Dear Amy the interviewer,In different circumstances, I think we think we might have been friends. Well, I'd like to think so. Maybe it's just that you're Australian and I'm Australian and we're both with Japanese men and stuck in Japan, for good or for bad.
As it is, we probably won't be. You're the job interviewer with a hard job to sell and I'm the interviewee who, I realised with a start yesterday, is actually quite highly desired for the job but probably doesn't want it. Perhaps it's the Australian thing again, but I thought I could imagine myself ending up like you if I doggedly hung onto the job I have and Mariko was stupid enough to leave me alone in a room with a candidate where I then had to sell it to some fresh-faced young thing. I would try and sell it to them, I would, but I don't think I'd be able help but be completely honest/warn them off.
So I kind of felt sorry for you yesterday because it is a hard job to sell. You might pay 20,000 yen above the industry standard but really, you'd bloody well want to pay that much. A shared classroom between 30 kids and three classes, no preparation time, travel to other schools halfway across Chiba for ESL lessons? It was the second one that got me, but I think you knew that. I think we both knew that no matter what I said after that, it really wasn't ok with me. You put it in a nutshell; I do think the kids deserve better.
I felt so sad as I rode the train home today. I felt sad for all of us that grow up in our home countries with all these employee rights and then come to Japan and find this English school market that exploits the employees and the customers for the sake of milking as much yen as they humanly can.
You know, my friend Donald used to work for you. I considered for a bit if he was one of the ones that whinged about having to arrive at your work 10 minutes early or if he was one of the ones who thought the kids deserved better. We've kind of lost touch these days but from what I remember, it would have been the latter.
I wonder if you knew that I knew him and knew that he didn't work there anymore. You seemed pretty on the ball; I reckon you probably knew we were both at Nova Chiba at the same time. There's a distinct possibility that you already knew a lot more about me than I would have liked; I was that girl with the student boyfriend back in the day, you know. Sorry about lying about how I met him; I wonder how many years I'll be married to him before I can go to an interview and tell the truth about how I met my husband.
And oh Amy, you tried to tell me how full-on it was and how you had to be tough to survive in the job. I know I still look like everything's come easy but I've done the tough thing, Amy. I've worked a full-time job, a part-time job and studied part-time. I'm over proving my resilience in the workplace these days. I don't particularly like working, you know; you're not supposed to be anything other than passionate when you're a teacher and I really am passionate about teaching kids but just not that thrilled with all the things that entails. I just want my working life to be comfortable for once. Don't laugh, Amy. We're both pretty cynical but I still think it's possible.
It's a bit sad all around, isn't it? I'm so desperate to get out of my job and you're so desperate to find a new teacher but neither of us are quite desperate enough.
Zerraweth
So yes, I'm looking for a new job but not with a lot of enthusiasm. I don't really need a new job and I haven't given up on my current job in spite of myself, I guess =S
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