Soooooo, you think you have it bad on your Asian-dream-job-turned-nightmare, huh? You think they're all out to get you because you're a foreign devil, huh? Well, if it makes you feel any better, let me state definitively that we have pretty much the same B.S. with which to contend right here in the good ol' U.S. of A!

When I was teaching (or trying to do so) in China, at the time I felt as though I had been lured by a myriad of the biggest lies and fantasies man was ever capable of inventing! On the other hand, it did take me a while, but I finally wised-up to the fact that the greater number of private ESL schools here in the City of Los Angeles are owned by foreign sources identical to the one which cheated me abroad. And, as in places like China, Korea, etc., they seem to be getting away with pretty much the same brand of skulduggery right here on my own stamping ground. Case in point:

Just this past Friday, I got fired from a pretty fair (at least, from the standpoint of my students) TOEFL preparation course here in Los Angeles. NO! I didn't display any incompetence (not this time, I didn't! ),
nor did I utter profanities in class (something a bit unusual for the undersigned. Rather, near the finale of the lesson and in the very midst of my lecture, I had a brief attack ... something induced by an over-prescription of a new drug which didn't mesh too well with what I had already been taking for a different reason(after all, I am 67). Anyway, from all reports, I was suddenly induced to speak gibberish ... for all of 4 minutes. Then I snapped out of it, whereas, in the interim, all 10 students had abandoned the bloody class at the very onset of my performance. From what I later heard, a few of them actually complained that I was ill and that they were "afraid" of having any further lessons with me, mainly because I represent a "major threat" to them! Without trial or any chance to explain what had happened, I was immediately axed by this Korean-owned establishment. The owner of the school attempted to defend his action by merely stating, "You went out of your mind!" So much for diplomacy. So, with check in-hand and a dazed look on my puss, I wearily walked into the sunset a now-unemployed ESL-teaching fool! What I'll be able to do about this through whatever legal forces that be is far beside the point I'm trying to make.

My question, of course, is "Why do these self-consecrated "earls of the private ESL circuit" feel they have the right to freely maneuver, lambaste, and degenerate those comparatively few of us who are dedicated to -- if not slaves to --achieving results for some of the most exiguous wages paid to professional instructors during this millennium?" After having given so many years of devotion to this field, aside of the inferior wages paid, I, myself, have often been made to feel inferior at the hands of unscrupulous, money-grubbing employers. But, of course, according to that snot-nosed s.o.b., The Observer, my not being well-grounded in the science of ESL pedagogy gives me absolutely no right to complain past this point!

If I may be permitted a final inquiry, WHEN will the professors of this phenomenon known as ESL develop the correct modus operandi to join hands with their likewise browbeaten colleagues to protest to our needs and preferences not being considered during major decision-making. Will it actually take a revolution or an international sit-down strike to awaken the employer to reality?

Yeah ... I shudda gone t'senior high school! Deah I cudda been a real contendah!

The Arrogant One