Vantaggi
- Good camaraderie with colleagues. It's hard not to have great colleagues when every (non-executive) employee feels equally slave-driven and abused by the management. Shared many memorable after work bonding sessions with colleagues in the same boat about management malpractice. - The immediate superior I worked under was reasonable, helpful and imparted pointers in early childhood music education. She was a non-executive senior music teacher.
Svantaggi
Poor welfare / benefits - when tasked to go on course/ training seminars, I was expected to work for a full regular 9 hour day shift before reporting for another 5.5 hours of nightly training sessions, packed back to back for 5 whole consecutive days, without any reimbursement of labour. Inclusive of my transportation time, that is as good as working five 17 hour days, which is totally hazardous for an educator in a preschool environment. Management malpractice and unfair dismissal - I was unfairly dismissed by the management within a week when I told them I could not commit to the long hours set by the training course. Any prior negotiation to arrange (leave-taking) for shorter hours on the expense of my own annual leave was rejected. Inconsistency in management styles between branches - while one branch I was at had a really empathizing principal who allowed as much as 5 teachers to go on leave on the same day, another branch had an anal control freak principal who didn't allow more than 1 teacher to go on leave on the same day. While one branch encouraged their teachers to snooze together with the kids during nap time, another branch sent me a disciplinary letter for doing so. Such inconsistencies in company culture doesn't help with frequent staff movement. Discrimination / no respect for employee's privacy / transfer of major workload to non-married staff - Married colleagues get it easy and stand to gain from a puritanical, pro-family organisation like this. Child sick leave gets approved on the morning itself, "urgent family matters" are good reasons for not turning up for work. There was an instance where I applied for leave but it wasn't approved even when I gave them more than 14 days notice. And I almost always got interrogated by my superior about what plans I was making for going on leave. Management would always cite some excuse like "but Miss. XXX is going to bring her son for a medical check up on that day, so I would give her more priority for the leave application since the both of you need to take leave on the same day. Her case is definitely more important." Plus, married staff were excused from staying back to help out for supplementary events like school camps and open houses while single, un married folks were sought out by the management to contribute more in these events without promise of reimbursement or compensation.