John M.

Now this was a strange dude in my opinion. I would guess that he was in his mid thirties and was very tall, probably well over 6 feet, 6 inches. I never saw his employment application but he was well spoken and probably well educated. He was from England. His duties were grade three teachers, which I assume he performed adequately as I recall no complaints in that area.

First of all he had a great dislike for one of our Filipino teachers for some reason. This resulted in him assaulting this teacher two times that I am aware of on school property. Once was a somewhat serious shove and the next time was a brutal head butt. On the second occasion he was counseled by the head teacher regarding his actions. However, nothing became of it, in fact I am not ever sure if it was brought to the attention of administration. I believe that he should have been dismissed then and there, but my opinion was disregarded. In hindsight, I guess I should have brought the matter to the attention of administration, but I failed to do so. Guess I was just trying to get along. By the way when asked why he assaulted the other teacher his reply was “I don’t like him”. No rhyme or reason, just I don’t like him. That’s always a good reason to assault someone.

John lived less that 100 meters in an apartment building on a Soi (side street) off Pracha Utit Road. Thus, to catch the school van, which has a set route, he had to walk out to the main street. This was not good enough for John, he was insistent on door to door service. None of the other teachers had this except those living at the origination point. All others would meet at a central collection points along the vans route. This was not good enough for John, as he wanted to be picked up at his apartment. I swear to God, he complained about this almost daily for an entire semester. It got quite old. He complained to the teachers individually, to the head teacher, to administration, to the owner, to anyone who would listen. I am not joking, DAILY, for months.

The school never relented so daily he would walk out to the main street. As the van approached the area where he was to wait, you would see John's head bobbing out from behind a utility pole looking for the van. He kept his body well hidden with only his head taking a peak now and then. In conclusion, I believe he had some sort of fear of standing out on the street.

John was married and had a daughter and he used his married status to maintain his visa status. However, I don’t believe that he any longer had a relationship with the wife other than the mutual care of their daughter. He live alone and he dated. On several occasion he brought his daughter to work with him. The first time we didn’t know who she was and he explained that he was taking care of a friends daughter. It was later revealed that it was his daughter. Why the initial lie? As I said, strange man.

One day, John no longer came to work. No one had any idea why he stopped coming. Finally, weeks later, Mark who was somewhat friendly with John revealed that all the time that John was working with us, he was in the process of obtaining a visa for his daughter for immigration to the United Kingdom. Once, he had that visa he secretly took his daughter and fled back home, supposedly without the consent or knowledge of his daughters mother.

I can’t confirm any of that, but it is possible. Anyway, he is another one, in a list of many, that I was glad to see leave. Mostly I was happy to see them go because they don’t contribute, but in his case, I just didn’t like him.