Job Discussion Forums

[Roger]

Maybe it's my fault. Partly it certainly is - if I wasn't so choosy. If I had kept that college post a while ago...
Over the last few months, I have had my fingers in so many pies.
You are easily misled into believing there are lots of potential employers out there, eager to take you on board. They are, but wait a minute!
Most jobs I have been interviewed for or have actually held down for a while were like this: Some business outfit being run from an office in a high-rise would be your employer. You get interviewqed, have to submit your credentials and pictures, then someone shakes hands with you and promises you 150 kuai an hour, "10'000 a month or more".
The reality?
You go home. You wait somewhere near your telephone. A day goes by, two days, perhaps a weekend, then on MOnday you are away shopping. By afternoon, you are back, the telephone rings. "We have been looking for you for a long time..."
Maybe you do get that job, maybe it's too late...
So you rush to the office, the office whisks you away to some built-up area behind those blue mountains, you have never been there, it's a long journey, you begin to enjoy the ride in the countryside...
Then, the car stops in front of one of those ubiquitous ugly structures that are called schools. Now your dilemma may begin to dawn on you.
Your job is to drill English into the minds of primary school kids. IT's an extracurricular activity, you don't know their level, and their teachers' English is anything but a sure measure of their own inadequacy. And you are given a silly textbook, possibly YOUNG LEARNER'S ENGLISH (which purports to be a Cambridge publication with typos and all). You think you can do better WITHOUT any textbook, but you are not allowed to...
Anyway: YOu are in the pickles. You have to commute, perhaps for up to one hour one way, teach, if you are lucky, two hours, if not, one hour only, then return.
If your customers are satisfied you keep that job for a while (but you never know how long). It so happens from time to time that the school cancels your lesson on the morning of your scheduled lesson. Your day's wages are gone.
Of course, you may have a good employer that keeps you busy for 5 to 8 hours a day (I personally know a bunch of AUssies that are making a pile of dough without much effort).
Still, the idea that you get FARMED OUT (my favourite term is "loaned out") to other schools that beart absolutely no responsibility is revolting.
Not only are you at the mercy of their every whim and idiocy, but you have no legal employer. My Aussie friends get very good housing thrown in for good measure; they are my friends and I don't envy them their advantageous position.
But in my neck of the woods many employrs (I mean those "farms" or are they called "training centres"?) are taking advantage of you. If they have no work, you have no job; if some school asks them for a techer they happily oblige and cash in - and it doesn't matter to them who needs the cash the most, they always have a handful of willing takers.
The worse among these employers don't even give you a lift to their various customer schools. YOu have to get there on your own, at your expense. Even for a job of one hour only - two hours of travelling, one hour of teaching: HOurly rate between 20 and 50 kuai! Minus taxi fare or bus fare!

That's how the market has been developing over the last couple of years - evr more public schools (whose students are hardly up for speaking exercises with native English teachers!), ever fewer self-paying adults.
And another point: Many of these opportunistic training centres fail to collect their tuition fees in advance! They simply accept same-day order/same day pay settlements (or possibly settlements at the end of the month).
This means the public schools commit themselves in no way whatsoevr.
It's your risk, and yours alone.
I just wonder: what happens if you end up in hospital due to a road accident while on your way to or from a public school? What with so many taxi kilometers I have been doing these days, a traffic tragedy is not unlikely. Today, I met a friend who ws half an hour late for our meeting; she had been held up. Reason: A pick-pocket had stolen someone's mobile phone on a public bus. The victim called the police. The police body-searched all passengers (over one hundred), but failed to find the mobile phone.
Ah, yes, in the agreement I signed with one of my employers, it says that being late from "0-5 minutes" will cost me 50% of my wage; being late over 5 minutes to 20 minutes will cost me 150%".

[Bill Shagley]

Your rant is to be expected. The ESL market has gone to the crapper and is only going to get worse. However, not all parts of the market are like this. A man with your experience could find a better job, dont you think? You don't really have to settle for this rubbish, do you? Why not try to fnd a real job? You speak a whole bunch of languages and you have post-graduate qualifications, yes? So why put up with this crap? Go to an intetrnational school or to a better country. Leave the moron-end of the market for the morons.

[Klamm]

Yes, I agree with Shagley. It's no sense whining on this board, I hate to say it. If you want to make money, get out of China. You can do alright here, but there are plenty of countries where you could do a lot better with your quals, straight up, no hassle, no running etc... .

This is China. This is what it is. China ain't gonna overlay itself for you. Take it or leave it. You're helpful to folk on this board, that's true, but lately you've been whining a whole lot and I can't understand why. Go or stay. I can't understand people staying here who are after money. You can set up innumerable gigs all over the country which will provide you a very pleasant and comforting time...if money is not your major goal. If you're howling after upmarket coin, like any country, you're in the rat race. Foreigners can't come here thinking they're not demanding a lot when they think: "I'm a foreigner and if I make 8,000 Rmb a month, that's 12,000 US a year and that's hardly anything back home." Wrong. The salary relates to the country you're in, as it should. You're after big money here. Prepare to fight and put up with loads of crap like you would in any other country. And in the name of Pete: You're teaching. Your focus on coin suggests you may want to consider other careers (or at least other countries). Plenty of people change late in life. I have a friend who just completed law school...at 47. He's getting set up and happy with the change.

I have zero sympathy for you. Do something.

K.

[Burl Ives]

[Roger]

Thanks, BurtIVes. You made my point clearer.
My complaint was about new tendencies in this business, not how I get fleeced and lorded over. Many of my colleagues are full of how happy they are making money; they do - but some lose big, especially at this time of the year when Chinese businesses traditionally falter.
The majority of us don't have a work visa; which renders them extremely vulnerable. A disgruntled student tips off the PSB - they haul you out of the classroom and kick you out of the country! You have an argument with your employer - they short-change you with total impunity. Yesterday, I heard from an AUssie that her boss owes her RMB 17'000; she signed on a new contract for next term in February, hoping to get that money he owes her for the last two months...
What motivates people to work for operators of "training centres" that run no classes (or few) in their own premises? Money! BUt, if you choose to be partners with a businessman who knowingly breaks residency laws and employment regulations then you must beware of the fallout - your "partner" never loses money!
You lose not only money but your time and your face. The biggest downside to this kind of job where you get farmed out to public schools is that you have to put in a disproportionate amount of time on the road, time that's lost for more productive uses.
I have accepted this kind of life for the last 2 months because it was the wrong season to find a regular position with a public school. I walked out on a public school that was doing esxactly the same - ignoring legal provisions, while disavowing any responsability for my employment and housing, thereby putting me at extra risks, compounded by an arrogant attitude of "what we decide is good for you IS good for you!"

Perhaps we should discuss what should be an acceptable contract and working conditions, not my personal experience (which was meant as illumination of what's going on in many cases, in mine luckily only for a few weeks at a time).