Ajarn.com can go to Hell

Recently we sent out a teachers newsletter to let people know about all ajarn's latest developments and news. Although a lot of the feedback we get is complimentary, this letter from Dave Bryant proves that it's not always a bed of roses running the ajarn.com office. This e-mail was totally genuine. My responses (or in some cases comments) are in bold italics.

Hi. As you have contacted me, I thought I may answer you, and tell you what I think of Ajarn.

Thanks a lot Dave. It's always nice to get feedback.

On the basis that you might just actually reply to this, I am sending you a copy of an email I sent to the BBC. They did a feature on internet distance learning schools - schools that feed naive potential teachers to you. You are part of what I suspect is a ‘gravy train'

(So reading between the lines and having read the e-mail that Dave sent to the BBC, Dave has obviously got the hump over on-line TEFL course providers who promise teachers that if they spend a measly couple of hundred bucks on a TEFL certificate that a half-blind, half-daft chimpanzee could acquire, the teaching world is their oyster. You'll be literally beating off potential employers with a shitty stick. Dave has found this not to be true so he's chosen to blame ajarn.com for it. Er.....thanks Dave)

Just for your interest Dave, no one feeds teachers to me. I don't employ teachers. Period. I have done some recruitment for overseas organizations in the past but those organizations have never been in Thailand.

But I doubt you will reply, because just like so many Thais you just won't be bothered to reply - you ignored so many emails I sent to Ajarn and I even tried to contact you many times by phone, but no one ever answered.

Dave, I think you've been at the cooking sherry. Firstly, you never ever had my phone number so you couldn't have called me once - let alone ‘many times'. And I have never ignored ‘so many e-mails' from the same person in my life. If you called the phone number that we used to display on the ajarn jobs page, you would have spoken to one of our full-time call center girls. Yes, they would have completely ignored your calls because after all, that's what we paid our call center staff to do.

I have just spent a year in Bangkok trying to find work as a teacher.

That's a hell of a long time Dave. I think most people in your shoes would give up after several months.

I want you to know that now I am back in the UK after leaving Bangkok a week ago, I am going to do as much as I can, to dissuade graduates to going to Thailand to look for work and certainly not to trust or use Ajarn.

I keep scouring the BBC website to see if there's a story about a guy marching up and down outside universities with a placard or chaining himself to the railings outside the Dean's office but I haven't seen such a story yet.

Whilst in Thailand - I found nothing but rudeness, greed, racism and corruption. I was even robbed of £400 by Thai Airport Police as they found an administrative error made by Hull Thai Embassy, in regard to my one year visa.

Yes, rudeness, greed, racism and corruption do exist in Thailand. They don't exist in the UK of course and you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to keep a straight face as I type that out. I'm genuinely sorry that you were robbed of four hundred quid by the airport police. I think you were genuinely unlucky because I have flown in and out of Bangkok dozens of times and I don't think I've ever seen an airport policeman. Do you mean immigration officer? - One of those officers who spotted a mistake with the visa when you left the country but didn't see the mistake when you entered? Now that's just bizarre.

Far be it from me to make assumptions but four hundred pounds is about 20,000 baht, which also just happens to be the maximum fine for overstaying your visa. You did remember that you just can't stay in Thailand indefinitely right?

I dutifully used Ajarn's web page to try to find work both in international schools, ESL training schools and universities.

Good man!

I emailed, rung, sent letters and made personal visits, but found only rudeness, arrogance and contempt by senior teachers and education officials to me trying to find work.

That's funny but when I call up advertisers and they think I am a teacher looking for work, they couldn't be nicer. Perhaps you weren't putting on your best telephone voice or maybe there's a slight possibility that the tone of your e-mail communication comes across as a little abrupt.

I thought I knew the Thai culture, as I have been married to a Thai for five years and visited Thailand many times, and before my recent experience I was very fond of Thailand.

Sadly Dave, it doesn't always follow that someone who has been in a country for years automatically becomes an expert on that culture. It's possible for someone to be immersed in a culture for a long time and still be a complete cock.

But worse of all, I found that much of my efforts over a 3-month period using Ajarn was a complete waste of time, as most of the adverts placed on Ajarn, which I assume are paid for, have in fact already gone and a teacher had been already appointed.

Some of the ads on ajarn.com are paid for and some aren't. Your assumption that ‘most job ads' on ajarn.com are paid for is wrong Dave I'm afraid.

Call me old-fashioned Dave, but I don't think paying to display a job ad on ajarn.com for a position that has already been filled makes a great deal of sense. Do you? And believe it or not, it is not against the law to fill a teaching vacancy by word-of-mouth or perhaps even offer it to a walk-in applicant. Then again - perhaps you saw the ad, applied for the job - and you were just too late. It does happen you know. But to happen to someone for a whole year (as it did in your case) would be most unlucky.

I spent a great deal of time, writing letters and crafting my CVs so it was specific for the job I was applying for - a total waste of my time.

Yes, I can understand that.

This happen to me time after time and it was only due to my Thai wife's family who lived in Bangkok, ringing up the schools to be told the position had been taken some time ago - BEFORE the advert appeared in Ajarn

Now you really are losing me Dave. Did you call the schools or did your wife's family call the schools? And how did you or your Thai family know about a job vacancy on ajarn.com before it even appeared on ajarn.com. Will you excuse me while I go and have a lie down?

Ajarn is either incompetent or as I have learnt from painful experience, no farang organisation can survive in Thailand unless it operates as the Thais do, and I expect that is the case I so often found due to the many ‘scams' Thais are so good at.

You really don't like Thailand or the Thais do you? That must be a hell of a burden given the fact you are also married to one.

The placing of adverts on Ajarn will be of some financial reward or favour to some one, but it certainly won't be for the benefit of a teacher seeking work.

Yes. It can sometimes be a financial reward for me, because I get revenue for placing the job ad. It's also a financial reward for the employer because they get to keep the students happy. And I know this might come across as far-fetched but it's also a financial reward for the teacher because it allows them to get a job, earn money and prolong their stay in this land of greed, racism and corruption.

I wonder if you reply, or like the Thais, just dismiss what they don't want to hear.

I did reply to you Dave. I received your e-mail at 9pm and typed out a reply at 6am the following morning. Thank you for your feedback.

These were the main points of Dave's response to my e-mail.

Well thank you for replying, it is a shame that no one at Ajarn replied so quickly and in detail over the nine months I was in Bangkok. Much of what you say is true, I may not be suited to Thailand because I am a very moral person, who believes in honesty and respect - which I stupidly believed I would find, because of my lovely wife and her family.

In terms of replying to general teacher enquiries Dave, ajarn.com is very much a one-man show. There is no one else here but me. I wouldn't say that those teachers I reply to ever get things ‘in detail' though. I don't mind answering a basic question or two but I don't offer time-consuming free consultations I'm afraid.

I think most of us believe in honesty and respect don't we? You make it sound as though Thailand is completely devoid of those characteristics. That is simply not the case.

I don't want to get into a ‘tit for tat' but yes, you are right about the £400, I am still extremely angry, especially as it was a very senior police official who did it to me, with his juniors laughing at my situation. If I had not checked myself, I expect would now be in prison. I did not overstay my one year visa.

No disrespect Dave but how did you know the policeman was ‘senior'. Perhaps you should have filed a complaint if while this ‘senior officer' extorted 400 quid from you, his junior officers wiped tears of mirth from their eyes at your unfortunate predicament. And two other things Dave - firstly I don't think you would have ever gone to prison and secondly, you never had a one-year visa to begin with. A teacher looking for work can't get a straight one-year visa before they come to Thailand. The fact that you thought you held a visa that entitled you to stay for one year in Thailand shows a quite staggering lack of research.

On purchasing my Non-Immigrant B visa, I asked several times by phone and email that I wanted to stay for one year without the need to renew after 90 days or do a border run. I could have not made myself clearer to Hull.

That doesn't stack up Dave. Why would you ask ‘several times'? You would only ask several times if you were unsure so surely it would have made sense to ask another expert. The immigration department comes to mind. And you obviously never looked at that big stamp in your passport telling you what date you have to leave the country by. Sorry Dave - that's just plain stupid and irresponsible.

Apparently they did not send me the standard document, warning you that my one year visa was really a 90 day visa.

They (I presume that's the Thai consulate at Hull) didn't need to. You couldn't even apply for a one-year visa if you had wanted it. What you applied for (and got) was a multiple-entry non-immigrant B. It allows you three months in Thailand and then you have to leave and re-enter the Kingdom in order to get the next three months and so on.

I could give you at least 30 stories, where I initially showed politeness, smile, showing respect which always lead to either being either fleeced, cheated, treated with rudeness and so on. I am by nature a nice guy who has travelled a great deal, but Thais have changed me.

Dave, I think you did the right thing going home when you did. In fact if I were you, I would double-lock the front and back door and never go out!