It’s the best advice that leads to a healthy outlook for the individual trying to rationalise and stay sane.
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It is and it isn’t.
I’d walk if I were the OP. But then, I can.[/quote]
Which is sort of like a butterfly saying to a caterpillar, “I’d fly more if I were you”.[/quote]
This is true and a typically excellent point.
I don’t know what work rights the OP has, but I guess it’s an employer sponsored ARC. I was on similar during my first few years in Taiwan and I never had to work for less than 70k a month. I think that even on a standard ARC I’d walk if I were only taking home 30k. Other people might choose to bend like a reed, which is fine. For me, putting up with shit day after day is unhealthy. If you can change something that is seriously upsetting you or making your life unpleasant then it’s best to change it. If you can’t then grinning and bearing might be the only way - although I feel that those of us from the first world always have options.
I don’t agree that grinning and bearing a situation is the best advice for someone to rationalise a situation and stay sane.[/quote]
Sure, but then again, as per my understanding, the reason you are better able to walk away is that you got married.
My point is about the ESL game in Taiwan on the whole, and that at times it is healthier to grin and bear it than to call people assholes or flip them off (not that anyone was suggesting the OP should do that, it’s just a situation I have suggested). It was supposed to embody the sentiment that it is better to stay calm than lose your head, though that may not fully be expressed by the sentiment ‘grin and bear it,’ so I understand why you’d find what I said to not be the best advice.
I’m advising how she should get more hours rather than how I would behave. I’d start WW3, but I’ve been doing EFL, and, well in a wider sense, having jobs for 25 years, and I do nothing without a ‘Fuck you fund’. I may be wrong, but the OP seems irked about doing so few hours and I can’t think of any reason for wanting to work mega-hours unless you were broke, so I guess suckage up would be the best policy at this point in her life.
It’s a little unclear whether or not the OP even took the job. This is clearly a situation that the OP should walk away from if they want more hours. The lesson that should be learned is to not assume things. This whole situation could have been avoided simply by finding out how many hours were offered. Those that have been teaching in Taiwan would have known that full time hours don’t mean anything and most know that adult buxibans have piecemail schedules.
I’ve found that I’m able to tell employers who offer shit positions to me to fuck themselves quite comfortably once I have a secure job elsewhere, even if I don’t have a lot of money. The one who gladly says, “You’re right! I should go fuck myself – here’s more money, freedom, and responsibility,” will get to be my next employer. I had no trouble doing the same to GJun.
“But what happens if you become desperate for work again, and they’re the only ones hiring?” The answers are (a) that they never remember, anyway; (b) that I don’t have to worry about drifting because I do my job well; and (c) that I’m Machiavellian-level good at faking the chipper enthusiasm at interviews.
For me, the ‘busy’ summer period will start next month. Right now I am losing classes but they will likely double next month, since this was when the summer vacation period starts. I teach kids though.
I spoke with Gjun once about an advertised full time job, but I was told that in my area, one school had about six hours and another had one. Of course, these hours were not manageable with my other classes. I asked why they advertise full time hours if they have so few and the answer was that TPE made all the advertisements and listed any school on the island that had any hours open. So, some school in TPE MIGHT have had hours open, but schools in my area didn’t. They did this to control advertising costs. However, I couldn’t even ask these questions, or find out the truth about the number of available hours, until I’d submitted my resume.
I applied at GJun and they asked me to sign a contract.
They got angry when I asked to READ the contract. I said I’d like to take it home and look it over, as it was about 30 pages long, in English and Chinese. They told me it was “school property” and I couldn’t take it, but the manager could stand there breathing down my neck while I looked at it. I told her to make a copy… there was a copy machine right next to us. Yeah, right.
It would be impossible to organize since a majority of teachers are here for 1-3 years. There doesn’t really need to be a union tbh. Most of the situations could be avoided if teachers simply knew the law and their rights. And it’s not exactly like Taiwan is hiding this information. There’s a hotline for asking these questions.
And as I said before the OP’s issue was nothing that a union would solve. The OP flew from New Zealand (or overseas) w/o a signed contract and didn’t understand that full time is defined very differently here. The lowest definition is that you can obtain an ARC by working full time (min 14 hrs/wk). The whole situation could have been avoided if the OP had asked the simple questions of: How many hours/wk? - How much pay/month? - What would be my working schedule? What days do I work?
I feel terrible for the OP because she had drastically different expectations but this was a newb mistake. Many on this forum would have seen these issues almost immediately if asked.
There should (is there already?) be a website that answers questions like this, clearly in an easy to read format.
Getting information about this kind of stuff kind of is hidden. Whenever I look for answers I get a lot of outdated pages, or people on forums saying “well, 10 years ago it was like THIS… but I don’t know if it still is…”.
Gjun is awful. Huge staff turnover. If someone stayed more than a month they would be considered a veteran. Management is totally hopeless. It’s amazing they are still in business. Its really only because staff in Taiwan are paid so poorly and would do anything to get a promotion. So they study English at Gjun. Gjun is a vulture company that prey on this. Its their whole business model. Do NOT recommend working there
Speaking on behalf of a friend…Someone recommended working there to them so they applied thinking it might be worth a shot for a few extra hours weekends and so on. Here’s what they found out. The application process is deeply manipulative. Gjun keep you waiting a week for an offer and then low-ball you. My friend re-negotiated a higher rate of pay. Another week wasted. Suffered their boring training. When the final contract was revealed Gjun had reverted to the original offer, justifying it some spurious grounds. Bottom line: the rate of pay is calculated on some messed up algorithm that calculates pay on the degree to which you are prepared to become a slave. Oh, and you sign something that says they can pass on your personal information to third parties. They want all your info up front before you even see the contract, a red flag right there. ‘Do NOT recommend working there’ is quite right. Check out Glassdoor for more details.
When I applied to Gjun many moons ago, they never bothered to get back to me even after several inquiries. They called me 2 years later out of the blue to see if I wanted a job. I would have starved waiting for them
