This week has been really weird. I went to The Warsaw Uprising Museum last Sunday but it feels like I went yesterday. It's like the past week never happened. I can live with that.
Now for my first real work-related rant:
I imagine that next week I will not be a pleasant person to be around. On top of my 18 normal classes I also have to take a 'Kids Club' class, a conversation class and a 'Video Club' class for kids (the only videos this school has for kids are the Wallace and Grommet ones, which they've all seen at least 3 times before).
There are two reasons why these classes are particularly annoying
1) They are a total waste of time. Usually only one or two people turn up. I had a converstation class for a level that don't actually know enough English to have a conversation last week at only one student turned up. That was a fun hour.
2) You don't get paid for the extra work. In the contract it states you should have X hours contact time per week. I think I'm about 20-40 mins under that. Any more and they have to pay you overtime. So at first I thought that meant I'd be getting paid more because taking just one of those classes would put me over my limit. Apparently not. They accrue the time from other weeks when you haven't reached the limit, hence no overtime.
That isn't even the final insult. I was talking to one of the other English teachers one day and in conversation happened to ask her how many classes she had that day. I was very surprised when she told me she just had one. I love days when I only have 3 classes. She said she'd have more work to do when the conversation classes started though. I mentioned this when I got home and found out that on another day she only has two classes. Then I looked at the conversation class timetable and she only has about 2 a week, and they only last 50 mins to an hour instead of the usual 80 mins. This girl gets paid exactly the same amount as me.
What nearly had me packing my bags in disgust was discovering that one of my flatmates has the same class 5 times a week and then he has other classes more than once a week. This means that in essence he only has to plan for about 8 classes a week. I have to plan for 13-14 classes a week. He doesn't have any conversation classes because he's exactly on the limit and they'd have to pay him extra. We have the same number of classes. I guess I just do one more kids class than him.
I love this place.
I have never looked forward to my birthday so much (the contract ends 4 days after it).
Now I've gotten myself angry all over again just writing about it.
