If this is posted twice then I apoligize but I wanted to make sure I got this story out...

This week I went to visit Fenny and Perlandas at their office in Shenzhen. It seemed like their names were all over the internet and they seem to have control of the best jobs. In fact, many of the ESL boards are flooded with their postings. I was optimistic because I assumed that I could come away with a decent job.

For the first twenty minutes, everything seemed great. I sat down with Fenny and Perlandas and we made small chat about America and China. Perlandas is an African American from Tenessee and he is friendly enough. He seems to have had a lot of success with his education and business. I kept waiting for him to bring up the subject of the job and it almost seemed like they were trying to make me feel too comfortable.

Finally, Perlandas grabbed his laptop, opened a window and let me have a look. They were offering me a job with some "unnamed" school that offered a fairly low salary and "negotiable" benefits. When I asked about the negotiable benefits he kind of shrugged and said I could ask for anything I wanted but most likely I wouldn't get it. Apparently, negotiable benefits was a meaningless word.

The job that they offered me was not exactly what I had hoped for so I made reference to the literally dozens if not hundreds of other jobs that I had seen posted under their agency name. He mumbled something about those jobs already having been "filled up" because of the lateness of the month. Of course, I realized then that something wasn't quite right as there was no way that ALL of those jobs could have been filled so quickly. I have recruited teachers myself (as a favor for an old school that I worked for in China) and I know that there had to be other jobs available. Right then, I knew this wasn't going to be a good situation for me but I was a little bit curious about the rest of the process so I went ahead and said that I was interested in the job.

Almost immediately I was handed a piece of paper which contained two STARTLING demands.

1. I would have to promise to allow the SCHOOL to give PERLANDAS 50 PERCENT of my earning in the first month. I was really shocked by this. No where in any of Perlandas listings was there ever a hint that I would have to pay for any of this. I assumed that the school's would pay the recruiters. And 50% of my first month's earnings? That would have been well over 400 US!

2. Equally shocking to me was the stipulation that if I wanted to continue with this school after a year, I would have to PAY ANOTHER 400 US again! In other words, Perlandas would OWN me until I stopped working for that school.

Needless to say, I got up and said "thanks but not thanks." I was sorry that I had wasted my time.

Look, I don't think that Perlandas is running a scam. I am sure that there was a school out there somewhere that would have hired me but I was really dissappointed to discover that a fellow American was taking advantage of teachers in this way. I can only sincerely hope that not too many teachers have fallen for this business...but by the looks of his office and his optimism about expanding into other provinces, I am guessing that business is pretty good.

Please, if you are a newbie foreign English teacher, be careful with these kind of agencies. You can do a lot better just to go and find a position YOURSELF! Do the research and find out what others are saying about schools. Don't PAY MONEY to recruiters because it isn't necessary and I have a feeling it may be more trouble than good.

I would really like to find out what schools are associated with Perlandas because truth be told, I can't imagine any legitimate ones wanting to have anything to do with this type of business..

Alright, that's my little story. It was a good learning experience...

Cam