Petty and childish
Attitudes when foreigners depart.
In a couple of days I'll be leaving Fuzhou. It wasn't my choice because although I said I had no objections to departing, I preferred to be spared the bother of packing everything up yet again for a second year running. Instead, Central Command asked me to go to Chengdu and I agreed. I'm still with the same programme, but at another school. I'm also still under contract.
Unfortunately, the school's attitude, regardless of the circumstances of your departure, is that you're a dirty, traitorous scoundrel who deserves no help whatsoever. It doesn't matter one iota that you're still under the current contract. That's a contract which, throughout the time it covers, is used as a stick with which to beat you, but otherwise ignored when they don't think it's in their best interests. Every contract I've signed here has been violated by the schools to a greater or lesser extent. The people who actually employ us let this happen. Occasionally, they'll intervene, but for the most part they bend over and say, "Give it to me hard as you like, sir."
The schools think that we work for them in the first instance, which we don't. We work for the programme at the schools.
It's depressing that the academic year should end in such a fashion, but it's no surprise. I've just spent a year at a school which merely sees us as a money making scheme on whom as little should be spent in return. The accommodation is small and low quality (although I should note that the Chinese teachers in the flat below mine have it worse); our office has one computer and no phone; our classrooms are little more than bare concrete boxes with desks and benches; our pupils are among some of the most stupid and unteachable specimens of humanity I've ever had the misery to encounter.
In spite of that, I would've stayed here for another year. I'm not especially mobile with an entourage of sixteen boxes, most of which are the large-sized ones from the Post Office. That also includes a TV and a laser printer.
We managed to get someone to come with us this afternoon when we went for the obligatory medical check. We needed someone to come with us. Someone should've come with us in the first place. My next question is whether the school will ferry me to the airport. At the moment the answer is no, but I believe it's a contractual obligation. I've contacted Central Command about it.
Actually, this is the second year this has happened. I could make my own way to the airport, but why am I being subject to such an inconvenience?
In a couple of days I'll be leaving Fuzhou. It wasn't my choice because although I said I had no objections to departing, I preferred to be spared the bother of packing everything up yet again for a second year running. Instead, Central Command asked me to go to Chengdu and I agreed. I'm still with the same programme, but at another school. I'm also still under contract.
Unfortunately, the school's attitude, regardless of the circumstances of your departure, is that you're a dirty, traitorous scoundrel who deserves no help whatsoever. It doesn't matter one iota that you're still under the current contract. That's a contract which, throughout the time it covers, is used as a stick with which to beat you, but otherwise ignored when they don't think it's in their best interests. Every contract I've signed here has been violated by the schools to a greater or lesser extent. The people who actually employ us let this happen. Occasionally, they'll intervene, but for the most part they bend over and say, "Give it to me hard as you like, sir."
The schools think that we work for them in the first instance, which we don't. We work for the programme at the schools.
It's depressing that the academic year should end in such a fashion, but it's no surprise. I've just spent a year at a school which merely sees us as a money making scheme on whom as little should be spent in return. The accommodation is small and low quality (although I should note that the Chinese teachers in the flat below mine have it worse); our office has one computer and no phone; our classrooms are little more than bare concrete boxes with desks and benches; our pupils are among some of the most stupid and unteachable specimens of humanity I've ever had the misery to encounter.
In spite of that, I would've stayed here for another year. I'm not especially mobile with an entourage of sixteen boxes, most of which are the large-sized ones from the Post Office. That also includes a TV and a laser printer.
We managed to get someone to come with us this afternoon when we went for the obligatory medical check. We needed someone to come with us. Someone should've come with us in the first place. My next question is whether the school will ferry me to the airport. At the moment the answer is no, but I believe it's a contractual obligation. I've contacted Central Command about it.
Actually, this is the second year this has happened. I could make my own way to the airport, but why am I being subject to such an inconvenience?
Comments