More dirty laundry? Why not?
I’m leaving my current place and seeking greener pastures. I’ve given the new faces notice today.
The matter boils down to these issues:
The previous owner sold some dupes a rotten egg. The place had a “generation gap” of sorts, and I taught the advanced, older elementary students. The bulk of them moved to junior high, but the owners conveniently left out that detail during the sale.
Catching wind of this, the new manager first wanted to renegotiate my salary for the advanced class (originally two classes) because that class would have fewer students, to which I responded that it was their responsibility to recruit students (read: not my problem), that I could just leave and find work for more money closer to my new home (living in Taipei, working in Sanchong [formerly residing there]), and that I had a contract with the company, thus setting my pay rate in legal concrete. They put on an angry face. I didn’t budge. They submitted.
Of the two advanced students that remained, one’s mother was a real bitch about the time when her son got home to eat dinner. He couldn’t eat dinner at 7:00. He couldn’t eat dinner at 5:30. He had to eat it at 6:00PM on the dot! Last semester’s schedule allowed for this, but they changed the timing for some reason, so she pulled her kid.
The final kid, poor thing, told me that if they canceled my class there, that his dad would send him to Kid Castle, a place which he described as “the worst kind of hell.” I was not shocked to hear it.
They then bent to one parent’s want for an open door policy for my class, which basically meant that she wanted her kid to sit in the class, but have no responsibilities to turn in work, take tests, etc. This place obviously isn’t a university, and kids don’t have the self-control to quietly audit courses. As one would expect from a child’s knowing such things, the kid was a pain in the ass. I had to turn to the boss and explain the kind of catastrophe that she’s inviting into a classroom setting if she sets special exceptions for one kid. Just as she did in her first class (prior to creating this auditing policy), she bothered or distracted other students who were focused, didn’t show me any respect when I reprimanded her, and then told me, “I no homework. Talk Manager X.” I did – and abracadabra – she now has homework.
It was worse for my Taiwanese, former co-teacher. The former owner was making her teach the kindergarten classes without a teaching contract (which implies more pay), and then they were going to stop covering her labor insurance. She walked out early.
That said, they’re looking for one person (because they can only sponsor one more ARC) to work broken hours (9 per week, with a one-hour gap between classes) at a branch at 500NT (not USD) per hour to start. Their outdated advertisement is here: esldewey.com.tw/jobdetail.ph … l_ID=13346 I told them that they don’t have enough hours at their place to offer another ARC, so their strategy had better be to split the schedule and look for people who are willing to drop in for an extra few hours a week during most buxiban workers’ key working hours. All bets are off with regard to what they actually do.
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