One of my first proper jobs I worked as an adult was teaching English to kids in Hangzhou, China. I started working as a part time teacher from my late teen years in fact, right after I graduated high school I was offered the position at my school while I got some time off before setting off to university. But that was a weekday job.
While I was in China, as a brown student from the subcontinent it is very difficult to find a part time job. From the very first year I worked sporadically within the campus, but those were never anything fixed. It was never a fixed income source. One week maybe I had a few gigs with the students from different departments, and then I'd have to go a couple to a few weeks barren - no work, no gigs.
So by my third year, when a friend approached me with an opening at a kids' school nearby and the fact that it would be a fixed job with fixed hours, I was delighted, I was over the moon! My spaceship to the moon quickly crumbled and I was brought back to the earth moments later when she told me my work hours were going to be exclusively on the weekends, and there was no possibility of that changing over the entire duration of my tenure there. And the biggest catch was, it was going to take up my entire Sunday, 8 am to 5 pm!
Having experienced first hand how difficult it is to find a lasting, regular job I really didn't see an option to turn it down. And the pay was good, maybe not great but definitely far better that what I was earning at that point. Very importantly, it was going to be steady pay.
The first couple of weeks I felt quite dull having to sacrifice the weekend after rigorous weekly schedule of med school. I mean, although it was just Sundays - it actually meant I couldn't go away with my friends on a short trip on Saturday because I'd have to be at work by 8 am the next morning.
But over time I started to realize that I didn't really go away for the weekend that often anyways. Most of my friends were contempt with day trips (as everyone at med school is on a schedule). And on good days, if I get enough rest after returning from work, I could still play football under the lights on the campus ground!
I quickly grew into the job, the kids were good. NAUGHTY, yes. But good. My employers were absolutely fantastic, and I didn't see many being able to speak so highly of their employers back then, and not even now really.
So the job I took on reluctantly at the start, slowly started to become the highlight of my week! I was actually looking forward to it as time went by. It was like a mini picnic for me, and believe you me - I had no idea I could be that good with kids! That job helped me discover an entirely new side of me that I didn't know existed. Up until then I had only taught teenagers, adults. But dealing with kids, boy was that a challenge! And if I have to rate myself - I'd say I did extremely well. I bonded well with each of my students.
Working on the weekends didn't seem so bad after all! It was made even better by a small coffee shop that served really good cappuccino. Yes you heard right, not latte (my preferred drink), but Cappuccino. Probably the only cafe where I preferred the Cappuccino over a cup of Latte! Every week I would be looking forward to it! My students were used to seeing me walk in to the class with a large cup of coffee in the morning! And then once more during lunch break!
I enjoyed time away from the chaos of the campus on the weekend. Be it even at work! Don't hear that very often now do we!
And when it was finally time to call my time at the school, and I handed in my resignation it was a very emotional, very difficult. And the kids didn't make it any easier by trying one last time to convince me to stay!
When that is how your workplace treats you, can you even call it work!
To this day, it remains the best job I ever worked at!
All images in this post are mine, unless and otherwise mentioned.