Job Discussion Forums

[StayingPower]

Is working 8+ hours but only getting paid for four usual here?

You all might know what company I work for, which I don't wish to divulge. But the work overload!

It seems I could find better, seeing that I only get paid 37,000 a month-after taxes-so I wonder.

I took the job because it offered the legal means to work here. Yet it's quite slavish. So I wonder if you all put your foot down to extra curricular work responsibilities or if you just accept it all.

[Dr_Zoidberg]

I tend to look at the big picture: How the relationship is with my employer overall. I have yet to refuse any extracurricular work my current employer has requested, indeed, I have even offered to do more (though that has more to do with the relationship with my students). At the same time, my employer respects his employees, and so never asks for anything unreasonable.

In the past I have interviewed at schools that demanded office hours equal to half the teaching hours. I said no thank you, and walked away. Accepting 37000NT for 74000NT's worth of work brings PT Barnum's axiom to mind.

[markholmes]

I would say working 15 minutes for free for every paid hour is ok. What you are doing is not reasonable.

How long have you been teaching? It is usual in the beginning to have to put in a lot of extra free time to get up and running, but after a couple of months this should drop considerably.

Spill the beans - who do you work for?

[Ki]

Wow! and I thought that I got screwed royally when I first came to Taiwan. There is always a degree of give and take but this really takes the cake. For example, I think that unpaid telephone teaching is unacceptable, and I did lose a job opportunity over that. Probably for the best though.

I like to use 600 an hour as a base line for work. Any more is a bonus. Any less is not worth my time, unless I'm desperate, etc.

I would hate to break a contract but you need to do so. Break it. Do it now. Get out of it while you still can, despite whatever threats they make. But give notice and play the rules. Because being black listed for life doesn't sound like a great option.

[clark.w.griswald]

If everything else with the job is good, then you could up losing more than you gain by making an issue of this, but you should set some limits if you can do so. Lesson preparation is pretty much a given here and in most cases the actual class time is only 45-50 minutes, so 10-15 spent on class preparation rounds out the hour. A new teacher will of course spend more time preparing than an experienced one however.

If any business can get their staff to work a little bit extra with out the need to pay them then I think that they will generally try to do this. That said, it is everyone's right to select a job that allows you to clock in and clock out on time every day. But I suspect that those types of jobs are not generally very challenging.

Personally I avoid any extra unpaid work except on rare occasions and where I choose to do it rather than being required to do it. An example may be spending extra unpaid time with a student who is entering in an English speaking contest etc. I don't mind being asked to help out, but I would not appreciate any consequences for not being available to do so.

My belief is that if it is important enough that I should have to stay back after work to do something, then it is important enough for the school to pay me for my time.

[sbettinson]

I think Staying Power is working at Hess and as a new person to the company, most of your time in the first few months is unpaid. It's just part of the process in getting set up and into the flow of things. When I first started out I was doing the same but after a few months, my lesson planning time etc dropped considerably.

Hess give you homework which you must grade and that can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on difficult the homework was for the students. The homework is not the highpoint of the job but it does give you a benchmark of how well your students are learning and what you need to focus on in class more.

Hess buxiban classes are 2 hours in length. 20 minutes of that time is actually breaktime, so you have 20 minutes of freetime which you can consider as paid time to either prep a lesson or grade homework, depending on how you look at it.

I thought about quitting on many occasions during my first year here and the reasons were long unpaid hours. However, the people I work with I really enjoy being around and I love my students. Well, most of them anyway!

[clark.w.griswald]

It seems to me that the requirement of class planning is a fair one and as Shaun says, once you get familiar with the school the time you spend on this becomes less of a problem.

I don't understand why a teacher should be required to correct homework for free though? If this is stated clearly in the contract then fair enough I suppose, but I don't think that it is right of a school to require this.

Why not get the Chinese assistants to mark the homework during the foreign teachers teaching hour?

If it is considered that there is a value to the foreign teacher to do this him or herself and the school feels that this is important, then why not pay the teachers an admin fee (half their teaching wage or something) for this extra work.

[StayingPower]

I respect both Clark's and Shettinson's replies as well as everyone elses. Shettinson hit the snail on the head and Clark the snail on the toe.

Thanks, but either way it's going to clam up and there's really not anything I think I can do. So I'm just taking it all in stride and contemplated-yes, feeling God's even ready to take a swing-on bearing down with the gavel. But. . .

You know I've got a dog now, a few turtles. I live at the end of the line, no where to go but up the river or down, maybe way down South.

Oh, it's all just nonsense, me thinks. I guess if I quit I have to pay 20,000 NT so if they fire me it's no skin off my big nose.

One of you said it right, however, when you said it "is unreasonable." I think this is just a characteristic here and I can't take it seriously. Unless it seriously impedes what is deemed serious.

[BigWally]

If you're considering a move "way down south" and you're referring to the "Dirty South" aka "K-Town", here's some numbers to chew on.

As a 1st year teacher, with no teaching experience, no B.Ed degree (yet), I am easily clearing over $50000/mth after taxes. I'm sure my living expenses are half of what yours are too, if in fact you're living in Taipei.

I split rent of a 2 floor loft apt with my gf, and we pay $5000/mth each for our rent, and our utils work out to about $1500/mth each. Not to mention I have a beautiful view of the K-Town skyline, right beside a lake which helps keep the pollution out of my face when I go out on the balcony in the morning for my coffee.

No sense waiting around to make the move, if you're being worked like a slave, paid like a slave, why not make a move like the slaves did, and emancipate yourself. There are plenty of jobs available that you will work similar paid hours, where you can put your books down at the end of the day and go home, not stick around for an extra few hours of unpaid work.

I've been on the job for about 4 full months now, and I would say I do no more than 4 extra hours of unpaid work each week. Sure the first month or 2 I did more unpaid work, as with any new job you need to learn, but now I arrive at school typically 30 to 45 mins before my 1st class to plan my schedule for the day and mark homework. That way I am on my way out the door at the end of the day. Nothing more, would you do the same (working so many unpaid hours) for an employer back home? I didnt think so.

Ganbei!

[trukesehammer]

You guys are carping about having to work extra hours without getting paid... in Taiwan?
No offense, but where the heck do you think you are, France?

[StayingPower]

Is this HESS?