Who should get the blame for this?

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:54 pm

Ok, so, kind of funny story.

Last year, my company got contracts from this city's Board of Education to send English teachers to about 150 different schools. There are a lot of companies who do this, buy my company tends to use people who are in Japan long-term. Only (maybe) 1% were hired from outside Japan. This isn't to take away from companies and programs like JET, NOVA, GEOS, AEON, etc, who do most/all of their hiring from overseas. But, in situations like that, where the teacher is only going to be in the country for a year or two, there'll always be a few who screw up in spectacular fashion (with almost no consequences for themselves).

Anywho... So the group of teachers in this city is made up exclusively of people who are planning on staying in Japan for the foreseeable future. Most everyone has previous teaching experience. It's a great group of people.

Except for one person. One glaring exception. This is a person who was barely able to put together a sentence. We have monthly meetings from 3 until 5. She was an hour late because she thought she could come in any time between three and five. On her initial training day, a day where she (and everyone) was told, repeatedly, that it was of vital importance to be early/on time, she was late. Not a minute late. Not five minutes late. It was ten minutes past when we got a phone call saying that she was running late. She was "in the bathroom." She wasn't. Since the group was waiting for her, literally, 4 steps from said bathroom.

I don't think I'm going to shock anybody by saying that Japan is a country where people are expected to adhere to at least basic cultural standards. This person was incapable of following even the most rudimentary societal courtesies. Ignorant to the point of rudeness, and dressed in a way that I honestly struggle to sum up, she was the source of multiple face-palms once she actually arrived to meetings.

Plenty of people tried to help her. To straighten her out before she said or did something that would get her fired. She was dumb as a brick, but also young. So, maybe she was just coming across poorly due to lack of experience, nerves, bad luck, etc. I believe the point where I threw up my hands and gave up was when she started up about some 9/11 "truther" garbage out of nowhere.

I asked my boss, the guy who hired her, what her deal was. You know, because it'd be kind of stupid to ask your boss, "What the hell are you thinking hiring this person?" He explained the situation, and it was very "Japanese," and I don't really want to say much more than that. If it were a different country, though, she likely wouldn't have had a chance at getting this job. Still, my boss said that he was only going to use her as a substitute teacher, and even then, not very often.

Quick aside: I'm not going to say that I have a hard job. All things considered, it's a pretty sweet deal. Easy to do, challenging to do well. But you don't get a whole lot of feedback. If you're doing a great job, you won't find that out until it makes its way back to your boss. If you're doing a terrible job...you won't find out until it makes its way back to your boss. Nobody will tell you anything. Your boss aside, nobody will anybody anything that might come back to you.

This month, thanks to some wonky scheduling, I'm doing a lot of substitute teaching. This week alone, I've been to four new schools for the first time. Schools that this person had been sent to. I say "sent to" because she didn't show up a few times and I was there to "make up for it." How do I know that? Because these teachers, who don't know me from Adam, just tore this person apart. They went on and on about all of the (admittedly colossal) ways she'd ****ed up. After my lessons, some of the teachers commented that my company, "sent 'their best teacher' ( :-) ) to try to apologize for sending that terrible one a few months ago." I was pretty sure that they just sent me because my regular schools didn't have scheduled English classes.

It looks like this will have been the only (school) year that my company will have the contracts in this city. A large part of the reason seems to be that one teacher made such a terrible impression on the few schools that she went to, those schools complained (loudly) to the BOE to grant the contract to a new company from April.

So, back to the thread title: Who should get the blame for this? This time, it doesn't really concern me. I wasn't planning on staying in this city after my contract runs out in March. I've asked the company to move me closer to my girlfriend. If they don't/can't/won't, then I'll be free to look for another job in that area. But there are twenty other people who work for the company in that area. And it looks like they'll be out of a job. Who do you think they should focus their anger on? The clueless girl who applied for (and got) a teaching job she was unqualified for/didn't seem to really want, or the guy who hired her?

I would LOVE to blame the girl. If only because I have a great personal dislike for people who want to be teachers just because "it's a job." I had enough teachers like that growing up. It's still upsetting.

But, I really think that the blame goes on the guy who hired her.

What say you?

Hubcap · Post by **Hubcap** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:31 pm

Well, it's both of them isn't it? Not equally mind you but she's certainly gotta take some of the blame for being bad at a job where it really matters that you not be bad at your job.

Post by **Kaylee** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:37 pm

Manager, I say. I don't blame people for being halfwits, I don't blame them for doing a job they (presumably) think they do just fine. I do blame managers so disconnected and aloof (or clueless) that they don't know how to discipline and fire such people.

saysadie · Post by **saysadie** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:27 pm

I second manager- it's her fault she's an idiot, but ultimately the manager's fault for keeping someone so inept around for as long as he has.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 3:37 pm

Do you have the power to have the manager removed?

Honestly, I've never seen office politics that approached some of the viciousness of academic politics, in college or K-12 (as we call it in the States). I suppose it's because teaching is a harder profession to get in and stay in, and there is so little money involved unless you stick around for ages. That manager probably has some other agenda involved with keeping her on.