Friday, November 04, 2011

a shitty way to be fired

This morning, I had about 15 minutes to spare before heading on the metro to catch my bus to get to work. The reason, I don't get to work early, because the doors are not unlocked until 9 AM, on the dot. If I get to work before then, I just wait outside the building so I might as well arrive on time...or late. Alex and I went to Starbucks and I had ordered their Peppermint Moka. I'm not a coffee drinker but I will drink starbucks only because put so much crap into their coffee that it won't taste like coffee anymore. It was so yummy, minty and chocolately, absolute love. Also, they totally busted out their Christmas decorations already and it felt so festive. I went to Starbucks with a friend yesterday during a break and that's when I noticed that everything was all Christmasy. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.



Makes me happy just thinking about drinking this.


In other news, I've been trying very hard not to pay anymore cute things because I don't make nearly as much money as I used to. I used to work two jobs, one as a medical secretary and the other as a private tutor. Both jobs paid really well but I've lost both of them now. I lost the medical secretary one because the department got a new manager since the old one retired. She restructured the whole department and basically told me that they wouldn't be needing me anymore. But they called me back in August saying that they needed me to come in for a few weeks to replace someone. I was tempted to say no because "they didn't need me anymore," but I wanted some extra cash so I swallowed my pride and said yes.

The tutoring one, how it ended was infuriating. And still is. It's a bit of a long story but here it does. I had worked for that family for three years. Every day for the past three years, from Monday to Thursdays (sometimes Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays), I'd go and tutor one of my boss' two sons, or both. Now, his older son is extremely smart but lazy. He won't ever study unless he has a test coming up and he makes a lot of reckless mistakes when doing his math problems. Normally, I'd tutor his sons from 4 PM until 5:30 PM unless they needed me to stay longer to help with projects, exams or they just have too much homework (which is often the case). This past spring, I would finish my 9 to 5 job, then take about an hour of commute to his house and tutor him for about an hour before going to kickboxing on Mondays and Wednesdays. The other days of the week (usually including Fridays), I'd tutor him until 7:30 PM. So basically, I'd extend my work day to help his son prepare for his exams.

After his oldest son's exams, I e-mailed my boss to ask about his results. Apparently, they weren't too great and he had asked for my availabilities so that we could meet and discuss on ways to improve his son's results. This was during the middle of summer, and I replied with my availabilities. No response. In August, I sent him an e-mail asking about his son's progress with the summer math package that he had to do (my boss had told me about it in a previous e-mail). He told me that his son had been doing it regularly and he asked for my availabilities again to meet and discuss with him. Gave it to him again. No reply.

September rolled around, and he never called me to work (he usually does by the end of August). I thought it was because it was the first week of school (and both his sons are now in high school) so I didn't worry too much. By the third week, I was getting worried. But decided not to contact him until later. By the end of September, he e-mailed me telling him about his son's dismal results of the math re-test (he had to work on the package during the summer and take a test at the beginning of the year). He told me that his son has been working with another tutor (red flag) and that the tutor was sure that his son knew the material well. This is basically what I had told his dad (my boss) for the past three years. There was only so much work that I could do with his son. I gave his son exercise sheets that he had to do during the weekend, or work to do when I wasn't with him but he would never do them. I told his dad, his grandmother and even the housekeeper about this and asked them to remind him. His dad did tell him to do it but wasn't making any precautions to enforce it.

Anyway, his dad continued in his e-mail saying that he had asked his son to bring the exam home and that all three of us can go over it. Asked for availabilities again. Gave them, standard response, which was none. He also told me to tell my sister (who had been tutoring his younger son for the past few months so that I would dedicate all my time to his oldest son) that he "promise[s]" to get back to her and he hasn't forgotten her. He never e-mailed either of us back ever since.

I had basically given up hope by October but I decided to send him one last e-mail, asking him if he still needed our services. Not surprisingly, he never replied. Needless to say, I am uber pissed about this. Yes, it sucks that he most certainly hired another tutor but that's not what pisses me off the most. The worst, absolute shittiest thing that he did was not even bother telling me, in any shape or form, that he did not need me anymore. I spent 3 years of not only tutoring his sons, but also babysitting his daughter and her friends every Friday, by playing soccer with them, staying late when needed (sometimes to 8 PM), house sitting when no one was able to, taking care of his daughter and her friends during her parties, coming in on Fridays when needed, canceling my weekend plans when he asked me to tutor his son (the morning of, mind you), attending parent-teacher meetings with him. Don't tell me I was not a good employee to him. I did over and above my call of duty for him and his kids. I did all I could to help his kids improve their grades but I am not their full time tutor, I have a life of my own (although I limited it greatly when I was working for him) and I cannot be with them 24/7 to make that they do their extra work or when they write their tests. His kids were pretty much a priority while I was working for him, I never took days off to fucking study for my own midterms and exams until the past year for Christ's sake. I fucking deserve to be told that my services are no longer needed, instead of being cast aside as a dirty rag. I feel insulted that he didn't even bother to tell me but instead, lead on about all this bullshit about meeting him to discuss this and that.

I thought I knew my boss, especially since I had been working for him for 3 years, seeing him almost every day. He never struck me as the bullshit type, especially since he's the CEO and founder of many big companies. And I am surprised that he can act so unprofessionally and still be an important part of management. But people are always full of surprises.

What sucks even more, is that I didn't properly say good bye to the kids. You grow attach to them when you've been seeing them every day for 3 years and especially the oldest, who I believe sees me as a friend. He tells me about his day, his life, and his friends. If I had known that I wouldn't be seeing them anymore, I would've said a proper good bye. But you can't change the past, so with this post, I can finally let go of his insult and move on.

In other news, this is so damn adorable. It would be the perfect case for my camera!



Cute little dinosaur! Buy this for me! You can find more adorable cuteness here.

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