Job Discussion Forums

[rogerwilco]

Found this on a blog.
All of the below have happened to me in China.
How about you ?

"How to Demoralize New EFL Teachers
Posted on September 9, 2011
This job has been rough since I arrived. There were some small problems before I got here and I wondered if the failure to respond to my first and second email regarding a given problem was indicative of trouble. Had I become to jaded? No, it seems.

This day was a horror and I�ll eventually blog about it but if I do today I�ll just get aggravated.

Instead I�ll list off ways to demoralize new teachers so that they�ll dream of home shortly after leaving the airport. Here we go:

Make them wait at the airport for a pick up. Many will stay hours in hopes that you�ll come eventually. They�re unlikely to be able to book a ticket on the next flight home. (Thanks to poor G.B.)
Give them a deplorable apartment, well below what a similarly educated professional native to the country would ever dream of living in.
Make sure at least three important appliances don�t work, e.g. the a/c in summer or heating in winter, the stove or refrigerator.
Promise to address the problems surrounding the items in #2 and then don�t.
Apologize insincerely. When the poor teacher begins to speak take a call from your cell phone to show how insignificant the teacher is to you.
Furnish the apartment with cast-off preferably dirty or broken goods no one else will take.
Don�t give the teachers keys to their offices. Keep them guessing as to when they should arrive at school.
Change their schedule repeatedly and change the person in charge of the schedule. (From my days in Indonesia).
Choose a unsocialable xenophobe to help the foreign teachers.
Don�t answer your cell phone when the foreigners call.
If there�s a power outage or water stoppage planned, do not tell the foreign teachers till after the power/water is off.
Don�t tell the foreigners how much their out of pocket expenses will be.
Give the native teachers lavish gifts in front of the foreign staff.
Instruct the native teachers to complain about their low salaries in front of the foreign staff. Remind them not to mention any benefits like large bonuses, free tuition, pension, insurance or free/affordable housing they may get.
Assign the most short tempered people to work with the foreign staff."

MOD EDIT

[dean_a_jones]

I believe when encountering this, best practice is to:

1. have a drink
2. have another
3. repeat steps 1-2 until you no longer care, then:

a) order food
b) order pleasure
c) go to class

Or you could look for a better job, if you think you have something more to offer.

But on a serious note, it is a list of things that I have certainly encountered (though not at once) and have resolved many by pushing hard regarding my contract* (which is really the key here, and what you need to get right in the first place).

*obviously this only works for the actual stuff you can get into a contract, not rudeness, which you either deal with or stoop to their level.

[Miles Smiles]

Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.

You forgot about :

1. frequent late payment, then calls from the FAO on your cellphone every ten minutes telling you to pick up your pay RIGHT NOW.

2. being told that the school can't afford to fix the heat or A/c, then finding out that the school threw a lavish Christmas party at the hotel that it owns and you weren't invited.

3. arriving at your new school to find out that there has been a misunderstanding about reimbursement of airfare. Despite crystal-clear clarification that includes emails from the FAO, the school's agreement to reimburse airfare now covers only the flight in, and that the ticket home (if you decide not to stay) counts as full reimbursement.

4. returning to your school-owned apartment to find that some dumb *ss left the faucet running upstairs while everyone was sent home for the summer, and all of your possessions are mildewed--- including all pillows and mattresses.

5. meetings that have been scheduled to address your questions and challenges quickly lapse into the local dialect that you do not understand.

6. an FAO that gossips with former FTs who still live in the city, and despite the fact that you are careful about the company you keep, you learn that you have been seen dating your students or severely younger women, AND THEN finding out that someone has created a wife and kids back home for you.

[shadowrider]

Lets see:

Make them wait at the airport for a pick up. Many will stay hours in hopes that you�ll come eventually. They�re unlikely to be able to book a ticket on the next flight home. - YEP, but I had to figure out my own way to Suzhou from Shanghai

Give them a deplorable apartment, well below what a similarly educated professional native to the country would ever dream of living in. - YEP. Not the apartment as shown in the pictures sent to me (not 1/4 the size, dirty and the last resident's JUNK (figure it out) still on the floor.

Make sure at least three important appliances don�t work, e.g. the a/c in summer or heating in winter, the stove or refrigerator. - A/C and heater ruined my Mac Mini as the desk is fixed under the A/C and it dripped. Hotplate was special one that required special pans to cook. Nothing else in apartment.

Promise to address the problems surrounding the items in #2 and then don�t.
Apologize insincerely. When the poor teacher begins to speak take a call from your cell phone to show how insignificant the teacher is to you. - YEP, except when asking for payment for electricity and gas the day after moving

Furnish the apartment with cast-off preferably dirty or broken goods no one else will take. - YEP. What little there was
Don�t give the teachers keys to their offices. Keep them guessing as to when they should arrive at school. - Never did get the office keys.
Change their schedule repeatedly and change the person in charge of the schedule. - YEP. Switched from the summer to winter schedule without telling us FTs that found out 5 minutes before our classes were to begin - funny the students and the CT knew and said nothing. Docked our pay for being late
Choose a unsocialable xenophobe to help the foreign teachers. - YEP. I will call her the left-behind girl.

Don�t answer your cell phone when the foreigners call. - YEP. And expect an answer on the first ring when they call you.

If there�s a power outage or water stoppage planned, do not tell the foreign teachers till after the power/water is off. - YEP. Happens a lot.

Don�t tell the foreigners how much their out of pocket expenses will be.
Give the native teachers lavish gifts in front of the foreign staff. - YEP, and expect immediate payment without receipts. And the pissed off look and comments about being a rich FT if you don't carry that money on you at all times.

Instruct the native teachers to complain about their low salaries in front of the foreign staff. Remind them not to mention any benefits like large bonuses, free tuition, pension, insurance or free/affordable housing they may get. - YEP. You forgot about the new Audis and BMWs they drive, and red envelopes from the parents.

Assign the most short tempered people to work with the foreign staff." - YEP. Especially other FTs. Can I mention names?

[shadowrider]

Stuck network (deleted by me)

[spicykimchi]

Do not bother to show up at the airport. A few days before the flight, have the recruiter send an email, saying, "Yeah, everyone has the day off, so no one can meet you at the airport. But here are the directions to a Motel 168. Just give it to a taxi driver."

Make sure to tell the new foreigner that the school will house him in a hotel for a week. But deduct that amount from the first paycheck, saying, "Oh, no providing a hotel and paying for a hotel are two different things."

While the teacher is living in a hotel, put in very little effort to help him find an apartment. Yes, just hand him a couple of magazines, saying, "Look in here." Or say, "Just look on the internet."

When ordering food, make sure to ask every single worker except the foreign teacher. Do this right in front of his face, too.

Praise the good-looking part-time �Canadian� teacher (with the thick Russian accent), even though he doesn�t cover anything in the lesson plans. Make sure to show a particular scorn to the dedicated, competent teachers, who might be average or even (Gasp!) below average in looks.

So people of China . . . listen. A lot of the directors out there in the nearby MOD EDIT are already embracing some of these tactics. If you want to remain competitive in today's market, it's essential that you follow suit.

[Zero]

The Chinese do not respect you or take you seriously. If you can't accept that, don't work in China.

[milkweedma]

[rogerwilco]

[Zero]

Not sure. Can be debated, but is ultimately apples to oranges and a bit of a sidetrack. They may not respect each other but they do give each other credit as living, thinking human beings. Foreigners are considered to be more like cartoon characters. Ultimately, not someone you take seriously or give full account to. Not exactly human.

I guess it's as if a Neanderthal or homo erectus walked onto the scene. Would you consider that to be human? Kind of. Humanoid is probably the word.

[Non Sequitur]

Those pans that work on the hot plate.
Took me a while to get that sussed.
And of course none of the pans that came with the apartment worked on the plate.
I've had a few, but not all of the negatives - thankfully!

[Opiate]

My first job gave me a shared apartment in the attic of a walkup. Filthy as hell, I can not even describe it. 2 tiny windows. Almost no ventilation. No air conditioning. The heat in the bathroom and one bedroom could not be turned off ...and I did not think that was even possible...I thought the heat was turned off by the utility company on some random day. The doorways were about a foot and a half too short, the ceilings were sloped, and heads were often bruised.

When we complained, we were told foreigners are too tall for Chinese houses and that we were only hot because we were overweight. I am not fat or close too it and I am not tall.

That job did not last long but I learned many valuable lessons.

[kev7161]

My first job I got a brand new one-bedroom, fully furnished apartment with balcony. The furniture wasn't the best. I mean, it was new, but obviously rather cheap and fell apart easily. During my two year stay there, the walls started developing mold. It was on the 6th floor of a brand new building, no elevators. Sadly, right beside my school (and the apartment building) was a theme park that had nightly shows with loud, VERY LOUD music and drum beating, fireworks and other pyrotechnics. Strange what one can get used to by turning up the TV as high as it will go. "Luckily" the park closed at 9PM every night. I didn't feel discriminated against though as there were many Chinese teachers living in this same building.

My current place is in a nice building and my apartment is good. Too many neighborhood fireworks going off but I guess that's my biggest complaint. The school pays the rent of 2000 rmb per month plus up to 1000 rmb in utilities. I've yet to pay any utilities in the almost 7 years I've worked here. With all the other ways they've bent over backwards for me, I can't say I can identify much with the OP. Guess there are at least SOME good joints out there!

[Brian Hugh]

Ya the wait at the airport or train station is a sure sign that things are going to go wrong. Two months ago I finished a job that I shouldn't have taken. They made me wait at the train station for three hours. This place or agency was written about endlessly but changes their name frequently. I got to my new job and found out that the foreign co-worker was duped into coming to do volunteer work and found out when she got here she was teaching rich people's kids. So she protested and they placed her in a college that was less than ideal.
My first job they did this in Shanghai. I later found out from the driver that the boss drank coffee and watched me for three hours from the airport coffee lounge.
It is a strategy used by business people everywhere to make workers feel small. Make em wait.
I'm at a good place now.

[GHammer]

Some quality information, good links and interesting reading here on a variety of topics ... thanks for sharing everyone!

--G