With TEFL, you'll never put the weirdness behind you
I accepted a job with an English company for a job in Libya, which fell through. So they offered me work in their school in the East Midlands, and put me up in a guesthouse, and I thought wtf, a man's got to work. Just beginning to start week two of it and I'm not so sure.
The big cheese seemed ok at the interview but now she seems to burst out of frequent meetings only to dash around the building, pointing at people, asking rhetorical questions, misunderstanding anything you might be foolish enough to utter, making tactless asides, and leaving only demoralization and puzzlement in her wake. It's as if she's got a big Mad Ideas Box in her office and she gets several out in a day and has to act on all of them immediately: in the most uninspiring and unconvincing ways, too.
She reminds me of the bastard who owned Scabby College, a kind of Dotheboys Hall for middle class foreigners where Herself and I somehow managed to last a whole year. The big cheese owner of the school would piss off abroad quite a lot to drum up business, and the first day he was gone would seem like catching a breath... And then the second day, everyone and everything would settle down nicely: you'd have the rare pleasure of just getting on with your job, without some mad bastard inventing hoops for you to jump through. And then, just when you dared to begin to think that you quite liked working there... he'd come back.
Well, maybe the current Fruitcake isn't as bad as Mr Scabby, but she has his remarkable talent for having a flexible attitude to your money, but definite views on his own.
For now, I've no real idea of what's happening or of what's going to happen.
The big cheese seemed ok at the interview but now she seems to burst out of frequent meetings only to dash around the building, pointing at people, asking rhetorical questions, misunderstanding anything you might be foolish enough to utter, making tactless asides, and leaving only demoralization and puzzlement in her wake. It's as if she's got a big Mad Ideas Box in her office and she gets several out in a day and has to act on all of them immediately: in the most uninspiring and unconvincing ways, too.
She reminds me of the bastard who owned Scabby College, a kind of Dotheboys Hall for middle class foreigners where Herself and I somehow managed to last a whole year. The big cheese owner of the school would piss off abroad quite a lot to drum up business, and the first day he was gone would seem like catching a breath... And then the second day, everyone and everything would settle down nicely: you'd have the rare pleasure of just getting on with your job, without some mad bastard inventing hoops for you to jump through. And then, just when you dared to begin to think that you quite liked working there... he'd come back.
Well, maybe the current Fruitcake isn't as bad as Mr Scabby, but she has his remarkable talent for having a flexible attitude to your money, but definite views on his own.
For now, I've no real idea of what's happening or of what's going to happen.
What happened to Libya?
ReplyDeleteAre you stuck in Blighty till the summer?
Libya's on the back boiler with this company until... God knows. They'll honour the three month contract we shook hands on. So I've to be flexible. At least it's work.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind me mentioning something which isn't work related Garry but have you come across Spotify the newish free music software..??
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spotify.com/en/
It's like a free itunes without the downloading/paying bit and legal also - I've been trying it for day or so and am very impressed so far and thought you may be interested when you get 'chill out' time.
It's supposed to be invitation only at the minute for the free one, but circumvention (if there's such a word) of the invite bit has been known to work I believe...
I just thought it may be of interest when you need to escape from the TEFL zone.