So I received an offer from a Poland language school - what's your take on this?

What is dishonest about it? If you could buy your beans a little cheaper in another shop you would ;)

false analogy friend, false analogy.

If I agree to do something and at the same time agree NOT to do something then that's how it is.

If you agree it in the first place with the school...
Lets say the school offers it's services for 80pln, but you can for 65pln directly. Then it's only the student who wins...

I'll take the value of my word over the difference.

The value of my word is that the student gets what they pay for and not paying extra for the "middlemen".

Then you wouldn't have agreed to the proposal which I did.

But you still let the "middleman" add on extra costs.

Are you sure you read the first post?

Cash in hand and maximise illegalities ;) ;)

I don't see why you don't contact the client yourself and offer your schools "offer". If the other school is muscling in on your ground then sweep the carpet from them and don't take it.


Probably not correctly, but then again I'm half gassed!

Odds are that they won't be interested in him - if they're contacting a language school from "outside", chances are that they don't have a choice locally.

I'd try and find out who the client is and make an offer directly. Especially if this school is in competition with my own business.

delph
^ could be but I know the market here better than you do.
I'm guessing the people that contacted me are just more skilled at securing corporate clients.

What do you mean by clowns? I mean they're teachers right? CELTAs, grammar, lead-ins, all that jazz, just that they like to have a laugh while doing their job??

Aha, I wrote that in totally the wrong way.

What I meant was that the client might not have a choice - they could have been told "you're getting a teacher from x school and that's that".

I had three classes last year that was exactly like that - schools in Warsaw (and one in Szczecin) - the company had a contract with a school, and the school simply found someone (me) locally to do the class. What was normally happening was that the school was already teaching in the company headquarters, and that the Poznan offices were just small branch offices.

To be honest though, 65zl an hour would seem to be about the going rate for this sort of thing. Sure, you could get more directly, but then all you have to do is teach and send an invoice, it's not your problem if the client doesn't pay the school.

But just to give you an idea (and I've seen the documents confirming this) - I used to teach some classes for Telekomunikacja Polska, and they were paying 66zl an hour for classes to language schools. Don't fall into the trap of believing that all companies are paying a lot and that the school is ripping you off.

No worries, I was offended at first but then remembered what you'd written earlier so I chalked it up to few words missing here or there: )

TPSA?
I used to run classes there in 2005 and the middle man (L2 [squared]) paid me 75 per 60 after tax...I think it was L squared, anyhow, after some time they decided to change it to 75 before tax without consulting me so I ditched them:/


I taught for one outfit in Katowice that tried passing the buck to me with that excuse...holy smokes did they get a wake up call. Those people still hate me to this day...but when they actively disrespect someone then someone has little choice but to employ the next best motivator:)

I agree with Foreigner4 and his ethical position:

Why cheat language schools which propose you work and for which you act as a subcontractor/language consultant ?

After all they do the commercial work and find contracts that no freelance consultant is obliged to accept against his/her will.


And Foreigner4 is also right on this:
Let's imagine you own a bookshop , would you pay the salesperson 50% of each book sold?

I mean if the school charges 120 zl each hour and they are willing to pay a freelance 65 zl each hour their margin is not brilliant when you think that there are schools paying their employees a fixed amount of 3000zl for 30 hours of teaching per week/120 hours a month when they are also charging 120zl an hour ,those schools are businesses which do make significant money like Wall street Institute or Berlitz and some other low quality institutes.

I apologise again anyway :)


Tells you how much competition there is in the market, though I say without reservations that the school was utterly useless. I only kept the class there because the student was an absolutely brilliant guy, not because of the money. It was interesting though - they were working with three schools, and all of them were utter rubbish.


I had it from a certain chain that's on the verge of bankruptcy, and they were 24 hours away from it being taken to court. They only buckled after I pointed out that I could post online and offline to my hearts content about them being non-paying crooks after the court case. Strange, really...

update:
There were 2 breaches of the verbal contract made regarding cancellations- 24 hours or full payment due.
They tried first to claim that a stipulation was written differently in the written contract.
When I pointed out NOTHING was written about it in the contract and the agreement had been verbal, they then claimed that since nothing was in the contract then it didn't matter. WTF? uh, "bye."

Within days I have filled up the empty time slot but I was ready to stick to the contract despite making less and having to drive simply because I wanted to honor the contract. I benefit from their breach of contract, however I am always amazed at how some people here seem to think that being a manager translates to: be incompetent and arrogant and deceitful hope that you don't get caught and then shirk all responsibility in the event of being caught out.

An oral contract is NEVER legally binding, i.e. it'll never hold up in court, Polish or American.

but it can extend to how seriously one wants their legs broken.

True. Good advice NOT to, then.

^Okay, thanks for the tip.

Yo man, one good churn deserves another (..and that's how butter's made)
He-he!

I think it's a sign of how poor the ESL industry is when it comes to professionalism - many of them seem to be English filology graduates who are totally unable to manage.


Unfortunately - they actually had you there, because without it being in the contract, it's worthless. While verbal contracts can be accepted by the courts, you'd have a hell of a time actually proving others. Still - morons to lose someone reliable over something so small. I'd be willing to bet any money that they were still charging the client!

Of course they were still fully charging and this was why I made it clear to the director that I do not stick around if any sketchy sh/t appears. But they wanted to squeeze out a couple hundred z and in the end lose the client and their presence in the area. Quiting on the spot is pretty easy even if it's written in the contract that you can't+ their contracts have almost as many holes in them as their business acumen is lacking.

I think that is the last time I will ever cooperate with a school again.

Pretty much. I'd actually love to know if a school has ever enforced a contract in Poland.


Don't be afraid to do things on your terms - if a school needs you enough, they'll agree to anything. But next time, make sure that the contract is loaded in your favour ;)

How would you suggest doing that? Serious question.

Honestly - given the utter lack of professionalism in the ESL sector, there's no harm in presenting your own contract to a school. I've done it a couple of times where they really needed a teacher, especially with schools out of Poznan where I couldn't meet them personally. It won't work with the big chain schools, but with smaller ones - it's quite possible. Quite a few times now, I've thrashed out a contract to my liking - but I don't try and screw them with it as well.

It all depends on the specifics - if they're desperate, then the more chance of getting a contract in your favour.

I did once quit a job after being accused of breaking a contract that I didn't sign (and didn't even see), but that was another story...