I received an email this week from the manager here at the hospital. She informed me of some advancement opportunities available to me. Yes...a promotion....going up the ladder!
I didn't respond right away. I actually needed to think about it for a little while. Is this the field I really want to build a career in? With the economy still in the toilet, and with many of my friends and family members still out of work after nearly a year, it seems like the healthcare industry is the only one that is still growing, with the recession causing little to no impact.
It's been a year and five months since I last taught an English class, and I still feel no desire to go back and do that again. It's kind of sad, actually. Before I left for Taiwan, I felt very excited about being a teacher. I got my degree in English, and I even became TEFL certified. But then...after four years of teaching, I just totally lost interest in it. Maybe it was because I was teaching class after class of unruly kids who had no interest in learning. They'd rather talk on their cell phones, play games, gossip with their friends, or just stare at the ceiling. I suppose you could say that a really good teacher would have inspired those kids to learn. To stop acting like animals and pay attention. Perhaps so. Maybe in that sense, I could have been a better teacher. When I had students who didn't show any respect to me as a teacher, I kind of just tuned them out and focused on the ones who did actually want to learn. Unfortunately though, the good students were in the minority. And this is probably the root cause of my lack of desire to teach again. I just don't have the patience to go into a classroom and force a bunch of teenagers to learn something they have absolutely no desire to learn. And I refuse to put on clown makeup and jump around to try and get their attention. That's just not me.
So, now I'm falling back on the only other field that I have some background in, which is healthcare. I never really wanted to work in healthcare. It just happened. Sometime in the mid 1990's, when I was married to my first wife, I got laid off from some crappy job I was working at, and a job at a healthcare company was offered to me. Needing the money, I took it, of course. I never thought it would end up being something I continued doing indefinitely. I always thought eventually I'd go into teaching.
I accepted the offer for advancement, and now sometime in the near future I'm supposed to attend training on how to become "management material." I'm not sure how good of a supervisor or manager I'll be, since I've never really liked most of the managers I've worked for, and some I've even totally despised. I think if you're in a position where you're telling people what to do, you're bound to have some people who don't like you. Also, I have pretty strong opinions about the healthcare industry, and it conflicts with many of the people who work here.
So for now, we'll see how it goes. Either the position will work out well for me, or I'll fail miserably. I'm hoping it will work out.
I didn't respond right away. I actually needed to think about it for a little while. Is this the field I really want to build a career in? With the economy still in the toilet, and with many of my friends and family members still out of work after nearly a year, it seems like the healthcare industry is the only one that is still growing, with the recession causing little to no impact.
It's been a year and five months since I last taught an English class, and I still feel no desire to go back and do that again. It's kind of sad, actually. Before I left for Taiwan, I felt very excited about being a teacher. I got my degree in English, and I even became TEFL certified. But then...after four years of teaching, I just totally lost interest in it. Maybe it was because I was teaching class after class of unruly kids who had no interest in learning. They'd rather talk on their cell phones, play games, gossip with their friends, or just stare at the ceiling. I suppose you could say that a really good teacher would have inspired those kids to learn. To stop acting like animals and pay attention. Perhaps so. Maybe in that sense, I could have been a better teacher. When I had students who didn't show any respect to me as a teacher, I kind of just tuned them out and focused on the ones who did actually want to learn. Unfortunately though, the good students were in the minority. And this is probably the root cause of my lack of desire to teach again. I just don't have the patience to go into a classroom and force a bunch of teenagers to learn something they have absolutely no desire to learn. And I refuse to put on clown makeup and jump around to try and get their attention. That's just not me.
So, now I'm falling back on the only other field that I have some background in, which is healthcare. I never really wanted to work in healthcare. It just happened. Sometime in the mid 1990's, when I was married to my first wife, I got laid off from some crappy job I was working at, and a job at a healthcare company was offered to me. Needing the money, I took it, of course. I never thought it would end up being something I continued doing indefinitely. I always thought eventually I'd go into teaching.
I accepted the offer for advancement, and now sometime in the near future I'm supposed to attend training on how to become "management material." I'm not sure how good of a supervisor or manager I'll be, since I've never really liked most of the managers I've worked for, and some I've even totally despised. I think if you're in a position where you're telling people what to do, you're bound to have some people who don't like you. Also, I have pretty strong opinions about the healthcare industry, and it conflicts with many of the people who work here.
So for now, we'll see how it goes. Either the position will work out well for me, or I'll fail miserably. I'm hoping it will work out.
Will it still be a safe industry to work in after Saviour Obama makes it communist?
ReplyDeleteYour experience with teaching was forever tainted by Hess. Since that was your first job, you may have assumed all the bullshit they required of you was the same everywhere. It is not. Hess even advertises itself as run by "Western-style management". That is not a good thing.
I rarely play games. I have not touched a sticky ball in over a year. I correct poor behavior immediately. New students sometimes like to see how far they can go. In my classes it is not very far. Those who cannot pay attention quickly learn how. And I am not at all strict compared to others at my school.
But I just naturally bring out the best in my students. Perhaps it is because I am an exceptional teacher. Perhaps it is simply because I am awesome.
Congratulations! You may love your new position. I hope so, and I hope it means more money too.
ReplyDeleteJM Fan,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. My experience with Hess was not a good one. Hess is the McDonalds of language schools in Taiwan, and that is where I worked for the longest amount of time. Kojen was better, and the students were a little better, but by then I had already started to lose interest in teaching.
If anyone out there is thinking about going to Taiwan to teach English, stay away from Hess at all cost.