the tuition agency guy freaks me out a little. it's just something vague i can't put my finger on. perhaps it's his name: the kind of name so generic you have to wonder if it's real. like johnny smith, or xiaoming, xiaohong, ali and gopal. that kinda name. i mean, i've never met any real person named gopal or xiaoming!
or maybe it's cos he says my name just that hundred times too many: ok, xintian, just to confirm, xintian, that it's 20 dollars an hour. is that fine, xintian? just contact me, xintian, if you have any queries. as though he'd too enthusiastically attended a HR class teaching you to call potential clients by their names to establish familiarity and also put yourself on higher ground cos you know "something" about them. like, it's disarming if a stranger jumps out at you and calls you by name. AH LING! AH LING! of course later you realise that it's printed on your nametag but nevermind.
he tried to palm off a p6 kid (english math science for 15/h) but i felt distinctly cheated; i mean, sm gets more than this for her p5 kid and she's alr feeling undercharged! the man was like 'because i have others who are willing to take this price' so i was like fine then let them have it. tsk. i bet tuition agencies give horrible deals to their teachers so that they can get more cases. and us poor jobless souls have naught to do but to swallow this grave injustice. haha.
