Job Discussion Forums

[hagel]

I have just finished working at ABC English in Poza Rica after 5 months here. Here are my opinions-

The good points- The students are fantastic and very enjoyable to teach.
Its not a bad little town, yes you can go a little stir crazy and there is not much to do but its not as bad as some people make out.

Ok now the bad points Your hours can be at all hours of the day and once you start getting sent to pemex the trouble really starts.

Unless your a girl (and blond hair helps) a lot of the guys at pemex are not that interested and cancel frequently leaving you waiting around for your next class. And most of the time the school does not ring to tell you they have cancelled.

Martin one of the main bosses will try to screw you out of any money he can get his hands on.
During my period there they didnt pay the phone bill so we had no phone for the last 4 months.
They also didnt pay the electricity bill on time leaving us sweltering on one of the hottest days ive had here in our casa without light etc.

Then Martin tried to get me to pay for a third of the bill which was unfair as he had let numerous teachers come and go without paying nada.

Limited resources and not really any help (although Gerry tries).
They gave me so much trouble with hours etc and then when id had enough and said thats it im out of here they wanted to screw me for the work visa.

If you can get enough hours at the school its fine but pemex was shit.
Guys go on conferences etc for upto a month and you dont get paid.

They have screwed other teachers since I have been here as well and overall I wouldnt recommend it unless your female of course.

Oh and the accommodation was ok but for the one bathroom which was no good due to a blocked shower and dodgy toilet which they just ignore and the problems with the phone, power, tv etc.

Plenty of other places in Mexico better than ABC and that being typicaly Australian understated.

Anyway thats enough about Martin and ABC hasta luego Hagel.

[J Sevigny]

Jeez, I hope you weren't teaching those Pemex guys how to write e-mails.

[TEFL anonymous]

I arranged a job with ABC from another country about 3 months before I came, but when I got here and tried to arrange meeting up, Martin said that he'd be a couple more weeks because of holidays and things. Seemed a bit dodgy, but ok.
The free flat that they offer wasn't available to me since I would be the only teacher in my city working for them - new contract etc etc etc. So they'd give me $50 pm. Hmmm. Better than nothing?
Then, after a few weeks of me desperately asking him when we could meet and him saying dates and then delaying, he said that although he'd agreed with me previously to come to the city where I'd be working, actually he'd like me to do the 4 hour travel to see him in his office. Not the introduction to where I would be working etc etc like we'd agreed.
The next chapter in this tale involves Martin saying that yes, he knew that I needed to start my visa application, but actually the business that I had agreed to work in hadn't actually confirmed that they wanted him to provide another English teacher. So would I be prepared to go to work in his office 'for a while'? I'd been here 7 weeks and no, I wasn't prepared to do that. He never replied again about whether there would actually be a contract or a job for me in the city that we had arranged.

I'd give them a miss and I never even got to meet them!

[mapache]

Gee this Martin guy sounds like one of the owners of private schools in Villahermosa or Tuxtla.

[canadian_girl]

I have been working for ABC English in Poza Rica Veracruz since June of 2009 and I love it. The bosses are great guys who really do all they can to help you. I have phone and internet and i've never had a problem. You work at Pemex and the school which means you never get bored of being in the same place. The pemex guys do cancel their classes quite often but that is simply because they're engineers who have a lot to do. I arraged a cell phone here and my students all send me messages if they cannot make it to a class. ABC also provides a minimum monthly salarly because they are aware that the Pemex guys cancel a lot. I had my work visa done in about a month and a half which is actually fairly quick for this country. They provide materials but give you all the freedom you could want in how you teach the material and what you choose to add to it. They are also very open to any suggestions and ideas you have for the programs. Overall I don't know where they got this negative rap but I love it here.

[geaaronson]

Hmmmmm. Any person who has posted only twice since joining Dave`s. Makes me suspicious. Big red flag there.

[leslie]

Bye

[canadian_girl]

I just received my account here a few days ago and i noticed some negative posts about my current employer so I wanted to set the record straight about them. Also there must be someone with a similar user name because I have never posted in any forum other than the Latin America one. I started teaching a year ago and have only been in Mexico. Sorry for any confusion and I'm sorry if you don't believe what I've written but I stand by it.

[EverReady]

[geaaronson]

The question is, did you hijack someone elses handle or is there an actual difference in names, canadian girl?

[jillford64]

One has an underscore between canadian and girl and the other has a hyphen. The search function picked them both up.

[canadian_girl]

I just looked. The one posting in Taiwan is canadian-girl, I'm canadian_girl. really not much of a difference. Also my name is not Martin it's Sandy. [/quote]