an unknown country without doing any research it would seem. You didn't work for more than a day at the school. I don't think it's fair to post the recruiter's name and denounce him on such grounds. Also, why wait for over half a year to post this complaint?

[Toe Save]