Meten a wonderful place to work??? Tolerable, but wonderful?
What city, and which branch?
All the chain schools vary from place to place, and my review is based strictly on my experience at Baboa Jie.

You said you had gripes, yet didn't mention one!

Pens??? Sorry meant to say markers for the white board. AND yeah it is a valid gripe because they tell you before you go to work there that they will provide them. If they aren't going to do it, then tell your employees about it in advance.

They complain that they have no money in the budget for markers yet they put 42" flat panel monitors in all the classrooms. Right after all the Chinese staff took a pay cut because of the economic crisis.

I am happy they accomadate your schedule. They promised to do the same for me and then signed a piece of paper saying they would do it. Then they didn't keep their end of the deal. When I raised the issue with them they said sorry nothing we can do about that.

Sure we had a copy machine and printer, both in the room next door to us. Not a big deal. The big deal was they never had any paper. No joke, one of the full time guys used to keep a secret stash of paper in the FTs office.

Glad you got a computer, but only the full time people got one at our campus.

Like I said every location is different, but all PT people were paid in cash at our school and it was a hassle to get your money.

The material for the beginner level is awful! End of story.
They had NO extra material, other than what other teachers had already inserted into the lesson plan.

I will have to agree with you that the material is blend of student objectives and the schools objectives.
The school ONLY cares about money!!!!!
The students want a preforming monkey.

The AC in our building was a joke. So the decided to redo the AC ducts. The company used the landing for the stairs as a storage area for their equipment and supplies. Serious fire code violation. That also doubled as the smoking area, so they got tired of people going out there and chained the doors shut.
Which just turned the place into a death trap waiting to happen.

Visa issues. It didn't affect me since I had a Z visa else where, but there was a lot of strange stuff going on with the full time people. People working on F visas or the work permits were being issued out of Shenzhen or Chongqing.

This all happened before the Olympics. At that time there was a bust some where down in Guangdong province at a Meten and the FTs got left hanging out to dry.
They put some stuff online (or so the story goes) and the FTs in Chengdu heard about and refused to work until all their visas where straightened out.

In short all the chain schools care about is profit. Some are tolerable but they vary from city to city. If you see a positive or negative post about a place remember that it doesn't not mean all the schools are the same.

One exception being the crappy standardized material they use and reuse.

The Chengdu Meten is poorly managed and not a good place to work.
In addition the hourly rate is really low for part work.

In favor, they have a saloon area with a pool table and a bar. The bar is mostly for looks, and they don't really keep it stocked, but I think there are still a few bottles of booze left.