Hey guys, it's me. It's been a while since I've updated you guys about my life overseas, and after stumbling across a fellow friend's old blogpost about leaving a workplace after constant bs and disrespect, I decided to share my experience of my first job while living overseas. You might want to get some popcorn because this is a long ride.

In my previous blog, I mentioned that I was going to get a teaching license so it would help me secure a better job while living in China. At that time, I was already employed at a daycare centre for pre-kindy kids. I left it after a few weeks because a. It wasn't what I wanted to do career wise, and b. All I did in those weeks were to pack toys. I found another place by chance and was hired on the spot, but I gave it a few days before quitting the daycare and accepting this new place.

If I could turn back time, I wish I didn't accept that offer. It was in October, 2020.

First things first. The principal who offered me the job gave off some sus vibes. I've had an odd feeling about it, but it wasn't until after leaving that my thoughts were confirmed. In the early stages of the interviews + first month of working there, the principal was... flirty? Like he flirted to have me accept the job offer? During the first week of being there, he offered to drive me home on multiple occasions, even if I told him I didn't need to. I told him I lived close by, then he offered to walk me home, which was weird, because who would walk an employee home after 9PM??? Icky feelings already. 

After working there for a few months, I've discovered some issues. The company wasn't big, we had an education department, administration/HR, marketing department and sales department. There were about 35 people at the time. The education department was the largest with about 5 foreign teachers, 5-6 teaching assistants, and a supervisor. Every other department had around 5 people in them. At first, everyone in our department got along and we were all friendly; we would hang out on our day offs and we became quite close. Of course there were smaller cliques, such as TA 1 and TA3 would be closer and so on, but that was not a problem because we were all civil towards each other. Until my 3rd or 4th month in, the relationships cracked because SOMEONE was stirring the pot behind our backs. 

Someone, as in the supervisor. And boy oh boy do I have tea on this .

Let's call her... Yvonne. 

Yvonne was an opportunist. She was a scheming, gaslighting, two faced .

In regards to my teaching license - she gaslit me into thinking that I couldn't get it, telling me that it was hard to pass the tests and so on. I later found out that she did that to make me underestimate myself and belittle myself, so I wouldn't leave their company. At that time, my pay rate was the lowest in all of the foreign teachers, even though I was the most qualified and scored the highest in IELTS. She constantly gaslit me and made me believe that I couldn't find another job out there. I didn't get the teaching license until 8 months after joining the company. 

And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The biggest scandal with her was when she broke up the department single-handedly by herself. She felt threatened by the team leader, who was more competent and well liked than her, and was jealous of her achievements. Let's call the team leader Heather. Heather was with the company for the longest, and the most hardworking and competent. Yvonne joined two years after Heather. Heather was highly praised and liked by the bosses. Yvonne and Heather lived in the same dorm that the company provided and they were always in a good relationship, until Yvonne's jealousy got the better of her.

Because Heather was more liked by everyone at work, Yvonne completely lost her mind. In March, the company went through some changes because we were not meeting sales requirements. The boss found out about this and was not happy. The principal who hired me thought that it was a good idea to let team leader Heather and supervisor Yvonne battle it out to find a new supervisor, and that was when hit the fan. Yvonne would constantly stir up and try to make people stand on her side, and she threw dirt on Heather's name. Heather decided that she wasn't going to go through with this , so she submitted her resignation on the day of the new supervisor and left the following day. A teaching assistant who was somewhat connected to this left with Heather. Additionally, Yvonne has offended another teaching assistant during this time and they left on the same day as Heather. Our department was left with the same amount of foreign teachers, 3 teaching assistants, no team leader, and a supervisor who tore the team apart. 

It was also during this mess that the boss decided to take control of the company again due to the low sales and bad employee relations. Around this time, Yvonne got into some drama with a new teaching assistant and the new girl felt that Yvonne was being unreasonable and said she wanted to quit. Yvonne passed on the message to the new HR manager, who sided with the new girl, and it was from then on Yvonne had made herself a new enemy. HR manager and Yvonne were again, once friends, but Yvonne viewed her as a threat and started to stir the pot with the bosses. In a meeting with the higher ups, new HR manager was out for lunch or something, and the boss asked, "Where's xxx?" And Yvonne said, "she must be on break with the other TA's. Ah, I'm so envious of her, all she does is tap on her computer and have lunch with the other staff. I wish my job was as easy as her."

Who says that???? That ended up being passed to the HR manager and further fire was started.

The boss felt that company morale was horrible by this point and declared that he will assume his position as principal from then on. The principal at the time and him went at it, and ultimately the principal decided that he was above this mess, so he quit. He took multiple people with him as he left, including the sales supervisor, two sales assistants, marketing manager, HR/administrations manager, and marketing assistant. Our company plummeted and had to frantically hire more people. 

Once the boss took control of the company, he decided to promote Yvonne from supervisor into the principal's assistance/secretary. She was elated that she won the battle. It was during this time that the company went through their first managerial changes, with new teaching assistants being employed and so on. 

Then the pandemic hit us pretty badly; our city was in lockdown and our school couldn't operate. For about two months, we held online classes and played board games at work daily. It was also during this time I felt like quitting for the first time. I finally got my up and did the teaching license test (TEFL) and was surprised to find that it was surprisingly easy and I got the certificate immediately after completing the test. I also discovered that it was not what Yvonne had told me about. This was when I first felt like Yvonne was an odd person for trying to stop others from achieving their best.

Because the education supervisor role was empty at this time, so the boss/new principal decided to promote the teaching assistant who had been with the company the longest. She didn't want to take on such huge responsibilities, but the boss and Yvonne both gaslit her into accepting. During this time, Yvonne threw rocks at the remaining staff while hiding behind the new supervisor and acted like everything was planned by the new supervisor. Let's call her Sandy. Now, Sandy and I were very close friends and she was close with the team, too. Yvonne didn't like that we were close friends and kept throwing rocks while hiding behind Sandy or the boss.

I had my birthday around this time and was still in contact with the HR manager who left during the mess. Yvonne had an issue with almost everyone who left, and she was also one of the reasons why so many people had left. Former HR manager, sales manager, and sales assistant and I were close friends and they threw me a birthday dinner. I attended the dinner with them and they posted some photos to social media. 

Then everything went to .

The week after my birthday, Yvonne had it out for me. Everything I did was criticised by her, either in person or behind my back. I heard a lot of rumours going around at that time, and Sandy kept warning me that Yvonne has been complaining to her that I wasn't competent in my job. We had cameras in every room and Yvonne would monitor my classes. Every time if she wasn't satisfied with my teaching, she would burst into the classroom, glare me down, then leave without a single word. My students, teaching assistant and I would then awkwardly look at each other for a while before I gathered myself to resume the lesson. This happened one too many times. I felt trapped. I felt like my every move was monitored. Yvonne would also report to the higher ups about things that were private between me and her. It was odd that the contents of our private conversations would be public knowledge.

After weeks of enduring this bull and driving me paranoid about being watched (I was stalked multiple times in my youth and I developed a fear of being monitored), I finally decided to it and deal with her face to face. Yvonne had taken her annual leave and was travelling with an ex-employee of ours that time. I was on the phone with another ex employee that same night to talk about my recent issues, and she told me that Yvonne and the other employee were active on social media right at that moment. I scrolled to their pages and found that they had just updated their feed of them having dinner by the beach, so I messaged Yvonne that I wanted to talk with her. 

Not even 5 minutes later, the employee that she was travelling with had blocked me and Yvonne had limited my access to her page. It was clear at this point that Yvonne had done this, and a lot of other things, to spite me for being friends with her enemies. 

I was going to talk to her the day she came back from her holiday. After my class, I went to her office to see her, but she was not there. I tried again the next day, and the same thing happened. I knew she was avoiding me. On the third day, I found myself in an empty office yet again, so I loudly said to the receptionist that I was going to the corner store to buy something and left the premises. I didn't need to buy anything though. Within 1 minute, I had turned back and stepped back into the school from the back entrance and finally caught her in her office. She was about to leave the moment she saw me step back into the school on the security footage, but I beat her to it. 

I sat down and talked to her about what her problem was. I told her that if she had a problem with me, she should say it to my face instead of passing words down to others. She said she had no issues with me, but I pressed on, to which she responded with complete and utter bs that I debunked her with.

Yvonne: "You are the foreign teacher with the most complaints from parents."

Which was a lie, because within my 8-9 months of being there, I had minor complaints that I could count with one hand. I was very updated with customer complaints because I was friends with the TA's who would let me know if I should make improvements and so on, but she didn't know that the TA's told me that. 

Yvonne: "You are the teacher with the most parents asking for refunds."

Again, this was a lie. In just the last two months before this conversation, another teacher had 3 parents asking for refunds. I had 3 parents asking for refunds within the last 9 months or so. 

Yvonne: "You are the only foreign teacher who complains about their students."

??? I had never complained about my students. I shared stories about my students to the other TA's, some were funny, some were serious. But I had never complained about them. I ranted to the TA's about how some students were harder to teach, but I never mentioned anything else about them.

On the other hand, Yvonne would talk smack about students, and even cussing out their parents to us. Which I find extremely hypocritical of her to accuse me of.

The conversation ended with me saying that "I don't care what happened in the past, I hope I won't have to have this conversation with you again." She agreed and toned down her bs. Note the words toned down. This stopped going at me at full force, but she would still occasionally throw rocks at me. And she still monitored me like a hawk.

Eventually, at around October 2021, which was coincidentally my one year anniversary for working at that hellhole of a workplace, the boss decided to undergo even more changes because we were not making money for well over 9 months at the time. We lost more employees at this time; to save money, he had let all the part time foreign teachers go, and in return, we received a lot of complaints from the parents. He held unnecessary meetings daily which was time wasting and pointless. Eventually, by January, the company had lost 3 teaching assistants, 3 foreign teachers, the entire marketing and sales department, and receptionist. The entire company had only about 13 employees at that time, as compared to our peak of 35. The customer service quality had gone to because Yvonne refused to train new staff, and nobody else were there for long enough to actually know how to train people. Ironically I became one of the oldest employees in terms of my stay, as every one else were only there for a month or two. 

Yvonne had completely let herself go at this point. If she didn't like someone, she would tell the boss about their incompetencies, and she herself would spread rumours about them to the remaining staff. She bullied staff into leaving or getting fired, although the former was a more common occurance. It was during this time that she started to pick on me again, constantly watching my classes on the cameras and bursting into the classrooms while I was teaching. Finally, she pushed me to my breaking point where she blatantly lied about me, taking the words out of my mouth and twisting my words to fit her narrative. 

I was driven to what felt like insanity. I was paranoid, anxious, and mentally exhausted. The first day back from the Chinese New Year holidays, I printed and submitted electronic copies of my resignation letter to the boss and her. She had a class when I sent the submission so she didn't see it, but the boss did and we talked about it and my letter was approved. After her class, she saw the message and came to my classroom to talk to me. She didn't know I had already been okayed by the boss, so she tried to gaslight me again.

My reason for leave was health related, and the first thing this said to me after she closed the door was, "You know, you're not the only one who was sick in the holidays. I had a minor surgery and I stayed in the hospital throughout the holidays. As a matter of fact, I had to go to an appointment after class but I decided to stay to talk to you after receiving your message."

First of all, who asked?? Secondly, everyone feels pain or illnesses in different ways. Just because I had a bad case of the flu doesn't mean that it wasn't comparable to your so called surgery. Also, her appointment was to get an IV drip. As someone who almost got into the medical field, there were inconsistencies and medical impossibilities in her statement, but I wasn't going to say anything about it and let her continue talking out of her .

Yvonne: "If you leave, what about your mortgage?"

This was low. She knows I had purchased an apartment recently and I had expressed problems with financial difficulties with my friends. She used my financial difficulties to gaslight me into staying.

Me: "You think I can't afford a month or two's worth of mortgage?"

Yvonne: "No, but you did say you had financial difficulties before. I'm just worried about you if you take a break."

Me: "Haven't you heard of something called parents? You know, the ones who birthed you? You think my parents wouldn't extend their hands to help their child through a difficult time?"

Yvonne: "Mmm." She paused then said, "So if you leave, where will you go?"

Me: "I'm prioritising my health first. Also, boss has approved of my resignation."

Her face changed from a look of concern to a scowl. "You already talked to the boss?" 

Me: "Yeah, he talked to me about something while you had class. I told him at the same time."

She got up and left. Which confirmed my suspicions of her faking concerns about me, when instead, she was trying to milk information about why I was leaving and she was going to go to the boss with my words so they could work something out to keep me from leaving.

Thank God I had talked to the boss beforehand. Her actions at the time proved that I was correct. 

In the last month I was there after submitting my resignation, she was relatively tame, but still threw rocks were possible. New teachers were interviewed to take my classes, and she would purposely made me listen to the demo classes and would rub it in my face by complimenting the interviewees when discussing with the other staff. Even in my last month she was gaslighting me. 

I finally left the hellhole. I took a break because contrary to her beliefs, I actually could afford to take time off from work and still be able to pay off my mortgage and survive. So I took time off to rest and heal. I was completely broken. I would flinch at random sounds, burst into tears every time I think about my time in the place, and I was so lost. There wasn't a time where I won't break into tears when talking about the company.

It has officially been 6 months since leaving them. I am doing so much better, mentally stronger, too. I have looked past the situation and completely let it go. I am also making more money than before. I used to work 7 days a week from 9 to 9 in the old place, but now in my new place, not only do I have 2 days off per week, I start work in the afternoon. The old workplace completely drained me. I have so much freedom now and I feel much, much better. 

This was a long rant-ish blog, but it feels good to get it off my chest. 

If you are going through a bad situation at work, please consider leaving. If you are not appreciated and disrespected at work, that alone is a huge red flag. Please know your worth and don't waste time on them. 

I have so much more tea about this shady business. Recently, some of the ex-employees and I had dinner together and we discussed our hardships. We found a common denominator to our problems, and all fingers pointed to Yvonne. We found out from each other about all the she has done to everyone of us, and we were all glad to have left the place. But in the words of Queen Nicki Minaj, "Imma forgive, I won't forget, but Imma dead the issue." Besides, they're not doing so well themselves lately, with plenty of complaints and other violations with the law. Their constant lies to deceive their customers are coming through. They are now in the hands of God, and God doesn't like ugly. 

I hope they get what they deserve.