Almost 6 month in post
Well time really does fly and although I'm not quite there yet 6 months is really just around the corner so something tells me I'm actually going to make it. I'm sorry this is a long one but I really thought it was about time I got my awful work experience out there. It's the first time I've really spoken about it and I can't believe how close it came to ruining not only my immigration dreams but my career and reputation also. I haven't mentioned any company names as I don't want to open up possible law suits. I would say though to anyone looking for child care don't let the shiny new places blind you as you really don't know what's below the surface and sometimes it's the ones people turn their nose up at which really do provide the best they possibly can.
The last 6 months have been so full of up's and downs that I really don't know where to begin. Every time I've thought life was settling down and I was getting in to the Kiwi spirit of things something has happened to knock me off track again. But I've held in there and I like to think that I'm now a stronger person for it. I'm also looking forward a lot which has to be a good sign and can't wait for summer and the million plans I have already.
As many of you know I came out here on a WTR visa (not the kind you get from a ITA application) and this was all due to a job offer I managed to get during a trip out here in November. I'm an Early Childhood Teacher and spent weeks in November visiting centre's and having interviews. In the end I had over 15 job offers and a couple of companies trying to outbid each other for me, a great position to be in but also extremely overwhelming. In the end I went with my feeling's. I didn't accept the job with the most money, or the one which appeared to have the best overall company, I picked the one that I got the best feeling about at the interview where the people seemed to be awesome and the building it's self made me think wow when I walked in the door. It was set right on the marina with views of the ocean, it was brand new and had only been open a few months so there was so much room to put your own stamp on the place and really get involved from the beginning. There was also room for promotion very early into the job and when I accepted the original position the promotion was one of the conditions. So all appeared to be well and after Christmas at home with the family I flew back at the end of February to take up what I thought was going to be a great position.
I don't know why but before I left the UK I had the urge to put in my EOI and to be honest it was the best decision I ever made as I don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't got my residency early.
When I started the new job it appeared to be as wonderful as my first impressions, the people were great the centre was fantastic and I had some really wonderful babies. The only difference in the place from when I was there in November was a change in Centre Director. The lady who part owned it had decided to have a say in the running of it and had taken on the position herself. What a landscape architect knows about running a child care centre is questionable in it's self and her in experience soon became very clear as staff started walking all over her and soon the situation was spiraling out of control. I would never again work for a place where the centre director didn't have that childcare background. It started a couple of weeks in when I began having problems with one staff member. She was an older lady, also an immigrant but she was having problems with her residency visa due to the fact that her qualification wasn't recognized by the NZQA (turned out later she'd lied and there was no qualification at all). She started by just generally trying to make my life hard. She wouldn’t do anything I asked her to do, she would undermine all my decisions and she would ask to swap shifts then turn up at the original time meaning I had to work extra long days. I was in a senior position to her but couldn't actually get anything done because she was always putting road blocks in my way. I finally spoke up about it after the centre supervisor witnessed her physically pushing me out of the way but really nothing was done and it was all brushed under the carpet with a she's just jealous that you're more qualified and you're PR is going better than hers comment.
A week or so later it got worse when I was pulled aside and told that a couple of parents had complained because someone has told them I was bad mouthing them and spent my day verbally abusing their children. The parents wouldn't say who told them but later that day it was discovered that the other lady had stolen the contact numbers of all the parents from the files and had been phoning them over the weekend. Still nothing was done other than a quick slap on the hand for the other lady for contacting the parents inapropratly. As time past the lady was showing more and more signs of being completely unstable. One day she would come in as high as a kite the next she would look awful and wouldn't be able to function all day. The director gave me a book and asked me to write down every situation as she was starting to be a danger to the children. She was leaving plastic bags on the floor for 6 month old baby's to play with. She dropped some pills and one was found by the toy's. She also locked children in the bathroom and outside unsupervised. really the list goes on. Each situation was grounds for instant dismissal but it none of it even came to a warning.
It took till the 2 and a half month point for them to finally suspend the woman on full pay because it was getting out of hand. She was obviously mentaly unwell or on some kind of drugs but every time someone pointed this out all we heard about were what the company lawyers said and how they couldn't do anything. By this point she had called parents and told them everyone in the centre was physically abusing their children which I can say was all made up and didn't come from even the smallest amount of truth. When they suspended her she called in the police and the ministry of education who began investigations and could have turned out to be extreamly serious if it wasn't for the fact that now she was she threatening suicide to everyone who would listen. Work suddenly became an awful place to be and I'd end up at home every night in tears. The centre director kept telling me she knew the accusations weren't true and I had her backing 100% but her actions never matched up and from those actions she was appearing to tell all the parents, and other staff I was guilty. The promotion suddenly wasn't mine any more given to someone with no experiance or want to be in that position, and I was moved away from working with any one I got on with. I also wasn't allowed to be with children anywhere I couldn't be seen, and the sleeproom was compleatly opened. It was awful I was being punished for being bullied by another staff memeber. In the end the lady quit before she was finally fired but really it was only the beginning of the issues. Parents were pulling their children out and she still had all the phone numbers so even when she left she was still calling and causing trouble. The crazy thing was that at this time it was still a wonderful place for children and the care they were getting was great untill they started pushing the experianced staff out and replacing them with people who had no idea what they should be doing.
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Hugz
