Let me count the ways….

I’m not talking about my not-ready-for-full-time newspaper job. I’m talking about my piddly, hardly-worth-my-time tutoring job.

I put in my notice last week. I’ll be starting the teaching gig, and really, really don’t have time for it.

And besides…it’s awful.

When I first started, I was being scheduled between 8 and 12 hours a week, sometimes more. This ws overwhelming at times, but the money was…decent. As summer came, the hours started to creep backwards. This week, I have 7. And that’s high.

But it’s a darn good thing I only have 7, because I despise being there. I loathe it.

Some backstory…there are three distinct areas of instruction. Verbal (or “floor”), math, and one-on-one. When I first trained, I was only trained to be a floor teacher. This suited me just fine. I worked with older students (generally grade 5 and up) and didn’t have to go anywhere near math. I worked with anywhere from 2 to 4 students at a time, and it was good. I can’t say I *loved* it or anything, but it really wasn’t a bad job at all.

But then they started cutting hours.

And then they wanted to train me to do one-on-one instruction.

I said fine, maybe it would get me more hours. What I didn’t expect was that they would switch me to doing ONLY one-on-one. This means I’m working with younger kids, for starters. (There is a very good reason that my certification is in secondary ed. 6-year-olds and I do NOT get along well in an instructional setting. It makes me want to tear my hair out. I’m not good at it. I don’t know how to be effective teaching young children. And I’m not.)

And then there’s the hours. They would schedule me for shifts, and then cancel them. Send me home early. Ask me to stay later.

But this, this was the kicker…

In order to be a good little employee and help out, I rearranged my schedule so I could be available to take shifts on Wednesday mornings. I said, very specifically, that my availability was from 9 until NOON. Noon. Period. I have to get to my other job by 12:30 so that I can still get 4 hours in. I thought this was a more-than-generous gesture on my part.

Last week, there was a message left for me at home.

“We were just wondering if you’d be able to stay until 1 on Wednesday. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll just assume this is all right.

Um, you people know what happens when you assume, right?

So I called back to say that it was not, in fact, all right.

And THEN, this week, they actually scheduled me until 12:30. Again, I called and explained that I cannot stay until 12:30. Because my availability is only until NOON. Seriously. How hard is that to understand?

One more week. One more week. One more week…

And the kicker? I’ll make nearly twice as much money teaching ONE course at the community college. Two days a week (plus prep time, of course).