It seems like every week or so I get on here and say “now I can blog a lot more” and then I never do. Hopefully, this time is for real. My job at Nozaki sensei’s place is over (or is it?) and so I should have lots of free time for about a week and a half. Then it is back to work (temporarily). Recently, my professional life has been as confusing as hell.
Today I went into Osaka to attend a training session for a new staffing company that I am working for – OTC staffing. They mainly deal with corporate clients and they have been around a long time. The goal today was to get me officially inducted into the company register as a contractor with their company, to do two orientations, and for me to do a demonstration lesson for them so they can “assess my style of teaching”.
The demo lesson was the only thing that was making me worried. I have taught a lot of classes, but few have been observed by outside people, so I was feeling a little nervous going into it. It’s one thing to teach for a bunch of people, but this time it felt like I was going to be teaching for my livelihood. In addition they sent me a load of paperwork telling me about the style of teaching and sample content that they expected in the demo lesson. I spent a lot of time preparing for the lesson, and as the day got closer I was getting more and more nervous.
They scheduled the demo lesson after two orientation sessions, so I had to sweat it out all afternoon. The orientation sessions were pretty standard fare. I was the only one there today (because of my March schedule I couldn’t attend with the other newbies) so I got personal service from two of the trainers. They both did a great job, and I talked with a really interesting customer coordinator who really impressed me. We spent a lot of time laughing and talking about corporate life, and by the end of it I felt like we were good buddies.
Then, the demo lesson. I was expecting a class of about eight people, but they only sent three. One was a British guy named John, and the other two were female office assistants. John was a full-time employee and his title was “trainer”. He seemed nice enough. I was told to prepare for a two hour lesson, but I’d only teach 40 minutes. Overall, I thought it went OK, but I was surprised that John spent so much time flirting with the office assistants. The office assistants (both Japanese) enjoyed the attention, and overall I had the feeling that I was the only one taking the lesson seriously. It was a little frustrating to work so hard on a lesson and be nervous about it for so long and then have the “students” screwing off the whole time.
That was the only downer of the day. I got home by 5:30, and Kuniko was busy cooking me dinner when I arrived. We cracked open a bottle of German wine so I could blow off steam, and we’ve been relaxing around the house ever since. What a day.
I got a lot of information about work this month (two weeks at a company called Daikin), and it looks like I can make in two weeks what usually takes a month. Also I might have a job in May and June with Mitsubishi doing interviews of their employees, but that is still tentative. That also pays really well – I can make about double what I made at my normal school jobs. The work is harder, but if I can make a lot of money now maybe I can have more time later to finish up my degree and see about landing one of these cushy corporate jobs in the future. And be like John.
