Being happy in your work

That’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’, not Snow White.

[quote=“Loretta”]In short, charging into the classroom determined to enjoy it means that you do enjoy it. Life is what you make it, only more so.

Anyway, my whineybutt colleague looked at me in astonishment when I told her this and then asked me what drugs I was taking. Is it really so hard to understand?[/quote]

You know the old joke, “The worst day fishing is better than the best day working”?

Well, my worst day teaching is better than the best day in any other job I’ve had save one. And that job was in helping and working with people (computer tech within a company), much like teaching.

How can anyone not like teaching? In most jobs, it takes a lot of time to accomplish something, to reach a goal. Teaching gives immediate and constant gratification - every single day, the kids “get it” and I get the rush of having caused it.

I was a teacher all my adult life, until September 2008 and can honestly say I was completely miserable for about 80% of that time. I can’t think of many jobs I am less suited to in terms of my personality and skills. I’d rather be an abattoir drain cleaner. I’m not knocking it and respect those who do it well, but I HATED it.

For me there’s just something primally depressing and boring about explaining how to do something I could do at the age of five, yet constantly feeling the conflict of having a room full of nice people staring at me and wanting me to change things for them. It wasn’t about me demonstrating he usage of the past perfect, it was about me providing a lifestyle experience, and I couldn’t function on that level. I can’t really explain what I mean very well; I respected and liked many of my students; probably more of them that I would in a random group of people, but I found it an enormous strain to relate to strangers on a daily basis.

Now I work somewhere else and I LOVE my job. I work for a publishing company as an editor for ESL stuff. It has all the stuff I love about teaching and none of the shit. The theory, the organisation, the tech stuff, the sense of achievement ( I roll out my first ‘thing’ next week!) I am treated well, and every morning when I walk through the gates of my 17th century courtyard into the place, I still get a kick. I travel, I have fun, I contribute to the world, I make money for myself and other people. And I help many more people nowadays. I am valued and respected to a level that I don’t hate myself for doing it. There’s no managerial treachery and lying, no greasy pole climbing teachers jockeying for position, no back covering by shitty admins, no racism, just a bunch of normal, interesting, capable people who inspire me to do my best. It’s wonderful to go into work and feel interested and give 100% of your mind, instead of 100% of your energy and tolerance.

This maybe sounds nuts to you guys who have a proper sense of perspective in life, but as I spent the majority of my working life in Asian adult language schools, I didn’t know what else was out there and like that story about the frog in the crab bucket who got let out of the tiger’s cage, I just didn’t realise I wasn’t ‘stuck’ in Taiwan, and that I wasn’t a skill-less idiot who couldn’t do anything, I was a pro in my field who could pick and choose jobs in the UK.

That’s why I left Taiwan, in a nutshell.

You haven’t read Bambi until you read the 17th century Swabian version where the little doe is a killer.

:laughing:

actually, the cool thing about the grimms were they studied linguistics like how sounds change over time.

Buttercup,

Congrats on finding a job that really suits you. I bet you were a great teacher, but there’s a time for most people to move on to something else.

I’m amazed at the number of people that teach for years, and yet they still prep carefully for each class because they still take great pride in what they do.

Actually, I could imagine you working in an abattoir, but not at the drains . . . I see you at the other end of things . . . cattle prod in hand . . . devilish gleam in the eyes . . . coworkers giving you plenty of room . . . :smiling_imp: :flog:

[quote=“Jack Burton”]

actually, the cool thing about the grimms were they studied linguistics like how sounds change over time.[/quote]

Ever studied the vowel shift stuff? ‘Cool’ isn’t what springs to mind! :laughing: Historical linguistics was JRR Tolkein’s field as well. Erm, and Buttercup’s (did a bit of modern EngLit and Linguistics to get my degree.). A rich fantasy life is a common thread, I think.

Actually, that sounds like me at school.

Thanks zender. And Sleepyhead, it’s great that you like it so much. :rainbow:

You haven’t read Bambi until you read the 17th century Swabian version where the little doe is a killer.

:laughing:

actually, the cool thing about the grimms were they studied linguistics like how sounds change over time.[/quote]

I wish I COULD read it. Swabian, eh? I wonder what that sounds like.

These days, few people would read “Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby”, by Uncle Remus to their kids in the original. But given some racial background, a lot of kids could dig it. I gotta say that a lot of the charm of the original has been lost.

Bring back Noddy and Big Ears, I say.

You kiddin’? Tom Sawyer and Alice in Wonderland are banned books in the States these days. People are choaking on the bile of their own political correctness and it’s starving their brains of oxygen and their kids of perspective and culture.

Hmm, that one where the black guy talks Noddy into driving a car to help him get away from the police by telling him there’s a party in the woods where all the black toys live and have cool parties, then when they get there, all his (black) friends steal Noddy’s car, money and clothes, leaving him for dead until his best friend, an elderly man who lives alone and was just driving past where the black guys were having a special party takes the naked Noddy back to his house, where they then hatch a legal dubious plot along with Mr Plod to entrap all the black guys in a tree trunk?

Hmm. Not sure what influence that has on young minds …

Hmm, that one where the black guy talks Noddy into driving a car to help him get away from the police by telling him there’s a party in the woods where all the black toys live and have cool parties, then when they get there, all his (black) friends steal Noddy’s car, money and clothes, leaving him for dead until his best friend, an elderly man who lives alone and was just driving past where the black guys were having a special party takes the naked Noddy back to his house, where they then hatch a legal dubious plot along with Mr Plod to entrap all the black guys in a tree trunk?

Hmm. Not sure what influence that has on young minds …[/quote]

I think I read a newer version of this to my girls a few years ago. There was no black guy; there was a naughty monkey instead. :astonished:

Brits have some funny cartoons. I heard stories (unfortunately, untrue) about one with characters named Seaman Stains, Master Bates, and Roger the Cabinboy.

[quote=“zender”]
I think I read a newer version of this to my girls a few years ago. There was no black guy; there was a naughty monkey instead. :astonished:

Brits have some funny cartoons. I heard stories (unfortunately, untrue) about one with characters named Seaman Stains, Master Bates, and Roger the Cabinboy.[/quote]

No, the monkeys are new. I still have my original books, at my mother’s house.

I didn’t know that was an urban legend!