I did not have enough time to make it a post with replies to all of the things mentioned below, but it is up to you to judge.

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Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:14:16 -0700
From: delljohnston4@yahoo.com
Subject: Here's everything
To: slkvaizard@hotmail.com

Mao,

This is from the boss stand point.
I've done a lot of calls and meetings to figure out what to do with your situation and the problem at hand. First I want to talk about the money that we supposedly owe you.

You say that we promised you a starting salary at 5,500. As I recall the conversation, I told you that we couldn't pay you that salary at first because we didn't need to hire you at the time and you wouldn't have any hours to work. I told you the best we could do was 4,500 and eventually you could make 5,500. You agreed to that amount in the beginning. Here is a quote from your email "I was promised a salary of 5500, to be increased after 3-6 months," That right there says it all. After 3 to 6 months. You left at the end of your 6 months.
I looked at your hours and even though you were busy when Anne and Jordan were gone and you did hit over time during those two months, I had told you, Jordan and Anne that we would not pay overtime because 1) for a few months before you all worked little or not at all 2) the school would pay for a trip to thank you all for the hard work you all did during those two months. You all agreed to these terms. I know you were unable to go to Taiwan because you did not have a visa. Jordan, Anne and I told you that you needed a visa. I know the Chinese said you didn't and that is their fault but I was told from Jordan and Anne that they told you to still take care of it because we all thought the Chinese were wrong. You didn't do the research and you didn't take care of the visa. In all honesty we all think that you didn't even want to go to Taiwan and that is why you didn't take care of the visa. You probably didn't even assume that all these problems would come from not having a visa when you arrived in Taiwan.
Now I want to discuss about you wanting to quit the school. Your contract was 6 months. Yes you worked 6 months but you still need to notify us 3 weeks before that you want to leave at the end of your 6 months. You can't work all 6 months and then say, my 6 months are finished so I don't work for you anymore. You have to give us a notice. You had said to me that your 6 months were finished and that you want to leave at the end of that week. I asked you nicely could you help us for a couple weeks until David the new teacher could arrive and then you could leave. You then stated that you may have an interview during that time and that you must go. I talked to Uncle and Lisa and we all agreed that you could do that because finding another job was important. Here is where the problem is. You found out about your interview. You called my phone but it wasn't working while I was in Beijing. You should have immediately contacted Lisa to let her know. Instead the day before your interview, you contemplated on if you should wait till I get back to inform me and then talk to Lisa or just go with out saying anything to Lisa. The moment you got that call about that interview you should have called Lisa when you could not get a hold of me. I know that during your meeting with Lisa, things were said that did not go over well and she insulted your character and threatened you. I had a nice talk with Lisa and told her about this mistake and that the way she handled the situation was unprofessional and was uncalled for. When you came back from your interview she was to apologize to you and we were going to let you finish out your time here. You would have left with no ill regrets and you would have received your final pay and ticket to Beijing. But during that time, we had some problems with the government about the whole Taiwan thing and they came here to find you. You were not here and they said you were not to leave. I'm not sure what happened in Changchun, just that you were told you can't leave China. But they told you wrong and you were to not leave Songyuan. So we were going to have to pay a fine because you had left. Which we understood, it wasn't your fault the Taiwan thing happened, so we accepted the fact that we would have to pay that fine. I know your embassy said that the government doesn't do that and blah blah blah but your embassy is wrong and please tell me which country would tell the truth when it comes to their people being treated unfairly by another country. Is it wrong? Yes. Does the Chinese government do it? Yes. You have been here long enough to know what really goes on in China. So back to my point, everything was fine, you were going to come back, we pay a fine, you finish your term and you get a good job in Beijing. But then we find out that you are spending a few days traveling around with Blair. In any country when you are given time off from work to take care of something but you end up not being true to your word, your job would fire you. Plain and simple. For example: If you call in to work sick and then your boss sees you at lunch shopping with your friends. Your boss would fire you right away. No questions asked. So that put Lisa, Uncle and I over the edge. We were all upset about this. Every company in the world would be upset with this behavior. You took advantage of our kindness and you did not respect us when you pulled this stunt. So you could have waited a couple more weeks to see her.
You came to us from two other schools in China. You didn't come to us by plane and you didn't come to us from Mexico. In a 6 month contract you are only given a one way ticket to your home country or to your next destination. Not a round trip ticket. For example: If your next destination is Beijing, we would only pay for a ticket to Beijing. If you go by plane, we would pay the plane ticket, if you go by train, we would pay the train ticket. We would not give you the cash. We would pay the ticket. So if you did not go to Mexico, we would not give you money in the amount of a plane ticket to Mexico.
The situation you just emailed me about is this. By law because you don't work for us we are to report to the bureau that you no longer work for us and they are then to cancel your visa and or change it to a tourist visa. We don't cancel it. We just inform them that you are no longer an employee of ours. After the meeting with you in Lisa's office, Lisa started filling out paper work and all the necessary documents to report that you no longer work for us. Uncle contacted Lisa and said that we will just let it go. Let you get your new job in Beijing and they take care of your visa. We just release you and not cancel it. They knew I did not want to cancel your visa and that I didn't want anything like that to happen to you. Lisa stopped it and she hasn't been talking to the government. During that time we found out that Bill still had control of your visa. How? We don't know. That is a problem with you and Bill. But from what I found out. Helen had gotten the necessary documents from Bill and he released you or what ever. I don't even know. So your visa and everything is out of our hands. We then found out two weeks ago that you, Tony and a guy named Peter had gone to the police bureau and I'm not sure what was said cause we weren't there but the officer had called us about a week after and said that you came in there and had told them that you no longer worked for us. We had yet to report that to them because we wanted to give your new company time to take care of your visa. He said because you went in there that the bureau could change your visa but it had to be taken care of right away. He also asked why didn't we tell him about you leaving the school the moment you left. We could have gotten in trouble for that Mao. Lisa had told them that you were not in Songyuan and that we found out you had returned back to Beijing. The officer said that you had to be there that day. But because you had gone to Beijing to start your new job and couldn't be there that day to take care of your visa, they said that you A) you have two weeks to go back to Mexico B) have your new job take care of your visa in Beijing. That is all we know about the situation.
Before we hired you Mao, I told you that you would stay with Jordan because our school was new and we are waiting for apartments to be built. Until then you would have to live with him. Yes the conditions were not so great because it was a rental property. But you knew all of this from day one. You are not the only one impatient about the apartment conditions. I've been waiting 9 months for my apartment to get finished. The apartment complex keeps telling us next month, next month, next month. I've been hearing from them lately "Next week Next week" The conditions with your apartment were due to the land lord. We kept asking them to get things fixed but they would slack off. Maybe it is pure laziness or the way of the people in Songyuan. I'm not sure. We can only do so much. We are not the boss of people outside the school. Before coming to our school you were having problems with Bill's school and maybe you just thought that getting out of there is all that matters but you obviously forgot what it was like there and you didn't even take a chance to realize how well you had it here. Yes the school was going through some growing pains. It is a new school, we had only been open a few months and we were still learning how to manage a business in dong bei and I was still trying to change the old mind concept of the Chinese to my western way. But we helped you out with cash when you needed, we hired you when we didn't even need you, we helped you with all your problems with Bill which cost us a lot. We did everything we could at that time to show you that not all Chinese are like Bill and your old boss in Chang chun. You really need to think of all the things we did for you when we didn't need to. I know you are probably saying that you didn't ask for all that. But if we didn't do that, you would have been back in Mexico 7 months ago and it would have been Bill who was the bad guy because you wouldn't have had the money to return back to Mexico and you wouldn't have your final pay.
This is coming now from the friends stand point and not the business.
First off as a friend I hired you and did everything I could to help you out with Bill. I barely even knew you at the time. You took advantage of my friendship I think at times because you would complain to teachers from other schools and to the teachers in my school. You never shared your problems with me. But being a friend and boss, you should come to me when you had problems and not have me hear from another person about all the problems you had. If you wanted them fixed quickly you needed to tell me right away. You and I shared the same foreign friends and I knew them a lot longer than you. You complaining to them about your situation here got me upset because you needed to let me know you were having these problems and I would help you.
You say we are friends and you value friendships. But you slept with my best friend's girlfriend (they were still together up till the spring festival) and then you base your leaving my school on that new relationship with her. Now, what kind of friend secretly sleeps with their friend's best friend's girlfriend? Did I hold that against you? No. (Tell me who do you know that would sleep with their Boss's best friend's girlfriend and not be held accountable for it? No one, let's just consider that the biggest thing I let slide.)
I've been trying everything I could to handle your situation. But as a friend you keep threatening me in emails. That you will report my school, write a blog on dave's esl, etc Your anger with Lisa will affect me and my school and all the staff here. Jordan, Anne, Roger, Lois, Grace, Sunshine and Bill will all be affected by your actions because you are angry at Lisa and too stubborn to admit your faults in any of this. So you are hurting your other friends too.
Also when you left to go travel with Blair and not return back to teach your weekend classes, Jordan, Anne and I had to cover your classes. So you left us high and dry. If you think they weren't upset by your decision, you are wrong. We didn't mind covering classes cause you had an interview and we wanted to help. Justin covering your classes? You find a teacher that is currently on the staff to cover your classes. Not just any foreign teacher. Also that is not your decision to make. You don't say, "I'm leaving for an interview, this teacher is covering for me. Bye" No job works like that. That is a decision based by me.
As far as I'm concerned, my school owes you nothing. No final pay, no plane ticket, etc Your recent problem with your visa is Bill's fault and your mistake for going to the bureau and not having your new job take care of your visa. So you can do what you want from there but I'm not going to feel sorry for you and have someone tell me what makes a good friend and a good boss. I know exactly who I am and I have met many manipulative people in my life. I'm sorry Mao if this upsets you, but as a friend, you need to stop being so stubborn, stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop blaming the world for your problems. You need to face up to what you did and realize that I was too nice. You also need to realize that the world doesn't owe you anything and that you owe yourself to grow up. This is probably the meanest thing I have ever said to someone that I truly cared about, but I have never been threatened so many times by one person that I thought cared about me. This school is my life and I'm working hard at fixing everything and it is getting better. I know I'm pissing a lot of staff off and I know I have made you mad by this email. But maybe it is time for people to start seeing this side of me so that I won't have situations like yours happening again. I don't like people seeing my kindness as a weakness. We all come to China to change. I've changed to a better person being here. Maybe this will help you to change your way.
So I've shared my true feelings in this email and I wish you all the best but I can't do this for you anymore and I won't allow someone to make me feel guilty for things that they did to themselves. This was a job for you and yes we were friends but you never saw it as a job and you saw it as you were doing a favor for us when in all honesty, we did you favor upon favor. So who really owes who? Good luck with everything and I'm sorry that I had to say all this. But it is how I truly feel and I'm sure all of our friends will be upset but it's the truth. So do what you need to do Mao. Put the post online or what ever you want to do. But just think about everyone else and not you and Lisa's petty little problem. She quit and maybe you should quit and stop listening to other people's input and do what you think is best. If you make the decision you plan, you will just show your true colors and everyone else will see it.

Dell

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From: Mahoma Iza Villalba <slkvaizard@hotmail.com>
To: Dell Johnston <delljohnston4@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wed, April 14, 2010 8:34:05 PM
Subject: RE: would u at least reply?

Hey Dell
I'm glad u finally wrote back. I'm kind of sorry that every time I email you it's on a bad mood, but things keep happening.
I just talked to Roger and he said Lisa is still talking to the police to cancel my visa. 2 weeks ago he told me that uncle told her to stop, because he didn't want to go any further. I know for a fact that, legally, she cannot touch me or my documents, but I also know this is China, and everything can be done if u talk to the right people and u put enough zeros on the bribing. I don't know if u are aware. Roger was very worried about it cause he was told that, again, the police will kick me out of china if I don't go to Mexico.
Now, for her own good, and for school's sake, make her stop stepping on my toes. Nobody wants to see an angry mexican, my friend. And nobody should threaten a person who doesn't fear death, it's pointless and it's pushing the wrong buttons. Now, this is NOT a threaten. It's a simple statement.

You know, I have prepared a post for the eslboard. I haven't posted it yet, I want to try and avoid the need of it, but if I decide to go and do it, you will receive a copy by email a day before, so that u can tell me if u think what it's being said is true or not.
I have to say that this new incident with Lisa almost triggered it. I'm mad, I'm very mad. And every day when I see I am not going to make it to pay day I get really angry. I have 600rmb to survive until May 8th. That's 25 days. Oh and I have to pay my room on the 29th. I don't know what I will do.
Dell, I don't know where in your to do list I am, but I need you to hurry up on that. Will I ever see my money? will we come to an agreement? will u stop the stupid bitch from being a pain in my ass?

Again, sorry for always writing angry emails. I hope u can reply asap

Mahoma

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Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2010 22:48:48 -0700
From: delljohnston4@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: would u at least reply?
To: slkvaizard@hotmail.com

Hey Mao,

Please don't think that my not replying to you is my way of avoiding you or the situation. I've been meaning to reply back but finding the time to write back about everything is just taking longer than I thought. Since this situation happened I have been doing a lot of damage control on everyone and letting everyone know what is up. Trust me. I will be writing you back everything I've been meaning to say. It is just taking a while. You of all people know how much shit was falling apart here and I'm just trying to get that all taken care of. I hope you can remain patient and I'm trying to get everything taken care of with your situation as well. Your words have always hit me and some of the things you have said to me have got me trying to change things in my school. I've just been working on getting that taken care of. Like you said, it is my school with my name and I'm working day and night to get it fixed. It eats at me everyday and you knew this months ago. I find that I'm being an asshole more and I've been making sure that everyday I'm pissing someone off. I promise I will do everything to help you and I certaintly understand how you are feeling and I of all people would never what something like this to happen. I apologize deeply for all of this and I hope that this all works out in the end to were everyone is happy. But things are getting better slowly but surely. My to do list is getting smaller. You aren't last on that list by any means but I hope you can be patient for me even though your patience I'm sure is running thin. Half the time I find that I don't even know where my day has gone. It goes by so quickly because of all the things that I'm doing. I haven't even talked to my mom in weeks. So it isn't anything personal with anyone and I hope you can believe that. Write me back if you can. I hope everything is ok in Beijing.

Much Faith

Dell

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From: Mahoma Iza Villalba <slkvaizard@hotmail.com>
To: Dell Johnston <delljohnston4@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, April 6, 2010 9:55:14 PM
Subject: would u at least reply?

Hi Dell. I usually don't keep on writing if I don't get a reply, so if you keep on not answering, this is gonna be the last time I email you. The reason why I write today is because I had a dream last night where you and I had a long conversation about all this shit that's been going on since the opening of ur school. You know? when I told you not long ago that you should tell them to fuck off and go and open your school in Mexico together with me I meant it, because that's how much trust I had in you and your ideas, but now I don't even know if u even see me as a friend.
Another thing is that money is far from being as important as a friend, it's just that in this case the object in which the deal was based upon was money. No money, no deal, no word, no trust, that's the equation. And even more, you knew as well as any of my friends that I was bankrupt, that I was in some sort of problems, none of which could anybody explain to me and all of them had a different story every time they were told; that I needed to move away to avoid more problems, that Lisa fucked me over no matter how much you look into it to blame me about it, she still screwed me, and "the green lanterns" did nothing; and that I was trying to contact you, and yet, telling me that you cannot sleep at night because of all this shit, I didn't even deserved a reply. Not even a fuck off. At least that get's me off from expecting.

As a friend I tell you one last thing, a little advice: change that place and take control, or change the name of the school and do sth else. You are the face of that place, everything goes to you at the end.

Well, I hope you can find the time to mail me back

Mahoma