Job Discussion Forums

[happy_me]

Just like old times. And sad to say I have had the luck to work for schools that have been worse than ILP, as a matter of fact 2 of the 3 in the last 5 years have been so poor that that they have gone, or are ready to do so.

[Chester]

rowlf.
surely you cant be serious, referring to "competition, not being all bad".
geez man, are you really in Indonesia?
what has competition got to do with any successful business in that country?
the ilp corporate method was to market foreigners with some sort of appeal to clients. like meat. the foreigners who have / had some business stuff in their CV, or were attractive in other ways tended to be most wanted by their clients.
and also a good slab of cash to the clients training manager as incentive.
do you call that healthy competition?
then again, isnt that "business as usual in Indonesia"?
every "corporate" english company i worked for did the same thing. the english teaching aspect was a joke. Direct English, President Busines Institute, etc. Give me a break.

But ILP takes the cake as far as "faking it" goes. they really give less than nothing for the 60 juta they charge for a corporate class.


and as for bules running a competive business? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!
You must be very nieve my friend.

[Rowlf the Dog]

Hi! I'm Rowlf the Dog, and I'm glad to be here.

Chester-- (and the story behind your name is _______-- I'm just curious )

First of all, I'm a dog that can use the computer (and I play the piano)-- so how naive can I really be?

But seriously-- there's always going to be that "meat market" factor no matter what the business is-- I think that that would be true in most western countries as well, sad to say. That actually wasn't what I was referring to. In all honesty, the people in charge who went out and met with the clients (one of whom taught classes) weren't exactly fashion models-- and I don't say this to be disrespectful to them at all. ILP did not only hire attractive people. However, it makes sense that they would want their teachers to have at least some knowledge of the business world. Being a native English speaker (or a fluent English speaker) clearly is not enough in this business.

What I did mean was if ILP was overcharging its clients, the clients might be inclined to get business English lessons from a different school. (That's competition.)

If ILP teachers were dissatisfied and the teacher turnover rate continued to be dismal, perhaps someone in upper management might do something about it. (This is a more naive statement I suppose-- they would actually have to start seeing their employees as investments-- but I do believe it's possible for them to learn.) What I truly believe is that if a school like ILP, which has been in Indonesia for something like 30 years, starts to go under, it won't go down without a fight. What will possibly make it go under is competition with other schools providing similar services with better quality, better training materials, better teachers, lower prices, etc. What ILP has going for it as far as the corporations are concerned is name recognition-- but if its competitors do what they need to be doing, then ILP will have to make some positive changes to gain new clients.

I think that the most important aspect for good teaching is how a teacher makes his/her students feel in a classroom (or a boardroom in this case)-- this is especially true in a language learning situation. I can imagine that the aforementioned DH and his company-- given DH's personality-- makes his clients feel comfortable, at ease, and valued. I also believe that Mr. DH (and this is just my impression) makes his employees feel valued. Does ILP do the same? If it doesn't now, it surely will have to if it wishes to survive.

This has been Rowlf the Dog with a friendly rebuttal to Chester's post.

Good day!

[Rowlf the Dog]

And one more thing...

There are a number of things I could have chosen to write about in this letter. I could have chosen to write about how Mr. Chester has no conception of our moral and ethical standards. Or I might have chosen to write something about the way that he is penny wise and pound foolish. But, instead, I've decided to devote this entire letter to explaining how Chester prizes wealth and celebrity over and above decent morals and sound judgment. With this letter, I hope to offer a framework for discussion so that we can more quickly reach a consensus. But first, I would like to make the following introductory remark: Chester's method (or school, or ideology -- it is hard to know exactly what to call it) goes by the name of "Chester-ism". It is a snarky and avowedly neo-snooty philosophy that aims to attack the fabric of this nation. Help me carry out the famous French admonition, �crasez l'inf�me!, against Mr. Chester's catch-phrases. Join your hands with mine in this, the greatest cause of our time.

All in good fun, Chester. All in good fun...

[Chester]

check out the sifl and olly website.
the real chester is there.
wow, criticism of ILP really gets a terse response from some people.

[Chester]

i recall being bragged to by the thesbian thing about how ILP got an award from Megawati (as president) for educational excellence.
reminded me at the time, as do things that are stupid and meaningless (much like the dolphin toothed girl at ILP), of when homer simpson was rendered infertile at the nuclear plant and in fear of legal action, monty burns tried ot buy him off by instilling upon him the Montgomery Burns Award of Excellence, in the field of... Excellence.

Is of equal significance.
Let the duel continue.

Please check out Sifl & Olly on UTUBE. Chester is my favorite.

[Rowlf the Dog]

Chester--

Mega was such an excellent president, so it comes as no surprise that ILP was also branded by her as excellent...Do you suppose Suharto's son Tommy was responsible for the fire then? Hmm...

For some reason I thought you were naming yourself after Chester from "Soap" (you might recall that sitcom from the late 70's-- one of the best shows ever made in my opinion).

No hard feelings about anything I wrote about you. That last post was computer generated-- you can put anyone's name in a website and it'll spit up complaints about people. It's ingenious, really. Didn't mean to come across as sounding "terse."

No matter what our differences are about ILP, I think we can both agree that it was one of the strangest working environments we've ever experienced. I just hope that it's gotten better if nothing else for the sake of the office boys, the drivers, and the Indonesian teachers that were depending on ILP for their survival.

Rowlf the Dog

[happy_me]

The Montgomery Burns Award of Excellence will to go to ILP for having the view that it would be better to franchise then to work on improving what they have. From what I have herded it I working, lots of cash for the owner.

However a close runner up is EF for there superb marketing, Not only in convincing the public the there teachers are the best, but for promoting them as professional ESP teachers to multinational companies.

The last ad said teachers need to have a TEFL cert. and be single, next time maybe it will add: teachers must be under 25

[Chester]

Soap was awesome.
Loved it.
Very dry.

[voltaire]

Yes, they are zombies all right, especially Leonard Kripple the old crippled drunk guy who runs it. ILP, especially the Panglima Polim branch is nothing but a bunch of middle-aged dopers who get high immediately before and always after classs. Nowadays the 4:30 to 6:30 time slot is dead so their 3:00 to 9:00 workday must be especially smoky so as to work up an appetite for that long dinnertime break. If you're over 40, like to smoke weed, hardly work at all and get about 11 mlion a month for it ILP Panglima Polim is the place to go.

[drgonzo]

I once applied to and got a job from Leonard, but when it came time to finalize the contract the owner of ILP refused to sign. Supposedly it was because of some of the things I said on this forum (truth hurts I guess) or maybe it was because I also worked for DH.

Leonard was pissed that he could hire someone, and then his authority could be shot down and the person could be de-hired.

The result was that the owner issued a black list of people who will not be hired at ILP. I'm on it. DH is on it. I am pretty sure Chester and Happy-me are on it. I even heard a rumour that one guy is on the list who is still working at ILP..

[Chester]

I am on a Black list!
oooooh scary stuff,
amazing that the management at ILP blamed DH for loss of clientelle.
Party correct i guess.
But also I did a few classes privately from companies I took from ILP corporate, it was pretty easy to do. Just offered then a decent syllabus for the level of english required. I also taught classes for other of their ex-clients, through other training companies. One company however PT Yamaha didnt want me because I had ILP on my CV. They had a bad experience with a crazy old lady from ILP, who had a habbit of insulting students and smelled like Urinal cake. she was kind of like Basil Fawlty's wife. but not funny.

aaaah memories, memmmories

[Rowlf the Dog]

Chester,

What's wrong with the scent of urinal cake?

Rowlf the Dog

[Chester]

Dawg.
would you find it endearing if someone wore parfum "eu de urinal".?

actually many "over 50 western women" wear that sheeet.

I don't get it.

Perhaps urinal cake worn around the neck would be "bling".
know what i'm sayin dawg?

[Rowlf the Dog]

Chester--
The beauty of her choice of perfume is that she marks her territory wherever she goes. It's a control thing.

I don't know why I never thought of it.

Rowlf the Dog