As you may have picked up from a few previous posts, I have been holding two teaching jobs since November. Each is at a “Cram School,” where students go after their normal school hours to get information crammed into them. This could be math, science, English…you name it. Both of mine were English Cram Schools. I’ve been loving the jobs SO much and to my perception, they were loving me back. Last week however, I got to experience my first Taiwanese “canning.” Yep, I got fired. Or let go… The thing is I’m still not exactly sure how to respond to the situation.
Basically, I’ve been teaching at this school for almost three months. The kids love me, the other teachers were beginning to be my friends, and the owners kept trying to get me to work there three days instead of just the one. This is an indication of job security, no? Imagine my surprise when, after the normal, cheerful “See you next week!” and arrival home, I opened up my salary envelope to discover an unusual note. It read “Sorry, Mark [another teacher] can take your classes so you don’t need to come back again. Thank you!” I couldn’t believe it, and for awhile tried to extract some other meaning from the words…sometimes translation into another language can produce funny things. Just to make sure I understood correctly, I called the school owner and asked her about it. She sounded embarrassed and answered my questions with “Well, Mark can teach three days a week so we don’t need you any more.” Still totally blown away and not sure if she was being mean or nice, I said thanks and told her I’d substitute teach anytime if I was needed. And that was it.
But THEN, the next week, I ran into this same Mark – who happened to be on his way to teach that very moment. Turns out he didn’t know about my situation, and they had never even asked him if he could take over my teaching slots. Further, he was going to tell them that day that he wouldn’t be working there the next semester. Ironic, eh?
Suffice it to say, I’m still laughing and bewildered at the whole thing. If this was the US, I would have drilled this lady to give me a reason for being let go. But because I know nothing about the polite Taiwanese way to handle situations like this, what else can I do but be nice and laugh about it?
And now comes the good part: God’s faithfulness. Last Sunday, I was approached about a private tutoring job for a college student. This week it was confirmed, and we had our first session yesterday. It just so happens that our time together falls during the time of my previously-held teaching job, is 15 minutes closer to home, and pays almost the same amount of money! Thank you GOD!!! Further, I think I might come to love private tutoring even more than a classroom setting. I’ve been getting so excited about what I can teach, what we can work on together, his success in this language…I’m allowed to care so much more about this one student than my 100+ others. Wonderful!
That concludes the story of my first Taiwanese canning. Laugh with me!
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