WANTED:

I almost got a job this week at the top university in the province. Halfway though the semester they realized they were short an English teacher for four hours a week. When I heard about the crunch they were in I offered my services. NO one asked for my school transcripts, my English teaching certification, or a resume. In fact they didn’t really even seem to care about that… all that mattered was that I was a native English speaker. Talk about a demanding standard and a competitive job market. The top school is willing to hire profs part time, who just volunteer to teach. They were offering to pay me 100kuai an hour, which is more than three times what I pay my tutor, who is a real retired prof from the school. The guy in the office said he would try to work out the students’ schedule to match mine and get back to me. The day before I was suppose to start to teach I went into the office to make sure everything was set. I needed to get the text book for the class, and know what building and room we were meeting in. I arrived only to find out they had already hired another Canadian guy without telling me. When I inquired as to why I didn’t get the job, they said “oh, the other guy had more free time on Tuesday” (that is what I call a superior job qualification).