Workplace reviews and discussion: 長頸鹿文化事業股份有限公司

The children are adorable, innocent, and guileless.

I worked part-time at the Banqiao Chongqing branch school for three months. All I can say is that Giraffe has a big name, but its franchised branch schools are truly extremely disappointing!

1. I proactively asked about clocking in, but was indirectly told, “Only teachers who are often late are required to clock in.” I eventually found out why: they expect you to arrive half an hour early to prepare lessons, and stay 1–2 hours after finishing to make phone calls or tutor students with their homework (especially when the English proficiency test is approaching). I am happy to provide extra support to students, but the problem is that for four hours of work, they only calculate two hours of hourly pay!!

This is an extremely inefficient job! They do not let you clock in because they do not want anyone to have evidence and be paid according to the actual hours worked!!

2. The two directors of this branch school (one man and one woman) are extremely disrespectful to teachers!!!!

They often notify you only the night before about training at the head office the next morning, or notify you at the last minute that very morning. If you tell them you have personal matters and may not be able to attend, they say things like, “This is a benefit the company is giving you; if you don’t go, it’s your loss.” They also do not speak to you directly, but instead go complain about you in front of other part-time teachers, saying that although you are part-time, you are still part of Giraffe, so why are you taking on so many classes elsewhere?!

It is truly unbelievable! They are basically treating part-time employees as full-time employees!! Your time is always controlled by them!!!

The monthly meeting, held once a month, often changes times repeatedly and lasts 2–3 hours, all spent talking about lofty principles! There is nothing to say if full-time employees attend, but for part-time hourly workers, sitting there is an enormous waste of time!!

For the Christmas event, the event schedule could not be confirmed. I came up with activities and was told they could be better; when I messaged them, they would even read the messages without replying! I had absolutely no idea what to do next?!!

Furthermore, they actually shouted at a teacher and hit the teacher on the head with a book in front of students! After seeing this, the students will not respect that teacher in the future either!! This is an extremely bad example!

Worst of all, every month you actually have to ask for your hourly pay yourself!!! Not once did they proactively give the teacher the hourly wages when they were due, which was extremely embarrassing and difficult!! One time, after finishing work at another cram school, I thought I would come back later in the evening when they were less busy to collect the payment. They actually said it was not ready yet and asked me to make another trip next time!!!

3. The equipment is extremely outdated! Yet they require the branch to maintain teaching quality in sync with the head office!!

The speakers on the desktop computer outside were broken, so students could not complete their online learning exercises at all. Another desktop keyboard had no space bar... During e-teaching lessons on the laptop, the entire screen would suddenly go black halfway through... Students would suddenly be left in an awkward silence halfway through a game...

And this happened very frequently... I also raised the issue with the directors, but they seemed unwilling to replace the outdated equipment in order to save money. When head-office staff came to inspect whether the branch was teaching according to head-office standards, I raised this issue in the meeting, but instead they thought I had embarrassed them in front of the head-office staff!!

4. Finally, when I resigned, they even falsely accused me of copying and pasting my lesson plans from the lesson plans in their backend system....

It was truly disheartening. I typed every lesson plan myself at home, word by word, and spent a great deal of time on them. To accuse me of copying and pasting without any evidence made me genuinely feel that this company was not worth making an effort for at all!!!!

Before applying, be sure to think it through carefully, so you do not end up swallowing a stomachful of frustration. I believe not every branch school is like this, and I hope this lets other teachers know.