Job Discussion Forums

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

OK so you show up with a 90 day tourist thing, get a black market offer, start teaching and hope your boss will pay you, knowing he/she doesnt have to, and make your border run for Taco Bell every 3 mos. to Bulgaria or Syria if you are in the south. You cant open a bank account and you stockpile like a squirrel all these lira in your apartment/hotel. YOu eat kebabs like a maniac and ready yourself for the dreaded knock on the door/raid/SWAT team descending upon you, kicking you out, or whatever they do, etc.

Are people really living like this, in fear and nightmarish anticipation of being discovered and deported?

fishmb · Joined: 08 Jul 2009 Posts: 184 Location: Istanbul

It's like that without the fear, for most people. It makes me nervous though. I'm not sure I want to try it, even though I've met so many people who have done it themselves and know so many people that have done it too. One guy knows someone who's been doing it for 10-20years! But, like I said, it still makes me nervous. I'd like to feel more in control of the situation and I hear stirrings that the days of unlimited consecutive tourist visas might be coming to an end, but nothing definite.

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

some of those tips may well be truth. its the insiders in real nitty gritty life doing it themselves that have geard the truest things. when gov ernments announce shit, its always wrong. i believe you. question is, what is the worst treatment one would receive if found out? if you got plenty of cash nobody will rush you ouit. you can say "hey i got more $$ saved than you'll ever see in your whole life savings, i can buy a ticket to anywhere in the world right now, where;s the travel agent?" and they will have to acquiesce. no detention centers for rich westerners, Im sure of that.

Otterman Ollie · Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:59 am Post subject:

Eclectic, I hear what you say and I'm sure some on this forum will have had some (limited) experience of the picture you painted in your opening post. But, there is a message that needs to be reinforced here. I understand and appreciate that for a number of people who visit this forum working illegally is a fact of life ,especially in the first year usually this is someting that is out of your control. But, (again) this is not a lifestyle that is sustainable or desireable.
Sadly there are many others who never visit this forum or who are not remotely interested in its existance, or even if they were would not use it anyway. They are the true cowboys of the tefl industry, whatever steps we take to regard this as a profession and behave accordingly these cowboys undermine and diminish our status to such a degree we become at best nothing more than "entertainers " in the classroom. Because of our fellow guest workers posing as flyby night teachers we are made less worthy than we should be. We really have a legal if not a moral duty to deprive this activity of the oxygen it needs to survive, impossible when most employers are guilty of encouraging it in the first place.

fishmb · Joined: 08 Jul 2009 Posts: 184 Location: Istanbul

I believe if caught you are deported (with your possessions) and cannot return to Turkey for a time - the period of which will vary.

Like I said, I hope to find legal work, but that means finding a school that will do go to the trouble to pay for it and fill out the paperwork. If the schools willing to hire me are unwilling to do that, there's nothing I can do about it other than leave the country and look for work somewhere else. But, since do not have an EU passport I would have to go pretty far to find legal work if it doesn't work out in Turkey.