Short version of my 2nd job interview: I said, "No."

So I went to my second job interview. It was for a position as a teacher at a private school. The building was traditional and moder at the same time. It was very beautiful and the director and his wife were both extremely kind. They have been in business since 1971. The founder has developed everything himself: the teaching method, teaching props, the business plan, etc. They have a teacher's room with desks and materials for creating props. Really, it was a nice setup.

They offer about $2500 a month as a starting salary. From this, they deduct $900. The school pays your homestay family $600 a month (yes, even though my homestay family is in actuality my family I would be required to pay them) and they pocket the other $300 to help keep running the homestay program. I couldn't understand why we couldn't just skip the whole homestay process. Why are they keeping my $300? I'm not even working there and I feel cheated. They also supply a company vehicle. So, I'd have to rent another parking space. That would be about another $120 deduction. The work week is 4o hours and the pay has 10 hours of overtime already figured into it for the month. This puts the basic wage at about $12-15 dollars per hour.

The workday would be as follows: Go to the school HQ in the morning. Prepare the lesson plans for the day. Head to the first location. Head to the second and third (and maybe fourth class) and then head home. Some days, the teachers have to help with office duties and do some substituting for other teachers. And you frequently have to video and audio record your classes. You also don't get paid until you turn in all of your lesson plans and recordings for the previous weeks.

Other things I didn't care for were some stipulations in the contract. Upon completion of the contract, the teacher can't teach in the same prefecture for two years (without written consent). This would be like being told you can't teach in your home state for two years. You also can't teach for free or for fee at any other location while employed.

The actual interview wasn't so bad. They actually need someone ASAP to fill a recently vacated position. The director queried me on how would I teach this/that, open, and long/short. I knew it was a trap and that the obvious answers would be wrong. I went ahead and let the jaws snap shut so we could get on with the process. He knowingly nodded and then proceeded to demonstrate the way that he designed. The way that Cambridge "borrowed" from him. I agreed that his way was a lot better.

Next up was for me to give my rendition of The Eensy Beensy Spider and Old Macdonald. Well I did my best. I changed the lyrics back to "itsy bitsy" but my poor little spider had quite a time climbing up the waterspout. It also had some time getting washed out. I have no personal recollection of ever singing that song with the gestures (It's time to learn). Also, the animal I chose was an oink oink here. I usually sing that song in the shower or on a long drive so I've ended up with some strange animals on my farm. By the time I got to "...he had a ______..." I realized I hadn't chosen an appropriate animal, yet. Finally "OINK" came. Ihave to admit that I wasn't exactly prepared to do any singing. I was more prepared for a rendition of "El Paso" or "Folsom Prison Blues."

Everything else was pretty straightforward. They gave me a contract to take home and asked to call them the next day. If I accepted, I would visit a class and then suddenly take over the class for a few minutes. They would watch my performance and determine if I'm trainable. They told me, "Don't worry. Of course you won't do well. You haven't been shown our method." Walking into their traps in the interview was one thing. I didn't like the idea of doing it again for an audience.

Today I called him and had to break the news. He sounded genuinely upset. They were really nice people and so I did feel a little bad. But I'm trying to run my own business called Me, Inc. There would've been too much running around and there were too many clauses allowing them to keep me under lock and guard. Back to the classifieds!