Luckily it's not my main job or i'd be up shit creek. I'm employed on a casual basis at a language school which offers English classes to adults.
In the summer holidays, I was given 6 weeks' worth of classes, about 5 hours of lessons Monday to Friday.
2 weeks into these, I received an email from the manager saying that they had had to give my classes to the 'permanent' teachers who didn't have enough hours, so my classes for the next 4 weeks were suddenly gone from one day to the next.
Then on another occasion, they had emailed me asking if I wanted to cover 2 weeks of evening classes. I said yes, and then 2 weeks or so later walked into the school. They looked confused and asked why I was there. I said to teach my evening classes I was covering. They said they had given them to someone else because they "hadn't heard anything from me recently."
I'd said yes (and they definitely received the email). If they weren't sure, why didnt they check with me ?
The final straw came this week. I'd been given 4 weeks of 2 evening classes per week which I was happy about, as the extra money was very helpful.
Did my first class the other night, and got an email today from the director. A Chinese lady in my class had complained about my lesson, saying that there was 'too much discussion' and she didn't like that we watched a video, and refused to come back to my lessons.
The director told me she was just a very fussy student and not to take it personally, but that unfortunately they had to now give that contract to another teacher, so again I am left with no classes.
So this has happened 3 times. I know it's a zero hours contract but I find their practice unprofessional for something that claims to be a highly renowned language school. Should I give my notice in ? Just getting fed up with them, highly unreliable. Does this seem common practice ?