I was at Walton Language School from the summer 2008 until Feb 2009.The manager was a Taiwanese woman, Lydia. My contract, which I assume was similar to others, stipulated that a paid class period was defined as 60 minutes as opposed to the more typical 40-50 min. Which means every teacher was being at paid at a lower hourly rate than the typical.For the range of 22-27 periods, the teacher would get a 1000 RMB bonus.All salary payments were made in the following month.

I decided to work for her because this is when the government made changes in the visa laws related to the Olympics and I was unprepared to return back to the home country.There were major inconsistencies in her management.The first was in getting my residence permit. After two months, Penney, the assistant, said it would be ready in 1 week. Then, management reversed that, said there were troubles, but if I did a favor, then, they could make it happen. That favor turned out to be a stupid video.Later, Lydia presented my permit to me.She also requested I do some extra classes to make up for the "extra cost". The Foreign Teachers Director, Peter Sroka,missed a few of his classes. His students ended up with me. In Dec, he pulled a stunt where he disappeared from his apartment.We got to hear his lectures on Wed. about teachers being late for class.Apparently Lydia was pulling stunts on his contract.

In November, I asked the day before payday what time the salary would be ready.The next day(Sat.) Lydia said she wanted to review my classes. On Tuesday's review, I used the book that Walton management had given me. Lydia looked at the vocabulary on the board, asked what it meant. I said it was from the first page of chapter one of the book you gave me.I asked her if she had even read the book. Lydia said she was the boss, that she didn't need to read the book. The students, she said were bad, but my job was to make them happy. She was also withdrawing my monthly bonus.I decided to get sick and left the room. I stuck around because I hadn't reached some financial goals for my other country yet.Lydia has a certificate on her wall showing an MBA from City University of Oklahoma. I have my doubts. One time,she had me interview a prospective student. Then she pulled out two sheets of paper showing a system for organizing English training using 14 levels from a particular system.She asked me where he belonged in the system. I told her we didn't have the books for that system. She acted like she was clueless that she needed the books.It was just something she got off the Internet.My 10 year old nephew would know the right things to think about.

There was also the character Fabian. A polite,glad-handing Frenchman. One day in Oct.,I believe, he comes asking for money.We were about 13 days from the payday. He says he needs to get through the period. He doesn't trust Walton to borrow money. He needed 200 RMB.Then the following Tues., about 4 days before payday, he gets in a taxi,to go to Guangzhou central. Well, it costs about 200 RMB to get back-and-forth.He had class the next morning. Something doesn't add up. He did pay me back. He asked to borrow money again the next month.I politely declined.There were a couple of British 19 year olds who Lydia wouldn't give their plane fare to return home at contract expiration. After some haggling and maybe 3 weeks of additional work. They got it. Throughout the Fall 2008, there were two teachers who simply disappeared.In Jan.2009, Lydia, called me in, told me the students didn't like me, but she would try and also rewrote another contract. I went along because she controlled the apartment. I'll say a few positive things. The apartment was nice. Lydia did take the teachers out for a dinner. She took me out for a dinner by myself.This was after withholding my bonus.She probably figured she got to keep 900 RMB(1000- 100 for dinner).

There was Christopher, from Wisconsin. He was generally ok but had the habit of publicly agreeing with management, while often he privately disagreed.The management, especially Dannie,will be complimentary and polite.They will also act like they are doing you a favor.Don't take it with sincerity.For my part, I had about 35 hours of teaching including weekends.The workload did go down. But it does seem like these people strive to live by the lowest possible common denominator.