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march72
Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 13
Location: Guangzhou
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 Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:38 am Post subject: Changing jobs to a new Province |
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Can anyone with more experience enlighten me on changing jobs in China?
I have just read on another post that changing your job for a job in the same province, mid-contract, is very difficult. But the writer hinted that if you leave your job and find another one in another province, that things would be much simpler�Perhaps even presenting no problems at all.
The job I'm in is presenting a real strain as I have to commute and hour and a half one-way to work and they have me teaching one class in the early morning and one in the late evening. This was not mentioned to me before the job, of course, and as it turns out I'm spending 12 hours a day strapped to my job instead of 15 hours a week (which is my contract.) Also, they�re starting to talk about teachers taking taxis at their own expense (which adds up at 40-50RMB each way.)
If you have experience in China, your insight would be greatly appreciated. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:28 am Post subject: Re: Changing jobs to a new Province |
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| march72 wrote: |
| The job I'm in is presenting a real strain as I have to commute and hour and a half one-way to work and they have me teaching one class in the early morning and one in the late evening. |
Is it not possible for you to move to some accommodation nearer to your school? My wife and I have just done that. Now it will take me about ten minutes to get from the bus stop outside our gated community to the bus stop opposite the one I used to get off at in order to walk five minutes to my school. Before, from February to July this year, I commuted up to 1 3/4 hours each way, and it was so exhausting, even if it was cheap as I always took two buses from my home to school, costing no more than 4 RMB each way (depending upon whether it was a new bus with air-conditioning or an old bus without it).
| march72 wrote: |
| This was not mentioned to me before the job, of course, and as it turns out I'm spending 12 hours a day strapped to my job instead of 15 hours a week (which is [in] my contract). Also, they�re starting to talk about teachers taking taxis at their own expense (which adds up at 40-50 RMB each way.) |
My advice is simple: these people are exploiting you and you have to make a decision on this. However, I imagine that the "15 hours per week" you mentioned may be just teaching hours in the classroom alone. When you mention "12 hours per day", that time may include preparation time for lessons and other activities, including any administration duties, which you may have to carry out as part of your contract. Check it carefully to see exactly what it says. However, even 12 hours per day at the school is excessive. A normal working day should be no more than 8 hours, or else an accumulated total of 40 hours per week would not make any full-time employee bat an eyelid.
As for the school talking about making teachers fork out for taxi fares at their own expense, alarm bells should be ringing. Get clarification as soon as possible on this matter. To me, 50 RMB represents a journey of more than 20 kilometres, and waiting time in peak hours may raise that even further, especially when opportunist taxi drivers take you via roads known to be severely clogged up with traffic, just so that they have the satisfaction of seeing the fare rise and, hence, their foreign passenger pay more money.
If it turns out that the school says that you do have to pay out of your own pocket, negotiate for an allowance. Negotiating is part of Chinese business practice, and, even if you think you are a teacher, not a business person, you can still try and negotiate something. Even the school management could not possibly expect something utterly ludicrous as a teacher having to spend up to 50 RMB each way every day of his or her own salary, especially if he or she is earning precious little, anyway.
If no allowance is going to be paid, then I have one other piece of advice: LEAVE THE SCHOOL - or, at the very least, say that you cannot be expected to spend so much of your salary on taxi fares that it would force you to rethink your position as a teacher at that school. No school in its right mind should make their teachers pay up to 100 RMB a day on taxis - that is LUDICROUS.  |
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cujobytes
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1031
Location: Zhuhai, (Sunny South) China.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:36 am Post subject: |
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| Or you could just move closer to the school. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:47 am Post subject: Why not just take the bus? |
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| I wrote: |
| Is it not possible for you to move to some accommodation nearer to your school? |
| cujobytes wrote: |
| Or you could just move closer to the school. |
Or you could just take buses, just as I did until last month.
Aren't there any well-connected bus routes from your home to your school, march72? I would suggest buying one of those Chinese city road maps which should have bus routes marked out on them, then you could (perhaps with the help of somebody from the school or else another local) work out the routes you would have to take. That's what I do whenever I go somewhere unfamiliar, and I do not even need my wife's help to do it!
Getting the bus over such a long distance inevitably means having to get up unbelievably early, especially if one has an early morning class. I remember having to extricate myself out of bed at 05.45 for an 08.30 class. Not very pleasant, but I got used to it, and, thankfully, the long commute is now history since the move to my and my wife's new flat. |
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march72
Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 13
Location: Guangzhou
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:40 am Post subject: Thanks Everyone |
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I appreciate all the advice so quickly! I'll try to respond appropriately.
Yes, there are well connected and cheap busses available and I know how to use them. One of the problems is the way the classes are arranged. One is at 9:15 and the other is at 7:15. The 9:15 is 90 minutes (no big deal) and the 7:15 is 120 minutes (no big deal.) The drag is that I'm up at six and almost always crawling into bed at midnight.
These people are not money stupid. They have taken a security deposit of 2000rmb and I won't get it back if I move. I will also have to put down another deposit somewhere else. The owner of the school rents apartments a long way away to save the company money. This is a six month contract so I don't think moving, at my expense, is the most efficient solution.
There are four schools and they are located, each, at the opposite ends of Guangzhou - which is a big place. So, moving to one school wouldn't necessarily resolve the problem.
I agree with Chriss_Crossley in that I'm being taken advantage of to save the school a couple hundred RMB a month on rent. When I did the phone interview I was told I would have much time to pursue my own interests, but as it turns out, that's only if I carry all of my interests around with me. I have asked to have the times of my classes lumped closer together but I simply get a wide smile and "Sorry, it is impossible." I think they are being pretty deceitful.
There is another thing that really irritated me. When I did the phone interview they were desperate for a summer teacher and I told them they would have to pay, in full, for my airline ticket (minus the throw away leg to Hong Kong I bought to satisfy immigration) and after I got a quote for the ticket they told me (now this guy is a native English speaker that I talked to) "We can definitely work with that number." So I bought the ticket and flew out here. As it turns out, what they meant by "we can work with that number," meant they would work around it. After I got here they refused to pay more than 50% of it.
I probably won't see that either because the whole operation is set up to take advantage of the teacher.
As for the taxis, I've come to this decision. NO! And that's basically the only answer they'll get.
So, I really appreciate all of your responses. They have certainly helped. But I am still stuck with the question of how to leave this school (as Chris_Crossley) suggested. The work visa (Z) is in my passport and I'm not sure what to do about it. I have a second passport I could use, but I'm trying to save it for last resort and emergency situations.
Do you have any ideas about the last question? Obviously, trickery is a business model out here...too bad for me. I will loose everything I invested coming out here - but that's better than working for this school.
By the way, there is no prep time for lessons and the only admin work is report cards once a month. I simply walk in and teach a chapter out of NewInterchange and, occasionally, New Parade.
Thanks again. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:12 am Post subject: Passports and other documentation |
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| march72 wrote: |
| But I am still stuck with the question of how to leave this school (as Chris_Crossley) suggested. The work visa (Z) is in my passport and I'm not sure what to do about it. I have a second passport I could use, but I'm trying to save it for last resort and emergency situations. Do you have any ideas about the last question? |
The second passport is, I am afraid to say, useless if it does not have any visa in it that allowed you to enter China in the first place. Unlike some countries in the world, China checks people trying to leave as well as enter. Trying to leave China by showing them a passport without the proper visa and/or other documentation that certifies that you are/were legit in the country in the first place is a definite no-no. You can get into very big trouble if you tried it.
The work visa (Z) was issued to you on the condition that you would work at the school that sponsored you, since they would have had to have sent you a proper letter of invitation, which you would then have had to take or send to the nearest PRC embassy or consulate-general in the country you were in when you applied for it.
Once you were in China, you would go to your school and obtain both a Foreign Expert Certificate (FEC) and a Residence Permit for Foreigners (RPF) to certify that you are legitimate, but only for that particular employer. The RPF is a visa-like stamp, which automatically replaces the Z visa once you are in-country, and the FEC is a passport-type booklet which has the name and address of your employer in it. (I assume you have both of these, yes?)
Changing employers within China means having to return the FEC to your employer, but the RPF is still valid until the expiry date, since it is still in your passport and it is, as the name implies, a residence permit. Hence, you can still try and find another job within China if you feel that you do not want to stay with your current school.
Fellow poster Volodiya is one of the forum's "resident experts" on such matters. Have a look through his posts. You will find them quite informative on the matter of the proper documentation and how to go about getting it if and when your situation changes when you are in China.
I have changed my full-time employers (as it were) three times since coming to China in October 2001, though I worked part-time (0.8 FTE) with my current school for 5 months this year before being offered a full-time contract with them. Happily, I have hardly encountered any problems with the Public Security Bureau (PSB) in getting the proper papers, but you are required to come to the PSB yourself, usually with a member of the local admin staff from your school, to have a personal interview with a PSB officer.
At one time, one of my full-time jobs (in Shanghai, not Wuhan) ended fairly quickly and, having returned to Wuhan, I had to go to the local PSB (along with my wife) simply because I had come back to China on a tourist visa in December 2003 and the school I had worked for for just 18 days had not yet got around to issuing any Z visa. I therefore had to fork out 160 RMB in order to have an extension put into my passport, which was valid for three months. This meant that I had time to find another job, which I did pretty quickly. I should also add that my having a Chinese wife meant that I did not have to go all the way to HK to have a new Z visa issued; everything was done locally, and I did not have to go anywhere outside Wuhan.
Hence, if you find yourself in a situation where you feel that working for that school is no longer what you want, you can inquire at the local PSB what the position is. The chances are that you will be able to get that Z visa cancelled and replaced by some kind of extension visa that will show that you are no longer working for any particular school but that you are nevertheless legally resident in China, albeit temporarily, without the 12-month long RPF stuck in the passport.
If in doubt, get a local to help you and both of you go to the PSB to find out what you need to do. Don't feel you must leave China immediately you are out of a job, because that is not necessary. |
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