The CRAPpiESt MaNAgER OF TheM ALL
Bangkok, Thailand -- 1995
As I sat here staring thoughtfully at my nude Jessica Beal Wallpaper and considering the matter, I was surprised actually to realize that most of my managers were not complete assholes. They were incompetent, in most cases, but generally weren't bad people otherwise.
The exception to that would of course have been the Fat Gorilla Man, Manager S, in Prague, who was a thoroughly disgusting motherfucker on many levels -- stupid, fat, mean-spirited, sarcastic, and tasteless enough to often teach in a t-shirt advertising the ancient Goth band THE CURE. However, I suppose he managed the place well enough. At least I never had any professional scrapes with him.
The guy who gets the Crappiest Manager of Them All award, however, would have to be Manager D.
He was a disgusting asshole AND an incompetent manager.
By "manager" in this case I am referring to someone who has dominion over the staff of foreign EFL teachers, and has some responsibility for scheduling classes. This position goes by different titles -- Head Teacher, DOS, ADOS, etc.
Manager D was called "Manager."
His nationality was confused, his claims suspect. He claimed to be Swedish. He clearly had a dark, swarthy complexion, a big nose, and dark hair, and claimed to be descended from Italians. Like many thoroughly dishonest people, he spoke several languages. He apparently spoke Italian, French, Swedish, and Thai, but another teacher heard him speaking what seemed to be Arabic at one point, and thought he had seen his nationality listed as Egyptian on a visa application.
English was his third language. It wasn't much, but I guess I've heard worse.
He became manager after I'd been working there a few months. The former manager, a crotchety and unpleasant chain-smoking middle-aged American who hated virtually everything about Thailand, had managed to send so many students and secretaries running to the owner in tears that he'd been removed rather unceremoniously and replaced with D.
I don't know what D's job was before he became manager of our branch. He'd occasionally come around with the owner, and sometimes he'd just show up and hang around the branch all day -- I think his job was just to be toady, yes-man, and spy. He taught occasionally, but not often.
I can't remember how and when he officially seized control. As usual in Thailand, everything was done indirectly. They just told the old manager he was no longer manager, and said for the time being D would be fulfilling that responsibility. D swore it was only temporary. (And indeed it turned out to be, in the end.)
"Weaselly" would be a fairly kind way to describe D. "Unctuous" would be a rather more cerebral way to do it. "Dirty wop scumbag" would be the basest possibility.
He didn't speak well but he talked a lot. He tended to shower people with compliments of all kinds, and was not without charm, like most talented slimers. I don't know how old he was -- in his late twenties or early thirties. I was a fresh-faced boy of 25.
My first personal meeting with him ended with him asking to borrow some money. He'd recently had kidney stones, he explained, and the hospital bill had taken all of his salary and all of his savings. I eventually reluctantly offered him 300 bhat, about $12.
Consulting with the other teachers later, they all confirmed they'd given him a bit of money too. It wasn't unusual for us to lend each other money in scrapes though, so nobody thought much of it.
I occasionally had to sit in the downstairs office to interview new students to find out their level, so I talked to D quite a bit. He revealed that he'd come to Thailand a few years before on holiday after borrowing a "student loan" from the Swedish government, which he intended neither to repay nor to, of course, spend on his education.
"Lots of Swedish people do it," he assured me.
He formed a quick bond with English Teacher R, who was a filthy, filthy fucking disgusting 50-ish Australian man, a bald-headed, leering villain with huge forearms covered with hair and old faded tattoos. He lived with a Thai woman and two kids, and always spoke braggingly of the $25,000 he had saved in Singapore banks. He was rumored to be a pedophile and a sadist besides. I can't say as I know, but I know he did once say he couldn't go back to Australia because of a "mistake" in which he'd received some child porn "accidentally" in the mail "sent to him by an enemy" and ended up with charges against him.
Needless to say we all loathed him, so he was an easy mark for D.
D offered R the position of "helper." After, of course, R was kind enough to lend D 8000 bhat or so -- around $350 -- to tide him through to his next paycheck. As "helper" English Teacher R only had to teach one class a day -- and the rest of the time he just sort of followed D around. When asked to teach a class in an emergency or something, his response was "I'm helping. I can't."
As regards his managerial work, D mainly had to deal with the numerous complaints of students, and find teachers for the classes. Students signed up for classes with the secretaries, that information was sent to head office, then a fax would come from head office every month with a list of the classes, the times, and the level. D had to find teachers for all these classes.
Trouble was, there usually weren't enough teachers to fill all the classes. Naturally they weren't going to stop signing up the students. Sometimes teachers couldn't get back from "outside" jobs -- jobs at companies somewhere else in Bangkok -- in time to do classes they were scheduled to do. Or they'd be mistakenly scheduled for two classes at the same time. Or two classes would be scheduled in the same room.
I can't imagine it would have been too fucking difficult to work this out with a minimum of intelligence or organization, but either no one had that or no one gave a fuck.
Among his other failings, D was constantly neglecting to tell teachers about classes they'd been scheduled for. Several times, as I was sitting at the food court enjoying some hard-earned peace and quiet and some fried noodles, he came running up whining and wheedling, "Oh my god! English Teacher X, you have a Level 2 class now! What are you doing man, hurry up!"
Then on the way back up to the school he'd say, "And could you lend me 100 bhat? I'm really broke!"
"D, I can't keep lending you money."
"My god, I'm broke! Come on, payday is in a few weeks, I'll pay you back!"
I had to go get a new visa, and D was supposed to get me some paperwork so that I could get a 3-month non-immigrant visa. He failed to do so, despite repeated promises. When I angrily confronted him with this lack, a few hours before I was scheduled to leave, he said, "It's not my fault! It was the secretaries! I can't trust nobody around here!"
"Can't trust anybody," I grumbled. "Lesson four, Level 2. 'Snow Covered Everything'."
He was utterly incompetent. He was supposed to man a desk in the downstairs office, to speak with prospective students, but he spent most of his time outside a neighboring video store smoking cigarettes and watching the videos playing on the screen in the window. Still, he kissed the owner's ass until his lips bled, so I doubt anybody in head office cared much.
English Teacher Q had some money problems of his own, and couldn't really afford to go down to Penang in Malaysia to get his new visa. We discovered we had a student whose brother worked in the immigration office, and she managed to get Q's visa extended for another month.
D approached me and asked if I'd introduce him to the student.
"I've got a little problem of my own. I've been in the country illegally for eight months. Do you think she could help me out?"
"EIGHT MONTHS?? How the hell . . .?"
"I don't know, shit. You know how it is, it's boring going to Malaysia."
I introduced him to the student. What exactly transpired between them, I don't know.
D disappeared soon after. He didn't come in for two days, supposedly home sick. Then word came from head office -- D's apartment was empty.
We grimly compared notes about how much money he'd borrowed. Most of us were only in to him for 500 bhat or so -- $20 -- but R had lent him nearly $500. (No one felt too sorry for him, of course.) Another teacher had lent him around $100.
Then the student with the brother in immigration came in, obviously upset, looking for D.
"Uh oh," I said. "How much did he borrow from you?"
"4000 bhat," she said, bursting into tears. About $160.
Over the next few days, three or four other students came forward. D had borrowed thousands of bhat from each of them.
So that was the last we ever heard from D.
Almost.
Strangely, nearly a year later, he was apparently back in Bangkok, and apparently back working as a teacher in the head office. (Virtually no one was too stupid, incompetent or vile enough to lose a job at our institute, the largest in Bangkok.)
After a few more managers coming and going, English Teacher T finally became the competent manager of our branch. D called one day to apologize and say he was saving to pay the money back and to give his love to everyone.
"Not to worry, mate," said T, former biker. "In fact we'll lend you some more money. Hundreds of bhat. It will be in the form of 10 bhat coins, however, and we'll put it in socks and beat the shit out of you with it."
SpEW BILE on THe MEssAGE BOaRD