The Shyster

Anonymous

'Donald' (pseudonym) modelled himself on the paterfamilias model. Not only was he giving me a job at the British Council accredited 'Navy Blue Academy' (pseudonym) in leafy North West London (just a hop and a skip away from Hampstead Heath), he was also offering me accommodation in one of his own flats. He was what I would've called, in my own non-religious, faintly sentimental way: a mensch.

The pay wasn't great, the flatshare was small, dingy and slightly overpriced, but there was only a week's deposit to find and the rent got taken off your wages before the taxman took his share. This was my first job in London, I didn't know any better, I really felt like he was doing me a favour. Maybe going that extra mile for a member -albeit a bacon eating member- of the tribe.*

I didn't realise that the flat was going to be used as a bargaining counter. Those teachers who were living 'under his roof' would be asked to work some of the more unpopular evening slots. Others were expected to hang around for hours between one lesson and the next. And if you complained, Donald would remind you that he controlled this roof over your head, that you could be turfed out more or less on a whim.

Contract? What contract! This was a cosy, family-run school. Part of a group of safe, cosy schools, all in 'good' areas of North West London: British Council accredited, teacher-training organisations, all owned by Donald. Just like the paterfamilias had extended his hand to me, he had also done so to a number of Eastern-European former students who made up his admin team. I lived with one of these girls in the flat. She despised Donald and knew his wages were lousy but it was a job and a visa.

Luckily, having the right qualifications and a number of years experience I didn't have to put up with his bullying. I found another teaching post, and moved to accommodation that wasn't owned by my boss.

The Friday afternoon following this, I popped into Donald's office to hand in my keys and my notice. I'd prepared a polite explanation for my actions, based on my very real discomfort at work and lodgings being too tightly intertwined for my liking.

Donald scowled. Fair enough, I was prepared for this. He then called me, and I will never forget these words, "a nasty, scheming little shit, a fucking cunt". He stood up, walked over and punched me in the face. "Get out of my school, you fucking cunt!" I was in a daze. I stood up and started to move out of his office. He followed me, pushing my shoulder, keeping up the verbal abuse. He wasn't just punching now, but kicking; and as I walked down the stairs on jelly-legs, he followed, booting me up the arse as I tried to move away from him.

I reported Donald to the police, they but couldn't do anything about it unless I had: a) photograph-able cuts and abrasions to show for the assault b) eye-witnesses who would back me up if this went to court.

I did have eyewitnesses: Donald's Eastern European admin team. They were not going to put themselves out on a limb for me though, and I didn't expect them to.

I doubt I ever will become a British Council inspector, but if I did, I'd volunteer to go back to Navy Blue Academy and see if he's still treating his teachers as abominably as he was seven years ago. I imagine myself again in his office, just the two of us, saying to him:
"I'm sure you know as well as I do where the word shyster comes from, Donald. It's Yiddish, from the German scheisser, meaning literally "one who defecates"; metaphorically,on others. A crook, a scoundrel, the very opposite of a mensch. The fact that you my dear shyster have managed to hold your head up high in the EFL community for all these years is not only a mystery, it's a joke."