Things I Was Not Told: A Coping Mechanism

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When I graduated high school, I made up my mind that no force on earth was going to make me sit through four more years of academic instruction. Instead, I started working at a restaurant in the local mall at Panera Breads. For various reasons, I probably should have just gone on to college; I was, however, stuck working at the restaurant till the start of the next school year. It was a very difficult job to do, for one reason. I came in my first day, with no prior training, and they put me on the sandwich line making soups and salads at 11:00 on a Friday morning. At my particular branch of Panera, the customers usually started come in around 11:30--they would line up, sometimes clear out the front door, and would stay this way until about 3:30. Most were in a hurry, and being upper-middle class white bitches, expected everything to be perfect and punctual at all times. Fridays were always the worst.

So there I was my first day, trying to make soups and salads, quickly, getting all the ingredients right. Somebody was supposed to be with me; I was only supposed to observe the first day. This didn't happen. I was there all alone. The screen regularly put up new orders, most of which was written in code, and I didn't know how to read it. I didn't know the ingredients in a Fandango salad; I couldn't distinguish "salad" from "field greens"; and the Greek and Caesar dressings were nearly identical. The whole time, my coworkers were standing behind me, tapping their feet with impatience, and the customers were saying uppity things like, "Where's my SALAD? I've been standing here for thirty seconds! This is unacceptable!!" I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. IT WAS VERY STRESSFUL.

Why did I just tell you about Panera? Because this is exactly the way I am learning to teach in China. I arrived in Jining on a Friday. They told me I had 12 classes on Saturday and Sunday and that I had 12 hours to prepare them. "Here're copies of the books, here's a list of games you can play, good luck!" I was told. And without any further information or advice, I showed up to class at 8 am the next morning. I do not complain--this seems to be par for the course when you teach English in China. Leeza has no illusions about this. She does however have a number of exasperated statements to make which she hopes her readers will find to be both informative and of general interest.

I am compiling them as they arise, over the course of my time here. Eventually, I'll repost this entry, and you can read about (laugh about) the basic, obvious things I should have known about before they happened. So, hopefully, if I am still alive in September, when I'm fleeing to Hanoi on a train I will post you my final edition of all my funny memories.

Till that time, I hope you will enjoy the entries I will continue to post on this obscure little niche of cyberspace that I like to call "My Blog". 😊

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Comments

[alan]

everything is the same
I was thinking about your Panera experience and then your teaching experience and having a serious sense of deja vu. And it's all normal here. The whole time I have been working on stuff in China, it's all new to me and there's nobody around to give me any guidelines. And I'm doing hospitals. I think it's the only normal that they have. Gives a whole new meaning to "just do it". They go so fast, experience is almost meaningless. Of course that might just explain my lunch the other day... by the way, regarding you being 21 as I noted in my last post, it's always good to assume that everyone is 21 if you don't know their age, even if they are close to 53. I've got a guess on how old you are, but you are 21 until I know for sure. The other day, there was a group of older ladies (over 70 for sure) leaving their table, and I said we had to wait until the young ladies were done. I got 4 big smiles. I think I made their day.

[Global Drifter]

LOL, Alan
The sad thing about my experience is that I am working under the guidance of a fellow American manager who has been through the same things I have, and there are three other Foreign Teachers who could have shown me the ropes as well. I've found that my Chinese co-workers have been far more informative than those of certain other nationalities! Go figure. Such instances of non-information may simply be a phenomenon that's common to all human beings.

[Alan]

Pay it Forward
It drives me crazy when others don't share their experiences. Despite those knuckleheads, I choose to pay it forward when I run across new folks traveling along my same path. There's no reason for someone else to step in the same poop I did. And speaking of stepping in poop, I was in Over the Rhine today looking at an old abandoned home that Habitat for Humanity wants to renovate to be a LEED certified residence. At least I thought it was abandoned. Raccoons had taken up residence and, well, were using certain portions of the house as their potty. It either must be a looooot of raccoons or they have been there a loooooong time. Or both. But despite that it could make for an interesting historic LEED prototype for H4H.

[Global Drifter]

Poop
Once as a little girl, a raccoon pooped in my kiddie swimming pool. I was convinced it was a human being. But it was definitely a raccoon. Anyway, I didn't get to play in the water that day.