Job Discussion Forums

blondie10 · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 40

I read that long and tiring 5 page thread about pay and some of you are way off.

1) Economic pays over 2000YTL a month but last year Yasar did not unless you had a PHD. One person had a PHD and left after 3 months. If you have a Masters degree then you get 50USD more (big deal) for all that time spent on education. You get 500USD more if you have a PHD.

2) Most TEFL workers will be put in the Prep school (hazirlik) and not the 4 year university (rektorluk) Prep school teaching pays less than the 4 year instructor jobs. Most people see university and think that they will be teaching in the 4 year program and have no idea it is prep. Prep is a lot harder and the pay is less.

3) Forget the 20 teaching hours, it is generally a little more than that up to 25 but you have a lot of prep time and have to be at the university from 8:30 to 6PM everyday. You have no free time to spend money that you are not getting. So if you take your low salary and divide by the hours you have to be there then you are getting paid very little.

4) The actual work week according to Turkish law is Mon-Sat. One of the teachers took a day off without pay on a Friday and was docked for Saturday too because it is considered a work day (even though no one comes in on that day) It seems if there is a loophole about not paying they will use it

5) Accommodations that you would actually live in are about 1/3 to 1/2 of your salary. If you don't mind living in a dump then you won't pay that much. You will have to pay more if you want a coveted sea view. You do not get much help finding an apartment. Most people do not realize that at the Emlak (realty agent) they do not have mutliple listings so you have to go to alot of Emlaks to find out what is available in the city. They only have listings for that area that they are in. You will probably be sent to an Emlak that is a friend or a friend of a friend. Utilities eat up some more of your money so that is why I say up to 1/2. 25-30 electric, 25-30 water, building fee and heat is 70+ (depends on whether you have central heat or not) telephone 10, cable 7, internet connection 80 (high speed).

6) Free lunches - well you do get them and if you like Kofte served in a variety of forms with plain pasta and plain rice everyday then you are set. Kofte is like a form of hamburger meat and if you take it to give to the cats that live in your area, they won't touch it. Eating out once in awhile is inevitable so thus you can not save as much.

The people posting from Istanbul have no knowledge of life in Izmir unless they have lived and worked here. The salaries are low by most other countries standards.

Otterman Ollie · Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:51 am Post subject:

Sorry blondie , I don't know where you get your information from but your are very well misinformed ,I doubt if you work at Eco uni so you must know someone who does ,I think they have tried to fill your head with a lot of half truths and petty nonsense . Looks like they have made a good on you though ! Feel free to pm me !

blondie10 · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 40

Funny that you should say that, I was wondering who pays you to go on every posting and attack the person writing the thread. I did work at one of the 2 universities for an entire year so I know exactly what I am talking about. Where do you get your information, obviously not first hand.

Also start up costs in Izmir: Renting Furnished or Unfurnished? Well if you rent unfurnished the rent is cheaper but you have to buy everything, stove, oven, refrigerator, tv, bed, bedding, cookware, silverware, tableware. Some of the newer flats have built-in closets but most don't, so you will have to buy a wardrobe to hang your clothes in. Also most of the flats I looked at did not have lighting fixtures so you would have to buy them too and have them installed. Also, selling them once you are leaving is hard to do and you will not get much money back. An AC which you will need in the summer is about 500YTL. If you look at the money you might save by renting unfurnished, it might be eaten up by what you have to buy to live there for instance a couch and chair would be nice!

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

yaramaz · Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:02 am Post subject:

Did you take the light switches too? The flat I moved into was BARE. It's lovely now but I spent most of July slowly filling it...I still have two bare wire clusters hanging from unlit hall and bathroom ceilings- and my flat has lovely high ceilings that I can't reach with a chair so must buy a ladder...

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

no i didn't take switches. I haven't heard that one before. There is a street near you that has loads of hardware and electricity shops. They also have ladders. As you leave the metro walk down Ergenekon and the first street on the right is light street.

tvik · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 371 Location: here

one flat i looked at had the paint stripped off the walls and all the oxygen sucked out of it. when we opened the door it made a huge whooooosh and almost knocked me over.

one of my friends is one of the strictist turkish teachers in the school and his favorite saying is "we have rules in this country" not sure where they're written or whose read them recently but THEY'RE THERE SOMEWHERE GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!!

actually one thing i am beginning to hate here is the contradictory information one recieves on a regular basis. it makes planning impossible

blondie10 · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 40

One more thing about renting a flat. You have to pay 1st months rent up front, another months rent to the Emlak, and a deposit in either USD or EURO. After your contract is up and you have given them the one month notice that you are leaving, they will come in and do an inspection and you might get your money back.

A lot of new foreign teachers did not realıze how expensive it is up front and had to wire home for more money or hit credit cards. An example:

Rent 650 YTL
Emlak 650 YTL
Deposıt 650 EURO = 1176 YTL

TOTAL IN YTL 2476 (which was more than I made in a month)

yaramaz · Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:12 pm Post subject:

blondie10 · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 40

Yaramaz,

Quite different apparently. There was not one place that did not ask for a deposit and they all wanted either euros or dollars and would not take YTL as a deposit. All of the teachers had to pay their deposit in either Euro or dollars. I asked why and they said because both of those currencies are more stable than YTL. A few of the foreigners had a tough time with their deposits. When the Emlak knows you are leaving the country and say they will pay you on the last day, what do you do when they tell you it is not ready and it will be ready tomorrow. They know you will not be there then so they can keep your deposit.

tvik · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 371 Location: here

the trick with the deposit is just to tell the landlord to keep as the last month's rent and then not pay the last month.

emlaks are crooks

FGT · Joined: 14 Sep 2003 Posts: 762 Location: Turkey

After 14 years and 3 different flats in Izmir I've not yet paid a deposit in anything other than local currency.

blondie10 · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 40

FGT - wow that is impressive, not one of us that were hired paid deposit in Turkish Lira except for the woman who was married to a Turkish man and he did all the negotiations. Maybe it is a foreigner thing.

tvik - that is what a couple of the teachers did so they would get their deposit back and left them with a couple of utilities to pay so it came out about even - I have thought about doing that hearing the pain it is to actually get your deposit back

fungus the bogeyman · Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 25

I think times are a-changing. I had to pay my deposit in US dollars - no negociation allowed on the amount or the currency and that was with the help of a Turkish friend. The emlak fee is the one I think is daylight robbery - alot of money for showing you round a flat and typing out a rental agreement. Izmir is becoming an expensive city to live in - rents have sky rocketed and to set up home there is a very expensive business.

yaramaz · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:52 am Post subject:

I may have lucked out then-- I know Istanbul isn't exactly the home of honest and kindly emlakcis, and I know of people who had to pay deposits in euro and dollars and who didn't get their deposits back. But...it isn't inevitable. As I said above, I've been lucky so far.

This year was the first time I needed to use an emlakci (got flats through friends and colleagues before) and it has been a really positive (though expensive) experience. The emlak fee is not necessarily wasted money: my emlakci got my water and electricity set up (including making sure that I was not responsible for any money owed by previous tenants who had left behind bills for 300-400 ytl), she gave me her spare empty gaz cannister and ordered the aygaz for me because I was too busy with work. She waited at my flat for the telephone guy to come hook up my phone line. She arranged for me to get my locks changed and waited at my flat while he did it (again, I was at work). She negotiated a 150ytl/month decrease in my rent with my landlady, and knocked off 250ytl from the emlak fee. As well, in my rental contract, she made it clear that any annual rent increases must be based on the government numbers and agreed on by me as well as the landlady------ a far cry from my last one who tried to pencil in a 20% increase into my contract.

I'm very happy to have spent that money. She has been well worth it.