Swimming with the Fishes

Here's an email I got out of the blue yesterday from the DoS at MSU:

Hi Garry – you indicated (very emphatically) at the meeting here last month that you didn’t want any more McEnglish teaching in January, and there has been no word to say you’ve changed your mind, so I have removed you from the list.

Thanks for all you did and I hope your next job is more to your liking.

Best wishes

Somehow, removal from a list manages to sound almost as dangerous as being put on one.

And then I got another email today from a colleague at MSU who told me that one of the wee cheeses there had said that I didn't want to do any pre-entry teaching at MSU, whereas I thought I'd told him a few weeks ago that I was desperate not to have to go back to McEnglish in the winter term, and would be up for any hours he had to offer me at MSU.

So it would seem that I've been, kind of, sacked at McEnglish and told indirectly that I'm not going to find any work at MSU, either.

The bastards. In fact, I'd gotten through the pain barrier at McEnglish and was going to ask for up to ten hours there in the new term, (which would supplement the exam item writing I'm to start doing next month).

If I've read the situation correctly, I'm persona non grata at MSU and its bastard child, McEnglish, simply because I was less than a happy-camper.

I blame myself for being in a situation whose politics and personalities I didn't know or understand, and making my mouth go and getting some kind of label stuck on. I should have kept it buttoned up. I didn't realise I was dealing with such ruthless people.

It's a salutary lesson, and an intriguing new aspect to my experience of EFL teaching: Glasgow academics will do for your job with less hesitation than an Istanbul gangster would; (at this point I could tell the tale of a school-owner called Osman, aka Joey-the-Clown, but I'll leave that for another post).

It's not the end of the world. There's the exam writing, and the likelihood of nine hours elsewhere (more about that once I've shook hands on it).

What larks, eh?

Comments

  1. MichaelSat Dec 20, 11:45:00 am GMT

    It's a brutal business alright. Shame your bridges are burnt at MSU, of course, but something always turns up.
    Talking of which, I almost ended up going to Sweet Tea and Handshakes country, but I'd already shaken hands on a contract with IH Riga.
    Oh well, there's always next time.
    Happy Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garry NixonSat Dec 20, 09:53:00 pm GMT

    I might be spending a few months back in Sweet Tea country myself.

    ReplyDelete

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