I have been with my crazy school for a year. What I love about the school is that I am left alone a lot. I never see my boss, which sometimes causes problems, but rather that than having a boss breathing down my back.
Now I do a LOT for this school. For a year I was the only person in the building. I only had 10 kids, but I had to do everything from cleaning the whole place to feeding them etc. The whole time my boss told me I will get a raise one day, but that they don’t have enough money right now.
One year later, and another school has moved into my school, giving me more work. Yes, I do have more teachers now, but they are all Chinese. I hate to distinguish between Chinese and Foreign teachers, but now they are asking me to carry the food pots to another building, sweep outside EVERY DAY, clean more , look after more kids etc.
I am sitting here with my new contract. My old contract promised that I will get a bonus if I finish the contract. Today my boss told me that I can choose between cash, or a week paid holiday. I thought I would get both. And I’m not getting a raise.
I want to ask for a raise. I get NT$ 60 000 for 8-12, 2-4. Should I just blatantly ask for it because I’m signing on for a 2nd year? Or do I have to give many reasons of why I am entitled to one. I was hoping that it would just come automatically.
For your first year contract you were paid $500/hr. That is a little low IMO. For a second year contract $500/hr is DEFINATELY low, especially in Taipei. Some may argue this, but I don’t know why…
Owners will always try and pay you less than what you are worth. It is a business, right? Maybe your boss is just hoping you will say ok and accept the new contract without really thinking about it.
Also, I have no idea how long you have been teaching English, most teachers I know would either laugh at or leave a school which demanded the extra cleaning/maid work you described.
It’s up to you. If you love the school and the children then stay. If not, there are MUCH better jobs available. Best of luck.
if you don’t really want to stay, tell them that you have an offer to teach at another school for 750 an hour. with two weeks paid holidays. tell them you like it where you are, but need to be getting more than you are presently earning.
remember, of course, that the boss could tell you to piss off.
(sweeping/maid work is not generally in the contract for teachers …)
It won’t get any better. If you ask for more money, then they’ll ask you to do all their paperwork for them and drive their kids to piano lessons.
Just look for another job. Give them your notice. Meanwhile, stop cleaning. Leave everything and let them do it. If he points it out to you, just say, “Yeah, that’s great.”
A promotion? Wow! Does that mean you get a real brush to scrub the toilets now?
Seriously, they’re getting a good deal on you. They don’t have to hire any dishwashers, janitors, housekeepers, cooks, etc. as long as they have you around. And they get a weiguoren laoshi in the deal. I can’t imagine how much money they save on having you do all the grunt work as well as teach English. This is all included in your contract, right?
They must be rubbing their hands hungrily, glad that after telling you that there would be no pay raise and making you do all sorts of manual labor in addition to your job of teaching, you still wanted to sign a contract for another year. And you didn’t even have a bit of vacation time off before you were offered this new contract?! Working 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week slaving away for this school that lied to you.
They really hit the jackpot with you. I just hope you really, really, really like the kids you work with in order to put up with such bullshit.
There are plenty of jobs that advertise on forumosafieds that offer at least $60,000/mo. without having to take on the jobs of five or six laborers as well, just in case you were wondering. I’m sure they’d appreciate someone who took the extra mile to make sure things ran smoothly, the way you do. And they’d probably have better vacation and salary increase rates than Ol’ Massa Buxiban offers.
I make my kids do it since I don’t have a teaching assistant to help straighten up. Since we’re doing fairy tales this month, I call them my Cinderellas and we even have a Cinderella bucket for them to wipe their own tables down before and after lunch or snack time. The Cinderella of the day is responsible for the floors and everyone is responsible for the dishes and tables when we do cooking.
I’m really going to miss my 15 little Cinderellas after tomorrow…
I guess it depends on what you want from your school. I don’t want a stiff environment. My bosses constantly praise me and they do make time to listen to my complaints.
They have changed the schedule a couple of times…because I sat down with them and just told them that they are expecting way too much from 4 year olds. But I did manage to teach these kids amazing things. I have 4 year olds that can read, write, and speak perfect English. I have a schedule in the morning, but 2 hours in the afternoon that I can do whatever I want. I can show them DVDs on my laptop, take them for walks around the area…Nobody breathes down my neck…which is great.
They also care about the employers. Sure, I have to clean, but I’d much rather clean myself than stand there and watch someone that gets paid a 10th of what I make clean up a mess that I made. I just don’t have the heart for that. Whenever I’m sick, I call in and my boss ALWAYS allows me to take the day off, and tells me to take care of myself. They have never given me hassles. Once a new part-time teacher had sciatica, and they gave her a whole month off. Waited for her to return, where most schools would have just fired her. THey even picked her up with their schools van and spent more than an hour in hospital with her.
I do feel that I am taken advantage of, and I have put my foot down. I really don’t care about the cleaning, I’d much rather stay there and clean than get pulled aside by my boss every day because one mom complained. The other day I spent an hour sitting on the floor with my kids listening to the Beatles, watching them draw whatever they like, then took them for a long walk outside. I doubt that I can get that freedom anywhere else.
Ya, that sounds pretty slack.
With that kind of job, you don’t need a raise.
It sounds more like something you would do if you were the owner.
It doesn’t make sense to ask for a raise without a “Plan B”.
Just talk simple logic with your Bossy-Woss:
I really really like Plan A.
but…
If no $, then I must Plan B.
I find it hard to believe that schools still ofer 60K a month, start. Six years ago, I was offered that FOB, without the coveted NA accent. Competition for placements is definately hotter than it ever was and that goes some ways to explain why prices have stagnated.
60K. Bad. Especially for six hours/day (teaching hours). Really, really bad. After tax and rent and utilities it’s not much more than 30,000. Oh, boy! Like 8000/wk. Really sweeeeet deal! Spend about 500 NT/day and don’t drink any beer whatsoever, don’t go on any trips or buy any new clothes and you got 4500/wk savings. 18,000/month. After 12 months you have 216,000 NT. Buy your plane ticket back home and you got about 170,000 NT. Maybe get some taxes back. Maybe not. Who knows. Giving the benefit of the doubt on that, you’d get back maybe 50,000. That’s 220,000 NT. GOOD TIMES!
