Job Discussion Forums

[Little Tiger]

Jining Aston � A Years Experience

This post is a warning to all those considering working for Aston - Jining, I can't vouch for all other branches but from what I have heard most are the same if not worse.

Initially I arrived in Jining on a Friday night after a flight up from Guangdong and a 3 hour bus ride from Jinan, my welcome was like this � dropped off at my flat and then frog-marched to the school where I was then given my teaching schedule for the term and told to prepare my classes for the following morning. I was given an hours training earlier that day at a branch in Jinan that I had to pay 100RMB for, thank god I did a 120hr TEFL before I arrived or I would have been totally lost.

A couple of weeks later they decided to sort out my visa, me and a couple of new teachers were 'taken' to Suzhou where the boss had some friends. There we had to do our physical and we met a lady from Web English who apparently would be processing our visas for us, as we found out Aston didn't have the authority to hire foreigners a fact that had never been mentioned up till this point. Some official stuff was done and I was sent back to the school passport-less.

At this point I'll say it took Aston another 2-3 months to get my passport back to me, with a visa I have recently found out is still illegal to teach on and the FEC given to me was FAKE as I have found out since applying for renewal. During the time I was waiting for my passport I was told by the boss of the branch that I was not allowed to leave my apartment unless I was coming to school, as the police were looking for foreigners to deport � if they couldn't provide basic identification. A blatant scare tactic that I completely ignored.

During this time one of the new foreigners was fired, for nothing other than having a 'slightly' lower heartbeat than usual on her physical though she seemed perfectly healthy to me and the other left hating the school. If only I'd listened to him more closely. Anyway this left 3 of us with the work of 5, but whatever I enjoyed teaching my kids so I didn't complain.

During the contract I think almost every month one aspect or another of my utilities were not paid, power, water, Internet I've lost it all and if I had added up the amount of time I spent over a year without power it would probably be over 2 weeks this included having no power for the whole Christmas holidays. Now as a teacher it is our responsibility to pay our bills, but the company does the 'leg work' the value is just taken out of our pay � which they never forget to do, even when they have not paid our bills. The standard answer when I complained about having no power or water is this �It is not Astons' responsibility to provide you with electricity / water / insert utility here, we do it for you as a favour� as if you are supposed to be thankful for that.

I have since left Aston but they continue to be a pain in my a$$, when I left I was given my letter of release / Chinese recommendation letter I asked Chinese Manager to redo my letter as all of the dates contradicted each other. Now I was told that it didn't matter as long as the date for release was correct, in my naive foolishness I believed the guy, they gave me my FEC and I left. Now during my visa renewal I found out my visa was wrong but the guy kindly over looked this, he did tell me though I had to get a new LoR with correct dates and that Aston had to hand my FEC into the Shandong government and get it signed off. He would need this receipt and a correct LoR before he could finish the renewal process. I express mailed the documents back to Aston with a list of details in English and Chinese about what needed to be done and what we expected back, I was told by Aston that nothing would be done until I gave them money for it. Thankfully my Foreign Manager managed to convince them to do it without payment (unless he paid them without telling me which is highly likely), but it goes to show what kind of spiteful organisation they are.

Blatant racism. The owner of the school said he would not hire any black people, claiming he did not want them in his school. I know racism can be common in certain parts of China, but I've never heard of it being expressed so openly by someone in a position of 'supposed' respect.
Our Foreign Manager arranged for the foreign teachers to have Christmas Eve off work, this was agreed by all managers in E-mails and to our faces � as the foreign manager was going back to the US for the holiday, he felt it was important we were all on the same page. As soon as he left we were told that no arrangement was ever made for us having a day off and that if we didn't work Christmas Eve we 'would be punished'. This says a lot to me about how they think they can treat their foreign teachers, if there is an opportunity to screw you. They will screw you. For no reason other than they can do it.


I'll mention now how a couple of other foreigners were treated while I was there, I'll list just 2 major issues as this is going to be a very long post already.

One guy who had been working for Aston for 2 years had an issue with his bathroom during the Spring Festival, apparently it was leaking water to the apartment underneath. They told him he had 2 choices, live in his apartment with no water or pay for his own hotel during the week and a half it would take to fix. When he inquired about why he had to pay for these expenses he was told �It is not Astons' responsibility to provide you with a working bathroom, only the items to be used.� So by that logic they can give you an apartment with a disconnected toilet and claim they have fulfilled their responsibility. This says a lot about how much they value their long term employees.

Another couple started work at the beginning of my second term, they had to leave the country after 6 months for a few weeks so they didn't want to sign a year and lose all their holiday time. To punish them for not signing for a year Aston only gave them a visa that lasted until their final day of teaching, now as far as I am aware an employer should provide and extra month so that a teacher has time to go through the process of renewal. In their case they were going to use this time to re-enter china and start the process again, but Aston made their lives hell for 6 months constantly taking their passports claiming to offer them an extension then giving them back with no extensions and then asking for the passports back. Filling their time there with unnecessary stress and worry, purely because they had wanted to take some time off before considering resigning. It was only when one of them snapped and said �give us back our passports we'll just have to leave a week early in order to make our plane without an overstay� that they finally sorted it out.

I'm sure I have more stories but these are the ones that most stick in my mind, I'm sorry for the length of the post and my bad spelling and/or grammar there was a lot to get off my mind and it all tumbled out quite quickly. The foreign manager was the only person in management with any brains and to highlight that point after his current contract is up the school will not be filling his post, so after this term there will be no foreign manager.

I would advise anyone thinking of signing a contract with the branch to SERIOUSLY consider all of your options, it's really not worth the hassle.

[wenzo]

This was a good read for me. I am at language studying chinese. Everything
thing is all hunky dory. But I sense chinese management has a evil side yet to be revealed. Always stay alert.

[Dr. Dow]

I've experienced lack of power, off and on, for around 2 weeks total too over the past 8 months at Huashang College in Guangdong. It was out for 3 hours this afternoon.

2 very cold nights in January sent me off the ledge. I'm seriously thinking about bailing out tomorrow morning and going home. I really don't care about the pittance they pay me or their stunard students.

I will write a review soon. But, for now, this school is a pass unless you enjoy being isolated on the compound.

[seamallowance]

I thought that there were enough warnings about this particular Aston franchise, but I guess not. (User name) Tetris had unusually bad experiences there as well. Plus, Jining is a miserable place to boot. The only place worse than Jining is Weishan.

Now then: for those thinking about taking a wonderful teaching opportunity in Jining, don't do it! Consider this your warning.

[flyingscotsman]

[Dr. Dow]

You are a funny guy. Pass the scungilli. Give me some bread too while you're at it.

[Little Tiger]

I didn't realize there were other topics on this branch, but it doesn't surprise me..

[lee_barttwater]

Really? I don't buy it - the story that is.

Besides, if any of it is true, the "teacher" opened him/herself up to this sort of abuse by waiting on the sidelines for more than 3 days without demanding the passport be returned, calling the embassy, calling the Foreign Expert Bureau, health department, etc. You have legal recourse, so use it - otherwise, zip-it. Far, far too many use these boards online to play the game of disgruntled employee.

[LongShiKong]

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[Little Tiger]

[Little Tiger]

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[LongShiKong]