Job Discussion Forums

[AaronFisher]

OMEGA LANGUAGE INSTITUTE � SHANGHAI

I wouldn�t recommend you work at Omega.

I was at Omega for almost a year and left two months ago. At that time it was a bit of a shambles � nothing too unusual for China, I guess. The upside is that they always paid on time (although, I hear from my friends, who are still there, that recently they have refused to pay �12 month service� bonuses. I�m not sure of the ins-and-outs but, currently, business is very bad and I thing the purse strings are being pulled VERY tight).

The location (Qingpu) is a long way from central Shanghai (45-60 mins depending on traffic). There is nothing to see/do in Qingpu itself. The school has a bus service which, while I was there, was not reliable and the 60-70 yuan cost for taxi�s was annoying.

They have started a kindergarten in recent times. This has proven quite successful. If you are going to teach at the kindergarten you should be okay. If you are teaching on any of the other programs, you should be careful. You will be lucky if you still have job in 3-6 months. While I was there they were already making noises about closing down everything except the profitable kindergarten (in fact, I hear they are soon to open a second kindergarten for Korean (sic) kids).

They also talk about a swimming pool, table tennis, snooker, etc, on their website. These used to be free to staff and students. Now Omega no longer owns these facilities themselves, they make you pay for it.

The two, Taiwanese, managing directors have the charisma, business acumen and personal skills of a dead squid. They, for the duration of my time there, treated people badly (particularly the Chinese staff) and created a real atmosphere of �them and us�. There was and is little motivation amongst the foreign teachers to do a good job for a couple of bozos who treat them with utter disrespect.

If you have no other options, I would say go to Omega for the short term (while you look for another job) but, if you have the choice, KEEP AWAY!

Hope this helps.

If in doubt, ask to speak with some current foreign teachers who work there (although there are not many left � about 5, I am told. � Even the DOS has quit!!)

[dractalks]

"May-yi Shaw" <[email protected]

There are always complainers and whiners in every company. It often happens that only the whiners would make posts as such but people who leave Omega with positive attitude move on pursuing what's best ahead of them. I'm sorry that this post has changed your decision, but also being a foreign staff here working for Omega, I can tell you with full honesty of my heart that there are things in the post that are absolutely not true. I wish that teachers who have worked here with great integrity or positive experiences would also sit down and spend equal amount of time writing up posts listing the upsides of the story. But of course, they don't and it isn't necessary.

Regards,

May-yi
[email protected]

[Gray000]

How did you get his profile password?