Dear Shannon,

In your cover letter you asked us for a 4 to 6 month contract with a salary of 5000 RMB to 7000 RMB per month. In my first e-mail, I told you that we have six month and one year contracts, and in my second e-mail I mentioned that most of our contact schools only pay between 4000 and 5000 RMB per month.

If you would have indicated that you want a 3 month contract I could have told you that we, as an agency could not help you with that, unless you would want to join one of our volunteer projects, where the teacher pays a participation fee.

You preferred a position in the South-East or on the East coast, but nowhere did you mention that this was a requirement. With that information you still decided to engage our services.

You arrived Thursday late afternoon, and we offered you four positions Friday morning. Two of those were in locations suiting your preferences. One you rejected, because it required, besides normal teaching hours, office hours which would make it a normal 40 hour work week. The other two you didnt even want to look at as you were ready to accept the position in Wenzhou.

Michael was in the office most of the day. Due to personal reasons his lunch break is three hours, unlike the normal two and a half, but he was present the rest of the day. We work from nine to twelve and from two thirty to five thirty, and I was present during those hours, Michael was most of the time

So what happened? First of all, we are a business and both you and the school in Wenzhou knew that when you engaged our services. During the lunch break you decided to talk to the partner school independently of us. This is perfectly acceptable, if you talk about the details of the position.

However, we cannot let you discuss about anything else than the contract details (without Michael there to negotiate with the school on behalf of New Times), and we realistically cannot be held accountable for the actions or consequences of any deal or agreement that we had no part in creating. You even try to get the telephone number of the school to cut us out completely.

As we are an agency, and not a non-profit organization, we indeed ask the school to pay us a fee. This fee is a set fee, no matter if you and the school agree on a six month or one year contract. However, a school will be reluctant to pay a commission for a three month contract.

That the school in the end decided not to pay us for the services provided, but rather pay a different agency a smaller fee for the same service is therefore not our mistake but the schools. In the end not New Times, but the school blew up the deal by hiring another teacher.

We were ready to help you find another position, but you never even talked to us after getting off the phone with the school Friday late afternoon and never returned to our office after that.

Your complaint about me not being helpful As far as I could tell, everything seems to go pretty okay with you, and as I was occupied by a teacher that day with real problems, I never took the time for you. I do apologize for that, but then again you never asked me for advice either.

The only valid complaint you have is that the apartment where we put you up needs to be cleaned.

Sincerely,

Jacques Peeters