House Hunting Manual for Teachers (Proposed Idea)

Today's weather:  High = 22 Low = 12

Sunny

 

A near-perfect day today, the first WEEKEND we've had after the exhausting 7-day week came to a close.  Finally, things are back to normal.  I will be cherishing these weekends for quite some time now, as the Chinese mentality is such that I now appreciate having real, authentic, and genuine weekends more than ever. 

 

Going back to the house hunting, it struck me as an idea to write a manual for new teachers, and propose this idea to the boss.  Moreoever, I would hope that he or the school can create a new job for me next year to basically act as a middleman for negotiating house leases between the teachers and the landlords / agents.

 

Of course they already have someone to do this right now, the generic 'school secretary' that all schools have who do all and sundry to take care of demands that teachers have with life in China.  Basically they handle all the 'after school' stuff.  Unfortunately, most of these secretaries are overworked and underpaid and have to do all the jobs:   housing, visas, things breaking down, student tuition fees, university applications, translations, etc. etc.

 

When it comes to house hunting, many teachers get frustrated and pissed off because the secretary just wants to do the job as quickly as possible without taking the time to find qualty houses and negotiate really good deals for the teachers.  As such, a rush job leads to shitty houses, and the teachers get saddled with a year lease and a ripoff rent.  This is not necessarily her fault, she is just too busy with other tasks and is handed this job in addition.  Given that I have some bilingual abilities, am planning to learn more Chinese this year, and I know the kinds of requirements that foreign teachers have with house leases, I'd be more than happy to step up to the plate and take over this particular job.  

 

The first thing I would do is streamline the whole process by writing a detailed manual, based on the posts written here.  Then the teachers could read the manual and have a clear idea of how the Shanghai house rental situation works and know what the deal is before they come.  The next thing would be to compile a computer program that inputs a detailed list of requirements that teachers have for houses, along with a detailed list of the multitude of types of houses available for rent that a selected list of TRUSTWORTHY agents that the school is in contact with.  The program would be constantly updated and then come up with matches.

 

It would also be helpful to have a Chinese local assistant who is also on the same page with this plan, and to potentially negotiate a higher housing allowance for the teachers.  This is all dreaming of course, but I at least want to put forth some kind of a proposal and see what happens.  At any rate, what I would then ask is to teach fewer classes in order to spend more time on this kind of business.  This would also include constantly being in touch with landlords and agents to deal with ongoing problems that teachers have, such as things breaking down, misunderstandings, what about breaking a lease, negotiating prices, how to pay bills, etc. etc.

 

The main idea in all this, it that if the school created such a position for me, it would practically eliminate the corruption problem that exists with the current system whereby teachers are being overcharged for the rent, and being charged mysterious "taxes" such as 5% off the housing allowance.