So a friend of mine from the States was recently offered a job in Pingzhen, and I’m trying to find out exactly how far out in the ass middle of nowhere it actually is. Of course, the school rep is trying to tell him that Pingzhen = Zhongli, but that doesn’t seem right to me. Is Pingzhen actually a one-horse backwater, or is it close enough to civilization that it doesn’t matter?
Pingzhen is in Taoyuan County just south of Zhongli and east of Yangmei.
It’s your normal shitty Taoyuan town.
It’s a huge place. It could be backwater, or it could be close to Chungli city. Either way, it’s not far from anywhere. What’s the location of the job? You could probably find it on Google maps.
The position is with Gloria, and some Google-fu gave me the address 平鎮市環南路66巷17弄14衖26號. Honestly, I thought it was going to be further out of civilization, but it looks like it’s pretty much in Jhongli.
Which is, dude, like, pretty much in bumfuck, nowheresville. But whatever. A guy’s gotta get that 60k a month SOMEWHERE, right?
Hey Mr. Sandman, you are such a sarcastic Scot. I really look forward to meeting you when I come up to Taipei. I may even let you buy me a beer!
I kind of guessed it was Gloria. Gloria is the largest buxiban company in the Taoyuan area and I worked for them for several years on 2 different occasions. All branches (must be 15 or so by now) are owned and operated by the same family. They offer training, support and even free housing to newly arriveds. Their main office (and dormitory) is definitely not located in the middle of nowhere. It is basically in Zhongli, as mentioned. As well, the large staff of locals and foreigners provides an almost instant social circle. Loneliness and boredom usually aren’t issues.
Taoyuan county is the end of the earth to some of the Taipei-centric folks on this site. Fair enough; to each their own. However, it suits many of its resident foreigners just fine. It’s big enough to have virtually everything you need and yet cheap enough to rent spacious, luxury apartments for less than the price of taofangs in Taipei. It’s close enough to Taipei to go there for socializing, but far enough away to not be, well, Taipei. It isn’t Belair, but then it isn’t Banqiao, Zhonghe/Yonghe either.
Which is, dude, like, pretty much in bumfuck, nowheresville. But whatever. A guy’s gotta get that 60k a month SOMEWHERE, right?[/quote]
I seriously doubt he’s gonna make anywhere close to 60k/month at Gloria. I wouldn’t wish working at Gloria on anyone. Chances are he’s going to spend most of his time and money traveling to longtan and other bumfuck nowheresville branches to teach single classes. Be prepared to have them hold your wages and not start paying until after you have more than exceeded what they originally told you. Their business model is based on recruiting clueless noobies and stealing from them until they leave for a better job. As a new teacher you will not get enough classes and will be lucky to make even 20-30k, that is, if they actually pay you. There are a few long term teachers there, and they get enough classes, and of course choose the best ones. The rest are left for the revolving door of noobies.
I lasted just under a month, was never paid and couldn’t afford to keep up the one hour travel (two hours round trip) to teach a single class in Longtan. I then found a real job, and am now on my third year at this school.
The social scene was nice, there were plenty of foreigners around, but unless you are filthy rich and don’t need to be paid, I wouldn’t recommend it.
[quote=“Homey”]
I lasted just under a month, was never paid and couldn’t afford to keep up the one hour travel (two hours round trip) to teach a single class in Longtan. I then found a real job, and am now on my third year at this school.
The social scene was nice, there were plenty of foreigners around, but unless you are filthy rich and don’t need to be paid, I wouldn’t recommend it.[/quote]
Almost all jobs in Taiwan are paid monthly, so you’d be looking at a minimum of 5 weeks from starting work to getting paid (assuming you start on the 1st of a month). I’m not sure if you can complain they didn’t pay you if you didn’t even make it to the first pay period. Or am I missing something?
Which is, dude, like, pretty much in bumfuck, nowheresville. But whatever. A guy’s gotta get that 60k a month SOMEWHERE, right?[/quote]
I seriously doubt he’s gonna make anywhere close to 60k/month at Gloria. I wouldn’t wish working at Gloria on anyone. Chances are he’s going to spend most of his time and money traveling to longtan and other bumfuck nowheresville branches to teach single classes. Be prepared to have them hold your wages and not start paying until after you have more than exceeded what they originally told you. Their business model is based on recruiting clueless noobies and stealing from them until they leave for a better job. As a new teacher you will not get enough classes and will be lucky to make even 20-30k, that is, if they actually pay you. There are a few long term teachers there, and they get enough classes, and of course choose the best ones. The rest are left for the revolving door of noobies.
I lasted just under a month, was never paid and couldn’t afford to keep up the one hour travel (two hours round trip) to teach a single class in Longtan. I then found a real job, and am now on my third year at this school.
The social scene was nice, there were plenty of foreigners around, but unless you are filthy rich and don’t need to be paid, I wouldn’t recommend it.[/quote]
Funny - I worked there for over 10 years, and had very little in the way of problems from start to finish. I also have first- and second-hand experience with other Taoyuan county bushibans, public schools and universities, and would say that GES was certainly nowhere near the bottom of the barrel. If teachers are even somewhat competent, admin tend to stay out of your hair, and while they did hold pay (two weeks changing to one week after a set period), you get paid nightly after that.
It’s certainly not a utopia, and it’s not for everyone; that said, your appraisal seems overly harsh, to say the least.
[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“Homey”]
I lasted just under a month, was never paid and couldn’t afford to keep up the one hour travel (two hours round trip) to teach a single class in Longtan. I then found a real job, and am now on my third year at this school.
The social scene was nice, there were plenty of foreigners around, but unless you are filthy rich and don’t need to be paid, I wouldn’t recommend it.[/quote]
Almost all jobs in Taiwan are paid monthly, so you’d be looking at a minimum of 5 weeks from starting work to getting paid (assuming you start on the 1st of a month). I’m not sure if you can complain they didn’t pay you if you didn’t even make it to the first pay period. Or am I missing something?[/quote]
Yeah, I can’t say how they do it now, but at the time they paid cash nightly. They tell you that you need to complete a certain number of trainings, observations, and classes then you will be paid nightly with a one or two week hold.
They dragged this on well past what was originally agreed upon, so rather than donating more classes it was clearly time to accept another position.
xtrain, I’m glad you had a good experience with Gloria. In my opinion, expecting teachers to work for free beyond what was originally agreed to is overly harsh. I had clearly completed all the trainings,observations and free classes. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt by staying for additional days/classes which they didn’t pay me for. I think if they will do it to one teacher, they likely won’t hesitate to do it to another one in the future.
The staff, the Chinese Assistant teachers that I worked with, and the students were great. If I had been paid I would have likely stayed. I am happy that I didn’t though, as I now make a substantially higher hourly rate, have more than enough hours, and NEVER have a problem getting paid.
edit: didnt see your second post… cleared it up nicely.
Where’s that place you work at now? Are they hiring? 