Job Discussion Forums

[brsmith15]

The issue here is not the uniform. I wore one in Nam so the Cong could easily identify and shoot me. I wore one when I worked for IBM in the early 1960s: white shirt, dark striped tie, 3-piece suit, calf length socks, wing tips. Oh, yeah, and a hat. Had to have a hat. So the Univac guys could identify and shoot me. [How many of you know what Univac was? Their computers were better, cheaper, but Big Blue had the muscle then.]

The issue here is control. The uniform is the outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual weakness and instability.....to borrow and slightly misuse something from Christian sacremental studies.

In my last teaching job at SUFE, the best job I ever had, I would have worn a jock strap and a straw hat if they'd asked. But, being the confident managers they were, they'd never ask and that's the difference here. Bottom dwellers like those at EF, Delter/Telfort, Aclipse need these measures to justify their lowly existence. The main problem I have with folks like that is.........You could do it so much better if you tried!!

[vikuk]

[Buck Lin]

I have noticed a total disregard for Mao's principals. In the old days everyone was required to have only two pockets. Some of my students have over twenty pockets now. Now at the same time I have noticed many foreign teachers losing their keys. I think it is time we returned to the path of Mao. It you only have two pockets it makes it easier to find your house key.

[evaforsure]

[vikuk]

[profM]

Maybe EF Beijing is just different, but they aren't wearing uniforms and the Chinese English teachers, which represent more than half of the teachers, are paid 8000RMB gross a month when you count their housing fund and prescription medicine fund -- and, that doesn't even include their medical insurance.

The foreign teachers get 14,000 RMB a month. But, personally, I would never take a job where I had to be in the school for 40 hours a week, although both the Chinese and the foreign English teachers only have to be in the classroom for 20-25 50-min periods a week. Also too much for my liking.

But, overall, all of this is a big plus for ESL in China. It promotes ESL. It advertises ESL. It encourages people to get into English studies.

All this spleen about a pretty clean corporation that is not destroying the environment, not promoting war, not hoarding oil and is helping to promote English studies represents some kind of pathetic scapegoating, in my opinion.

Nobody makes anybody work there, and the students express a lot of satisfaction. The students come from families with money to spend and other choices about how to spend it. Families with less money send their kids to other schools, but are helped to get the English bug partly because of EF activities.

[vikuk]

[brsmith15]

Buck, don't you mean principles? A principal is either the head of a school or someone in charge of something.

So.....principles..........
Like "Let a hundred flowers bloom?" And then kill everyone who responds?

[kev7161]

[vikuk]

[evaforsure]

The EF in Beijing Wang fu Jing (not sure of spelling)shopping center does have teachers or at least did .. in a window'd classroom like a showroom window facing the mall walkway area....if I remember right they had a tie and white shirt...the FT was facing the window and the student's back was near the window.. I have no ide if this is the set up still used...

[profM]

The housing fund is a matching fund for purchasing one's own apartment someday. To get it, the teacher puts in 10% of her salary and the company puts in 10% into a special account. There is no real time housing allowance or housing provision in Beijing. In fact, that represents a real offset to the much higher salaries both the Chinese and foreign teachers get at the downtown Beijing EF centers I am familiar with. But, the classroom time is not 40 hours; it is 20-25 hours. The other 15-20 hours of school time does represent a teacher presence that benefits the company, but the time is totally the teachers and he can and usually will prepare classes or do personal Internet things. There is free coffee and a collegian atmosphere that can give some people starting their work life exposure to a real company with a weekly meeting and everything. Anyone is allowed to quit the job without a breach of contract penalty, too.

I just think it is scapegoating and excessive negative criticism because the company is reliable and offers workers a lot, all of which they can decide isn't worth it and leave. And, the company bangs the drums loudly for ESL.

I personally wouldn't like those hours at this stage of the game, but I really don't see this company as some kind of bad thing even though I'm sure its methods, content and style won't please everyone. I would never even think of taking any proactive effort to talk them up except to the extent that it does provide a terrific opportunity for a few lucky English major grads coming out of Chinese universities to my way of thinking, but I'm doing it here because of the persistent degree of spleen I see aimed at this company that I consider imperfect at worst.

[vikuk]

[rmcdougall]

I was correct.

At least I don't have "egg" on my face.

[DIPTESOL]

Well I only know this is happening in Shanghai and the staff look like a bunch of muppets in their McDonalds style uniform! They'll have them serving the kids shakes next!

As I said to the MD when I met with him to tell him what is wrong with EF (and that's pretty much everything!) - perhaps they should look at the standard of education and the shit materials that they produce before implementing uniforms (which I warned him staff wouldn't like).