Job Discussion Forums

[lagerlout2006]

Me? The people I work with are insane and I don't mean that in a nice way. I have my moments but I am a Rhodes scholar compared to the people around. I thought the inane were all elsewhere. I look out my door and there is not a sane person anywhere.

What are your co-horts like??????

[WorkingVaca]

Insane? No. Immature and INANE? Yes. I have a lot of co-workers who still think getting drunk is the height of worldly experience and talk about it ad nauseum. Not to mention the young guys (and some older ones too, especially in SEA) obsessed with "the women" in the foreign country. Surprisingly few of my co-workers are teaching ESL as an excuse to travel, but as a reason to have access to "cheap beer," whoopty-doo, and to be a small-time celebrity among their students and the locals in the pubs. They're lazy about learning the language and use their vacation time to get drunk and/or do drugs and sleep all day instead of travel. Insane? No. Boring? Yes.

[Atlas]

All of my colleagues are respectable professionals.

uh-oh, maybe I'm the freak....

[Shaman]

Flakes, Freaks, Spazzes, and Geeks,
That's what this job is made of.

(Thankfully, not always )

Shaman

[khmerhit]

Used to. Speed freaks and junkies. Good people, some of them. Some of them were desperate. Some of them are dead. Not like high school, I'll say that.

[denise]

Atlas--

You're not alone. I, too, am blessed with professional colleagues. They take their jobs seriously, but they're still loads of fun away from school.

d

[Ben Round de Bloc]

I also work with people that I consider professionals who take their jobs seriously. That's not to say that we don't laugh and have a good time with each other at school sometimes, however. I can't say that I work with anyone I'd call all that freaky or weird, although I do get along with some coworkers better than others, which is only normal, I think. I believe most of my coworkers would say these same things about me . . . although I'm not 100% sure about that.

[ls650]

One of my co-workers was incredibly paranoid and had serious mental issues. Thankfully he has left and is apparently no longer in teaching!
The rest are reasonably 'normal' - whatever that means.

[Joachim]

I once worked with a guy who got fired after too weeks (and this was in Indonesia, so that's really saying something!).

He would smoke during class, come on to all female staff members and all female students over the age of 14 (he was about 50), blew 4 Million rupiah on 3 hookers in one night, and eventually my colleague had to beat him up. We cheered.

[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

I work with a dude who we all agree on is very strange. We call this guy Ted Bundy behind his back. I work in the public library here in Hangzhou and he kept "messing" with the shopkeeper who ran the snack/drink/suppily counter. Gave her a fake coin once and laughed when she got mad.

We sometimes teach a young low level learner who is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 Russian. (She looks Chinese in the face, but has white skin, weighs maybe 90 lbs soaking wet, not bad looking) This girl smokes and "crazy dude" supposedly walked by her and jerked the cigarette from her mouth, and supposdely threw some of her papers across the room. Obviously, 1/2 Chinese 1/2 Russian girl was upset, and fairly pissed off.

The dude likes to try to pick up our students for dates. Some say this is wrong, I think it's cool if I and the other party know each other a while and feel the feelings are mutual

Lastly, my boss (who is a young guy) his girlfriend myself and him went to a bar. I don't know why I went, but I did (free beer?) We were talking and crazy guy was mentioning that Chinese girls have small *beep*, then went to my boss and told him that he appreciates "a nice set of jugs" (if he commented on my wife like that, I would have agreed with him and proppelled him a right hook to the jaw) with the girlfriend sitting RIGHT THERE (and I am very fond of her), then goes on about why do men want to (have sex) with a ribcage. That statement cleared the table. I went outside and told the boss that Saturday night only comes once a week, and I am not spening it with psycho boy. I got extremely drunk that night to erase the "ribcage' statement from my collective memory.

Problem is the boss wont fire him because he is a crappy manager, and it is hard for him to find full time help. The dude does not bother me, but I wont socialize with him. He does not drink/smoke/party and my friends hate him so we dont have to see or deal with him after hours.

Senor

[Otterman Ollie]

Hi

Most of the people I've worked with in the last 7-8 years are well on the way to being totally brain dead ,they have spent too much time over here talking in pigeon English and fluent Turkish they have basically lost the plot . Like a previous poster I don't bother to socalize with my work brethern,too much baggage emotional and otherstuff . Some are so anal retentive its just unbelieveable ,got my fingers burnt a couple of times now I just avoid them like the plague .

[scot47]

Ottomam Oliver !

Pigeon English - strictly for the birds !

Maybe you mean "pidgin English" ?

But I agree that we come a cross a lot of damaged people in this line. What gets me are the ones who have forgotten their native tongue but only learnt 50 words of a new one. When they speak in "Macaronic" I feel distinctly uneasy !

[guest of Japan]

Hey, the truth hurts. Play nice.

[ls650]

But how do you know that YOU are the sane one and the others are insane?

Maybe it's the other way around....

[Clancy]

We have a pretty representative group at our uni.

6 have English degrees. 12 do not.

16 are native speakers. 2 are not.

3 date students. 15 do not.

1 is deranged. 16 are not. 1 we are not so sure about.

16 straight - 1 gay - 1 stud

4 old farts - the rest a bunch of kids.

2 phds - 2 phd candidates - rest with BA in something or other!