I've been sharing here that I worked as an online teacher where I taught foreign students on how to speak English and learn English especially to Chinese students. You can check my article on that too here.

ESL Company or English as a Second Language Company, is the the company that offers an online teaching job or opportunity. Every ESL company had their rules and regulations of course for both the tutors and the students. Every ESL company had also their rules regarding PENALTIES. There are companies that have lower penalties and there are those high penalties. Some also, don't have penalties. And this penalties, this is the thing that I really tried to avoid while doing online teaching.

Now I am going to share here the Penalty System of my ESL company that I worked for three months already.

Well, I must say based on my experienced that my company right now has the very strict policy in terms of penalties because their penalties were almost 2 times there hourly rate or base rate. Imagine that, if you've got a penalty then you need to teach three students for you to be able to compensate the deduction. So, it's quite stressful and it really felt hurt every time I got penalized because of some circumstances that I didn't intend to.

• Late for shift clock-in

In the tutor client app, all tutors must or should clock in 10-30 minutes before the first class starts. Example in my case, I opened my slot during weekdays starting at 5:30PM, so that's my first class. Therefore, 5:00PM - 5:20PM is my range time to clock in because if I clock in 5:21PM beyond then I will be penalized with 5% of my hourly rate for every minute that I am late. I experienced this for three months 3 time already. So, just better not to clock in if already late to avoid penalty but the consequence also is I will not be able to gain a teaching points.

• Late for class

Here, if ever the tutors will be late also in entering the class we will also be penalized with 2% of tutor's hourly rate for every minute of being late. That is why tutors were required to enter the class 1-2 minutes before the class starts. So, what I always did is that, I enter the room 5 minutes before the class time starts. This is also advantage, because what if I cannot able to enter the classroom immediately. So, I still have time to fixed of whatever it is.

• Leave class early

So, as what I've said the duration of each class is 25 minutes. If we tutors leaves early, like for example if we leave the class ahead of time then we will be again penalized with 2% of our hourly rate for every minute we miss. So, in this case, we must not leave early in the class to avoid such penalty.

• Cancellations

Cancelling booked slots will lead to penalty but cancelling unbooked slots is just fine because it has no penalties. In this case, if a tutor cancelled a booked slots an hour or just 30 minutes before the booked slot the deduction were much more bigger than cancelling it 72 hours before it’s time.

Last May 8, I did cancel all my booked slots that time due to power outage since I don’t have back up like I don’t have generator though and also my partner’s cellphone that time were also “lowbat”. So, that’s why I can’t able to make my class with a cellphone. I had no choice but to cancel all of it since if I’m not going to cancel so I’ll be tagged absent and all of my open slots for the following days will be closed. Since, I have six booked slots that day so that means I’ll be having 6 absents and that all will be tagged penalties. So, 6 penalties I will expect for a warning letter. Therefore, it’s better for me to cancel it instead. I’ll just suffers the deductions only.

• Absence

This is the worst part. Why? Because if you’ll be absent as what I’ve said it goes to penalty of course and it’s penalty were 3 times bigger than the hourly rate. So, that’s the sad part. Another, if the tutor will be absent aside form salary deductions, our teaching points will also got deducted and all open slots for the following week will be closed. And if, the tutor will have consecutive absence within a month the Tutor Manager will sent us warning letter. Three warning letters will automatically terminates our contract. So, that’s why I really avoided this kind of penalty but because of such unintended circumstances like power outage, I can’t able to enter their classrooms because I don’t know it their system issue but even like that I’ll be penalized if I can’t able to do some screenshots as proofs.

Then, just recently I got penalized again because I slept and not knowing that it’s time for my class and I just able to woke very late. So when I checked the system, voila penalty were already visible. I felt so asleep because I was too tired and my head’s aching also. So what I did is that I lay down but I don’t intend to sleep though because I knew I still have class but this eyes of mine were not really cooperating and I slept.

Sad thing in here is that, aside from salary deduction and teaching points deduction I got a warning letter because my TM (Tutor Manager) were also so strict, she even made her own rules aside from the rule of the company so it’s very stressful when I got penalty since the TM also were not considerate, whatever I did explanations she won’t consider it and if I have queries about another things I will not get responded but if I got penalized her fingers can easily and automatically works fine and even sends me warning letter right away. (I so hate her, lol)

Let’s get back to the topic. So, that’s it I’ve been penalized and received a warning letter form my inconsiderate TM. So, I already have two warning letters though that means if I got another one I’ll be terminated already. The first warning letter I got, it’s 2 months ago I guess and that wasn’t my intentions to be absent it’s because of power outage, their system error like I can’t able to enter their room and every time I enter the room my pc also lagged so I can’t able to take screenshots for it. Of course, again PENALTY.

Closing Thoughts

So, whatever I did to avoid penalties there were always time that I can’t avoid it and what really bothers me a lot when I got penalized is that when I got the penalty that I felt not really worth for me or it’s very unacceptable because it was not my intentions to be absent though it’s all because of their system error even though I had stable connection and they never considers whatever explanations I made. It’s okay if I got penalized because I feel asleep because it’s my fault already but what if not right? That was really unfulfilling for me. Then just to avoid penalties, I even used phone if I can’t their rooms through my pc and if brownout or there’s a power outage I just used my phone too, a power bank for my wifi and the other phone for a flashlight for not to be able to get penalized. But, the as what I’ve said there were times that everything will not also cooperating. That’s really sad for me.

But despite everything of course move on from penalties and keep going. Also, start seeking for another ESL company haha lol.

~end

Have a great day ahead, my readers.

@Janz