Split Shift Soup

For a happy six or seven yeras, I worked in Russia without split shifts.

Pretty much all my classes were from 4.30pm to 9.30pm. This allowed me both to sleep late and go out after work and get hammered.

By 2007, we had something like eleven teachers, I was Director of Studies -- and everybody was fucking miserable.

Russia had become an oil superpower. Drinking on the street was illegal, and Russian woman expressed little interest in the eccentric, poor, middle-aged English teachers. our students were no longer happy-go-lucky rich people; they were angry overworked young professionals.

Most of the teachers were working weekends from about 9.00am to 3.00pm, weekday mornings from 9.00am - 11.00am, evenings from 7.15pm - 9.30pm, and other classes in the middle of the day involving hours of travel time.

Administration had no pity. Everybody hated everybody.

I fought them tooth and nail about the scheduling. Here's one document I offered them:

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PROPOSALS FOR ENDING THE SCHEDULING MESS

Split shifts and excessive travel time are the number one reason for teacher dissatisfaction with their jobs here at (REDACTED). We need to do something about this AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

REASONS WHY SPLIT SHIFTS ARE A PROBLEM FOR EVERYONE:

• A teacher working a split shift five times a week in our current schedule will, most likely, spend an average of 2 hours per day traveling – an extra 10 hours per week / 40 hours per month. Our teachers are contracted for 40 hour weeks – they almost surely exceed this amount if travel time is counted in addition to preparation time, arriving at least 15 minutes early, etc.

• The teacher working 5 split shifts will spend about 200 rubles per week / 800 rubles per month on buses and trams – more if the teacher takes marshroots (and the teacher probably will!)

• I travel approximately 4 ½ hours per week to teach one student for approximately the same number of hours. I am therefore occupied twice as much in teaching one client. Economically this makes little sense.

• To teach at a certain company class, a teacher living near the school needs to make a round trip of two hours to teach them for 90 minutes. Again this is not economically sensible, for the teacher or for the school.

• A teacher returning home at 10:00pm and then working the following morning at 9:00am will almost certainly be unable to sleep eight hours. Ending split shifts will most likely diminish complaints that teachers seem tired or hungover, are unprepared, are arriving late / almost late for class, are not neatly groomed, etc.

SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

• Inform clients that teachers are only available 12:00pm to 9:30pm. Classes in the morning can be arranged with consent of the teacher, as overtime pay rate, or at considerable additional cost to the students.

• Give teachers a bonus for working split shifts, payable every month or at the end of the contract. I recommend that this bonus be at least 2500 rubles per month. (Remember, 800 rubles is going to pay for the teacher’s bus fare!)

• Reduce the number of contract hours required of teachers who work split shifts. I recommend it be reduced to 25 academic hours. Additional hours should be considered overtime. (I am currently working 24 academic hours per week, with split shifts and 3 different locations per day twice a week, and I feel like I am working MUCH more than when I was teaching 30 hours 4:45 – 9:30 five days a week.)

• If a teacher is working split shifts, change the starting and finishing hours of evening classes to give them more time to get home in the evening. I recommend starting time for evening classes be 18:30 and ending time be 20:45. (This should give workers, who usually finish at 17:00, plenty of time to get to (REDACTED)) Even starting at 18:45 and ending at 21:00 would be preferable to the current system. It is important to remember that this does not mean ALL evening classes should start at these times – only those of teachers with split shifts. Classes for teachers with a “block” schedule could end as late as 10:00, for example.

• Alternately, change the start time of morning classes to 10:00am and the finishing time to 12:15. The extra hour will mean a lot to teachers and probably very little to students.

• At the very least, teachers working split shifts or at companies that require a lot of travel time could be given free bus / tram passes. If they travel by marshrut due to time constraints, they could be reimbursed for this.

• (REDACTED) could hire a driver to take teachers to /from work and to / from company classes. This might actually work out rather more cheaply than the first option!!

• Promise teachers that they will only work split shifts for HALF of their nine month contract. The other semester will be “blocked.”

• (REDACTED) could offer additional BENEFITS to distract teachers from their schedules. SEE DOCUMENT 2: SOME POSSIBLE BENEFITS TO ATTRACT AND KEEP TEACHERS.

AGAIN, LET ME EMPHASIZE: THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM (REDACTED) HAS AT THE MOMENT. ALL OTHER PROBLEMS ARE EITHER CAUSED BY BAD SCHEDULES OR MADE MUCH WORSE BY BAD SCHEDULES. LET’S DO SOMETHING!!!

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But it never happened, of course. Teachers were in and out of there like a revolving door; administration didn't particularly like each other, either, so girls from administration were in and out frequently also.

Something like four teachers walked out without saying goodbye at the end of 2007; the world economy collapsed at about the same time, so they told me that it was fine by them that so many teachers had left, because they had fewer students.

"In fact, we would have had to let some people go," said the Manager.

"Good use of the 3rd conditional," I muttered, and went out and got drunk.