Joanne
- 2011-11-18
I have just finished my contract with ALIFA SUSHAN English school. Your comments about the director made me think twice before coming, but just to let you know, I had a good experience.
Perhaps it is because the director has renovated things since you were there; while I was working, she stopped half foreign and half Chinese teachers classes and now just offers foreign teacher classes. Our school building is new and we have all we need to teach.
As far as your personal vendettas against Suzanne; I think either you misunderstood her, or you yourself gave her trouble. I asked her about the comments written on this board and why she herself didn't reply; she said you could write a million good things, but everyone would just point out one negative comment without asking if it is true or not.
As far as leenalou who didn't even use her real name. Suzanne says she knows who you are and knows the situation and why you would have seen her as trying to manipulate you. She was a few months pregnant at the time you came, and almost lost the baby, and was ordered to bedrest when you told her you would not work for her. She said she was at the hospital and didn't tell any of her workers when your school came around asking for another recommendation; but that the school stamp was in her hand, so no one could give you an official copy of what you needed.
As far as the other person who called her a B****. She just said by your teaching, the school lost 100 students in one month; she did fire you because of a comment you made in Chinese to one of the students that you would take off his head and kick it across the street, but she also said she didn't revoke your new Chinese work visa, so that you were free to work anywhere else, and that you got your salary in full without any penalties.
I can say that not everything was as I expected when I came here, but I have always been able to talk out problems with Suzanne; perhaps you all didn't talk out your problems enough and everyone had his/her own side of the story. But I think what you have written here is uncalled for slander.
inagreement
- 2008-03-24
I ABSOLUTELY agree with you and anyone else who has something bad to say about this B****!! There is not a single nice word I can think of to describe her! She not only cheated me and my colleagues when we worked there in 2003/4, but after doing a month of severe overtime she then turned around and told us that she would be "changing the way we pay you from now on", "Oh, and that includes for this month you've just done"!!! Screwing me out of around 12,000 yuan and my friend out of over 13,000! She then had the nerve to tell us that we should be "grateful" as under her new system of working things out she could still give my colleague another 2 hours of work each week and myself another 5 if she should so choose!!
She constantly used threats, including "putting my spies on to you", and, after deciding I must be "stealing students" (the ones that left because she refused to teach the material they wanted to learn!) she got a Chinese friend of hers to phone me up and pretend he wanted his kid to study in my girlfriend's class! After getting info on how many students she taught (none of whom had ever even heard of this school), she decided this was grounds to fire me! (She actually phoned me up and asked me to come in to be fired!!).
She uses intimidation whenever possible too. She will NEVER have a one to one meeting, but will have her big Iranian husband looming over you with his arms crossed and looking angry (she did this to the female foreign teachers too! I have since heard stories from other teachers of threats being shouted at them in the streets from her vast number of Iranian relatives all living here. (Which, by the way, is why she never pays properly. By her own admission, the money usually gets spent on her family first). Oh, and if you come from Down Under, she has been banned from employing Australians too as she was employing several illegally and got them into trouble when investigated!
In conclusion, the sooner this dump closes, the better. I have never been more disgusted by the treatment I have received from another foreigner in this country. (Oh, and whilst whinging, her ad is a complete lie, boasting that she can speak 5 languages. Between us workers at that time, we could speak all 5 that she claimed and she never understood even the basics!)
WARNING!!!
I would never recommend working at this school! I went to work at there in October 2007. After only a month I realized that Suzanne Scruggs simply was not "on the up-and-up." The school is poorly run, has no a.c., the supplies are all rundown, and the people are unorganized. She's completely unprofessional as is her Chinese staff. The Chinese manager spoke no English and the Chinese teachers were cliquish and hard to work with. Several teachers complained of her not paying travel compensations and being irregular in delivering salaries. She also did nothing to help me acclimate to the city. Most schools try to introduce new teachers to other ex-pats, show them around the town a little, etc. We were lucky to even be able to find her sometimes. Her cell phone often didn't work due to running out of credit and she would sometimes be out of touch all day.
This "American English" school had only two American teachers, me and her. In total there were 4 or 5 school branches and only 3 full time teachers and 3 part-timers. We were constantly being asked to pick up new classes, makeup classes previous teachers had missed, and schedules were often changed at the last minute. I've heard that she has been taking 'deposits' from Chinese teachers' salaries as well and firing them at random.
When I decided to leave, change cities, and make a fresh start she made it as difficult as possible. I gave her the 4 weeks notice required in the contract (after she threatened to make sure I'd never be able to work in the province otherwise). She tried to get me to change my mind through crying and guilt trips, telling me I would ruin her school if I left, then through threats. She lied about my Foreign Experts certificate at first, saying that Liaoning Province didn't require them (which they definitely do!), then said that it hadn't finished processing yet, then she finally gave me a copy. She didn't want to give me a letter of release at first which is required in order to get a new visa. Even after I'd started work at my new school she presented difficulties. All of China changed policies to use a new form at exactly the time that I left (of course). She had her staff lie to say she wasn't in the office (one of them slipped up and told me she was in the school all day), then she refused to sign the new form saying that I hadn't fulfilled my contract! Thank goodness my new school had enough guanxi to get it taken care of.
This is not the way a business should be run and teachers do not have to put up with it! The demand for English speakers is so high in China that no one has to take a job at a school like this!