Job Discussion Forums

[MESL]

All you newbies who haven�t worked for an FAO from hell and want to experience China without being scarred by them; all you vets who have worked for more than one FAO from hell and are trying to get out of the rut. Read this classic, worse case scenario, FAO from hell horror story. Bookmark this page and copy this story. This is why you should work for Buckland. This is why I�m seriously considering jumping ship. You don�t have to put up with this mess because he has everything under control. And yes, the guy in the story me.

Now I�ll clue you in. Most FAOs are not competent and not happy. This is because FAO is not considered a prestigious position. It�s more like a dumping ground. Even if your school has that rare FAO who is competent, has a good attitude, and is friendly toward foreigners, they have a dirty little secret: You�re at the bottom of the food chain. If a school bigwig plans to travel abroad soon or if a group of exchange students is arriving soon, and you go into the FAO�s office with a need, even if it�s something important like renewing your resident permit, they�ll tell you, �We�re working on something important. We�ll help you later.� What they mean is, �You�re at the bottom of the food chain.�




I had worked for several schools all over China. So thought I had dealt with bad FAOs. Til I met this guy:

On Monday, my FAO took me to the PSB to get a resident permit. They asked for the original of my health certificate. But my previous school kept it. I had a copy but not the original. So they took my passport and told him to pay the fee, but they told him they would not start processing the resident permit til he brought the health certificate.

We couldn�t pay the fee because the cashier window closes at 4:30 p.m. Then we went to another government office, the Foreign Affairs Bureau I think. But he went after 5 p.m. even though almost all government offices close at 5 p.m. Of course, no one was in the office.

On Monday night, he sent me a phone text message telling me to meet him at the health certificate clinic the next morning. This was at 10:30 p.m. And he wanted me there at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. While I was on the bus, he asked me if I brought a copy of my passport. He didn�t bother bringing a copy and he didn�t bother telling me to bring a copy. So we ran around looking for a copy store and he opened his email to find a copy of my passport. But the copy store computer couldn�t print from a JPG, so he copied and pasted into Word.

Finally, we got to the clinic, but they wanted to see the original of my passport and wouldn�t accept a copy. Fortunately, I had my foreign expert certificate in my briefcase. So he begged the clinic clerk to accept the foreign expert certificate as an ID instead of the passport.

The last test had a long line of people, so he left the paperwork with me and went to visit a friend. There were no empty taxis near the clinic, so I wandered around in the heat from intersection to intersection, but all the taxis were full. I also tried to find the bus stop with the bus that goes to the campus. Finally, I found a taxi.

The clinic clerk told me to return at 5:30 that afternoon to get my health certificate. But I nearly died from heat exhaustion, so I couldn�t go back out into the heat. Meanwhile, he didn�t provide a driver and all those taxi trips are expensive.

So here is a guy who�s been an FAO for several years, but DOESN�T KNOW WHICH DOCUMENT TO TAKE TO WHICH GOVERNMENT AGENCY and doesn�t know when to visit government offices.

But he displayed extreme incompetence and negligence even before I arrived at the school. When he sent me the paperwork for my work visa, instead of shipping such important documents himself, he assigned a student part time assistant. He didn�t instruct the assistant to save the invoice or record the tracking code. No did he ask the assistant to give him the tracking code, nor did he give me the tracking code. Of course, the assistant didn�t save the invoice and didn�t record the tracking code. So when the package got lost, I had no way of tracking it.

This meant the FAO had to arrange the paperwork again. I told him to use SF express delivery service. The SF driver takes packages to the same location every day, twice a day, which meant I didn�t have to go to his office and didn�t need to speak Chinese. But the FAO used EMS instead of SF. He didn�t bother giving me the tracking code. And when I asked him for the tracking code, he didn�t bother telling me he used EMS instead of SF, so I was on the SF website trying to track my package with an EMS code.

Well, the EMS driver called me, and of course, I don�t speak English, so I had to get my translator involved. So my translator went to the post office to get the package, but the EMS manager told him to return in the afternoon. But the EMS driver wasn�t at the post office in the afternoon. Instead, he was driving around the town delivering packages and told the translator to meet him at another location. So my translator had to chase the driver around town to get my package.

The delay caused by the assistant meant I had to make an extra trip to Hong Kong because my visa required me to leave the mainland every 30 days. This delay also meant I arrived when the FAO was out of town. And of course, he didn�t bother telling me he was out of town until after I bought my ticket, even though he knew I was coming directly after getting my work visa in Hong Kong. So I had to check into a hotel for 3 days.

Because he didn�t keep me informed and because he refused to provide a driver, I had to pay a driver to take me from the train station to the hotel, from the hotel to the campus; then when my resident permit was ready, I had to pay the driver to take me from the campus to the PSB, which is on the far east side of town, to the storeroom, which is on the far north side of town, then from the storeroom back to the campus with my bags. Because of the FAO, I had to pay the driver an enormous amount of money.

Every time the FAO does the wrong thing or refuses to do the right thing, I lose an awful lot of money. Meanwhile, he promised to loan me some money, but he hasn�t loaned me any money. He also promised me summer lessons, but so far, he has arranged only part time tutoring with one student.

After I arrived on campus, I discovered he allowed the resident permit of 2 foreign teachers to expire. At least one of these teachers had to pay a 5000 yuan fine. My work visa was valid for only 4 weeks and I had been in China one week. I had already lost so much money because of this FAO and I couldn�t afford to lose any more. So I started urging him to process my foreign expert certificate and resident permit soon. He said he hadn�t had time because he had other more important things to do.

He had time to buy me glasses, bowls, a frying pan, utensils, an extension cord, and hand soap, all of which are available cheaply at the campus supermarket half a block from my dorm, most of which were already in the apartment. But he didn�t have time to process my documents so I wouldn�t get heavily fined by the Chinese government? Obviously this man has some serious confusion in his head.

Meanwhile, almost everything in the apartment didn�t function at all or didn�t function properly: AC, Internet, microwave, TV, washer, fridge, sink, shower. No drinking water, no linens, not even a trash can. Every room had junk left by previous occupants. The fridge and microwave were so filthy, they were sticky to the touch.

This was the hottest period of the summer and there no fans. I couldn�t sit at my dining room table and eat a meal like a normal person because I would die of heat exhaustion. When I used the bathroom, I was sweating by the time I got back to my bedroom.

Then he told the recruiter he didn�t hire me. He said I never got my work visa in Hong Kong because I couldn�t pass the medical exam. Meanwhile, he asked me, �When was the last time you communicated with the recruiter?� and told me, �Don�t contact the recruiter and if she contacts you, don�t tell her you work for this school.� Obviously he was trying to cheat the recruiter out of her commission. Probably he gave the school accounting office a fake receipt, then put the recruiter�s commission in his pocket.

Can it get any worse than this? Well, the semester hasn�t started, so my first payday hasn�t arrived yet. So he hasn�t had a chance to outright steal from me yet.

[kungfuman]

So you work for Buckland huh? Even after all the warnings posted on this www site?

[kungfuman]

[it'snotmyfault]

Judging by your rambling error strewn incoherent rant, I think you'll be a good match for each other.

Or it could all be a cunning plan to make you do a runner !

[Denim-Maniac]

[MESL]

[samhouston]

Have you worked for Buckland before? I can't remember all the 1000s of details in the op.

[xiguagua]

I've worked for Buckland, and I have no complaints really that are worth complaining about, but I think OP isn't clear on what a recruiter does vs what a FAO does. Having a recruiter to back you up does nothing about the incompetence of your FAO.

In the worst case scenario you can change jobs and Buckland will get you a new one. But is all that hassle of getting settled in and accustomed to a city, then leaving 2 weeks later and having to do it all again really much better? Not really.

I met lots of people through Buckland that also had nightmarish experiences. One couple I know went to their school and found they had walked into the school in the middle of a riot. The parents of the students were rioting because of some stupid thing and they cut the power and water off of the school. So this couple sat there for about a week with no power and no water, and school not starting because of all this tension. Eventually they came back to Yangshuo to get reassigned. That doesn't sound much better from what you described.

[MESL]

[xiguagua]

[MESL]

No, I don't have to deal with the FAO. Buckland has to deal with them. He's not just a recruiter, he's an employer. Plus, when he signs up a school, he brings the school administrator to Yangshuo for orientation so they know how to deal with foreign teachers. Just as part of the orientation for foreign teachers is sensitivity to Chinese culture. So you've got Buckland moderating and controlling the situation. Whereas in my current situation, I've me and maybe a student translator or two. Meanwhile, Buckland has staff that handles visas, so you don't have to worry about the FAO causing you visa problems. All things considered, I'd say switching to Buckland is several notches up.

[China Tesol]

I know that Buckland is not just a recruiter, it has it's own license to hire foreign teachers, so it acts as an employer and the teachers may get paid through Buckland directly, not through the school FAO. Most of the teachers get their working visa and residence permit from Buckland too.This will make the teachers hassle free from the FAO of the schools.