As we have long shown, TBI is one of the most unprofessional, dishonest and unethical schools in Indonesia and beyond. The discrepancy between the puffed-up self-promotion of TBI managers on their LinkedIn pages and this troublesome little placed called reality is a yawning chasm which is large enough to swallow several ocean-liners whole. Delusional to the last, they preen and primp their online personas, even as the webpage for TBI Medan still contains ‘Latest News Updates’ from 2012 in the year 2015.

This is a company in which a woman such as Lilies Agustine will boast on her LinkedIn page that she has expertise in ‘Language Teaching’ when she has never taught a single English lesson in her life. Furthermore, this is a woman who would typically make a dozen spelling or grammar mistakes in a 4-line email. She has zero expertise in Language Teaching, Change Management or any of the other things she claims to be an expert in. These claims are nothing more than the wishful fantasies and dreams of a child. Yet who is going to contradict her? She was appointed by a man she told me was her lover, Luke Preece, a former Aussie beach-bum who used a Photoshoppied degree from someone else to get a work visa in Indonesia. We have challenged him to show his “Geology Degree” for years but none was ever forthcoming.

In a fraudulent business such as TBI, which is packed full of unqualified “educators” and ”managers” without a degree in any subject, mere fantasy and wish fulfillment is what stands in the place of a real CV. They are used to making excuses and lies to cover their lack of credentials, and they are used to linking arms and standing in as alibis for each other if someone questions their paper-thin to non-existent credentials. In such a culture we should never expect honesty or forthrightness, and we should realize that denial is their immediate response if challenged with the truth.

ENY’S ”PROMOTION” TO A JOB WITH 50 LESS STAFF MEMBERS

Because we are dealing with people who lie and obfuscate every day of their lives, we are not going to say that Eny Engriyani received a massive demotion in late 2014. They would just deny it. What we will say instead that Eny used to be the School Manager of 2 schools at once: TBI Fatmawati and TBI Kuningan. Then she became the manager of 1 school, with TBI Fatmawati being taken off her and given to someone else. When this had happened to previous managers, it was made clear that it was a serious demotion and would only have been done due to unsatisfactory performance, or possibly not praising Ibu Mariam enough.

But as of late 2014, Eny was taken out of TBI Kuningan too. She is now the Corporate Sales Manager for Jakarta. Now that may sound like a fancy title, but it is the exact same job title that was done as late as 2012 by a woman named Rani for a piddling salary of Rp4 million a month, which is less than $400. Hardly the stuff of business legend. It basically amounted to receiving calls from corporate clients who wanted In-House training and then talking with the School Manager and asking if she/he had enough teachers free to teach the class.

Now TBI are classic face-savers when one of their own fails and Eny has lied and covered for the TBI Mafia time and again. But moving someone out of front-line management in schools and having them answering a phone in a quasi-secreterial role is what they have always done with mates who couldn’t cut it. The classic example was Ibu Wati, who also failed big time at TBI Kuningan and was then parcelled off to a make-work job on Level 4 of the Sequis Centre: the Black Hole also known as TBI Head Office. It is in that Black Hole, doing Rani’s low-prestige old job, where Eny now finds herself.

FROM A QUEEN TO A PAWN

But of course it’s actually a ”promotion”. At TBI Kuningan she had 20 teachers to manage and supervise, as well as cleaners, sales staff, a driver, office assistants, a librarian and so on. If she now has 1 or 2 underlings under her control, that would be an enlargement of the former Corporate Sales Manager job. But that would still leave her with about 50 less staff to manage, timetable and supervise than she did before. It is a ”promotion” that gives her vastly less responsibility and power in every way. She must be so very happy. Perhaps she will be ”promoted” to the role of photocopy assistant next.