One thing that I have found to be very prevalent here is that people tend to lie a lot and there is corruption everywhere. I have heard a number of things from people and found some out the hard way. When I initially came here I was going to work in an English only private school and I was told I would start teaching in July during the summer session. Not only was there no summer session, I later found out I did not even have a job. I scrambled around some and found a job teaching at another school and started in mid-September. Again, with this job I was told that I would have 4 classes a day and then tutor other students one-on-one.
Each semester is only 8 weeks. The first semester I had 2 classes a day Monday-Thursday and then in October I tutored one student twice a week. Then the second semester started and I had 2 classes twice a week and still just one student to tutor. I was pretty pissed off when this happened. The other teachers I work with told me the guy who runs the place tells everyone a different story and that is basically why no one stays there too long. The only upside is we get paid. One teacher I work with is from Ireland and he is here because his wife works for an international organization whose job it is to try and stop the corruption. I was told the one public school here hired a bunch of teachers and then didn’t pay them. They said they were hired on a trial basis and that they do not get paid for that trial basis. of course they did not tell this to the teachers when they were hired. Then, another school did not pay the teachers for the month of November. The one politician said they did not have the money in the budget to pay the teachers. The teachers make about 1200Km a month (equal to about $800) yet this politician makes 40,000Km a month. So, I atleast get paid something and have been taking a bunch of graduate classes so I can get another degree so hopefully when I return I will not have to go back to Philly to teach.
Anyway, there are some other stories about lies and corruption that I have found interesting. Part of the reason why I do not have all of the classes that I was told I would have is because the guy who owns/runs the school is completely incompetent. Forget the fact that he is rarely ever there (we’re supposed to have a meeting every month but only had one in September because all of the other months he is never around so we cancel the meetings), or that when he comes in he is sometimes drunk, or that he treats the women like s*** (last week a few of the women were crying because of how he was speaking to them.) 2 teachers actually quit (one was a woman and also worked for the British Consulate, the other was the guy I mentioned from Ireland. His former job was he was in the Irish Army. I said, wow, so even though you are former military he broke you. His reply was the owner is an absolute clown and he was tired of it and that he rather carry rocks from one end of Sarajevo to the other before he comes back and teaches any more. I actually took over his and the other teachers classes for the last 2 weeks of the second semester.) The guys sole job is to recruit new students, and he is a failure at that. One, because like I said, he is rarely there. Second, he tells people different information. For one person he tells them one price, for someone else, who has a better job, he tells them a higher price so he can get more money. Last semester I had a student who was a law student, he told me that if he goes to the market after work when he is wearing a suit and tie the people will charge him more money so now he only goes shopping after he changes his clothes. Like food stores and shops have set prices but then there are markets (there is one close by that I would say is similar to the Berlin Market if anyone remembers that place.) Anyway, you can buy everything at these markets clothes, food, electronics and then there are little stands throughout the city. Now, if you look like a “regular” you can get a deal. If you look like you might have money they will quote you a higher price. Anyway, it's one thing to do this when you are selling produce, it's another thing when you are running a school. Some of the students have found this out and have been asking for their money back. Since we have some time off in January the guy was trying to make a deal that rather than refund their money he would just give them more classes, I was asked if I could teach some extra classes and I told him no.
I had a free period between two of my classes so I would stand around and talk with the secretary a lot. She is a law student and has told me a lot about what goes on around the school and the city. Another good story about the school, is the guy treats the women horrible, as I previously mentioned. He does stupid stuff and then blames it on the secretary, like when he didn’t pay the electric bill. The best story I heard is that the new secretary got hired at the beginning of September to replace the old one who quit. The last secretary, who the guy also treated like crap, quit but took along the list of every student and then opened her own school and poached a large portion of the students by offering them discounted tuition. That’s a brilliant idea, and if I was going to stay here longer, I would do the same thing.
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