Job Discussion Forums

[foreignDevil]

I am just finishing up at a small language school here in the south, and already have a contract with a much better and bigger school. My leaving was due to the usual reasons- pay problems, incompetent management, blablabla. I won't go into that here. What I do want to address is related to the frequent pleas made by people on this forum to not accept low salary conditions, etc.

One of the specific reasons for my leaving was because my boss had the bad habit of calling me at 7:30 sunday morning and saying there were prospective students at school waiting to be evaluated. He would say "you have thirty minutes to get here." Hahahaha.

When I confronted him about this, his answer was that "none of the other foreign teachers who worked here ever had a problem with working at short notice." Now, he may very well have been full of it, and may have just been saying that as a negotiating tactic. But I want to say to all you teachers out there, especially younger ones: PLEASE don't tolerate this kind of behavior from your school. Yes, many contracts do specify that the teacher must work hours "as scheduled by the school". But the operative word here is "schedule". It is so easy to find a job here...don't put up with a school that thinks you are "on call" 24 hours a day. There are many other schools that are bigger, more financially stable, and consequently provide much more stable teaching schedules.

[MyTurnNow]

Amen, brother, amen. This kind of horsesh!t is intolerable. Don't let yourself get bulled into it...and people here will try it.

One of the best secrets of working here sanely is to buy a phone with an answering machine. When you go to bed, turn off your mobile and the ringer on your main phone, and turn on the answering machine with the sound volume all the way down.

It turns out that Chinese people HATE answering machines and rarely leave messages. Even if they do leave one, you can control when you listen to it and you won't be real-time with your manager. These devices are worth their weight in gold here. You'll have to spend some time convincing Chinese people you actually want to hear from that they really should leave a message if they want to talk to you...

MT

[Gordon]

What a brutal boss. How long did you last at the school?

You're right that if there are people who will accept that kind of treatment, schools will never change. They will push you as far as they can or as long as you will tolerate it.

[Steiner]

Last semester my wife and I taught one afternoon a week at a jr. high school. Thursdays. We went in every Thursday at 1pm, loaned out from the HS we normally teach at. One Thursday we got a call at 7am telling us that we had to come immediately and that they were sending a car for us. It seems there was an official inspection and they wanted us there for it.

We told them no. But our contact was a Chinese English teacher, and we're pretty sure she was under some duress from her boss--we'd seen him treat her pretty roughly once, pulling her pretty violently by the arm before yelling at her about something--so she kept calling during the next half hour. We kept saying sorry but we'll be there at one. She called our FAO at the high school and they both showed up at our door at about 8:30. We argued back and forth for the next hour, my wife and I still in our pajamas, and in the end were pretty much ordered by our FAO to go. But we got the concession that any further schedule changes had to be cleared with us at least a day beforehand.

We got to the school about 10:30am, but since the schedule was messed up because of the inspection only ended up teaching 2 of our 6 classes. The government officials never even saw us.

We don't teach there anymore. And it was the last jr. high we'll ever teach at, but that's for different reasons....

[MyTurnNow]

I've gotten pretty good at ignoring knocks on my door, too...especially at 8:30 am.
MT

[MonkeyKing]

One foreign teacher who arrived at my school was too nice to say a direct 'no' to any request. Pretty soon, she was working almost round the clock, at the beck and call of anyone at the school who 'needed' a foreigner (all for free, I might add). I am only exaggerating a little...I swear we thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown and/or a heart attack.
Learn to be rude, that's what I say.

[foreignDevil]

I really can't characterize my experience as "brutal"...i'm not gonna be posting my school on the information journal or anything. Or maybe I just became innured to the 'hardships'? Who knows?

I guess the one warning I would give to anyone securing a position in China for the first time is: be wary of small language schools. My boss was certainly not "brutal"...but the usual stereotypical behavior of Chinese management (lack of planning, lack of ability or willingness to disseminate info from the top-down, etc) coupled with the small size of the school (which meant it's profit margin fluctutated from morning to afternoon)... all of this combined to create a situation that most people from the West would find highly............."different", to say the least.

[foreignDevil]

p.s........i like the answering machine suggestion. thanks!!!

[wanderlust1066]

Yeah, sounds like good advice. For those foolish enough to ever work for a private training centre in China, I would suggest demanding - upon the signing of the contract - that there be written into that contract a clause setting out financial compensation for being telephoned at home. This is as there is simply no need; if the timetable if being compiled professionally everything will be planned well ahead. If it is an emergency, then they can call you - as long as they are willing to pay for it. I would suggest a 'fee' of no less than 200 Yuan per 'phone call. That way they may begin to think twice.

[latefordinner]

MTN posts:
One of the best secrets of working here sanely is to buy a phone with an answering machine. When you go to bed, turn off your mobile and the ringer on your main phone, and turn on the answering machine with the sound volume all the way down.

My solution was to get a laptop and leave the phone line plugged into it whenever I'm at home. I bought a mobile phone for my own use. The boss had to ask me for my private number a few times before I would give it to him. At night however I leave it plugged in to the recharger, so if I don't want to be bothered, I won't be.

That said, I haven't had the extreme dificulties that foreigndevil and steiner have reported. Am I being paranoid, or merely proactive? Paranoia will destroy ya... if they don't get you first.

[Roger]

Even better than Phil;'s solution: A phone with caller's number display - you can choose whether to answer, or simply ignore it!
Six kuai extra per month may be worth it!

[MyTurnNow]

Hey, Roger...
do you get a lot of blocked/"out of area" numbers on your machine?
And who the hell is 'Phil'?
MT