There is no finishing line to perfection <33

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

~Dust has settled for now (Phew!)

Finally, I can say my financial woes due to a lack of income from tutoring previously has ended thanks to an influx of students this month which brings the grand total of students I have to 9 (after sacking one of my kids whom I was tutoring since April and another new student for this month, more bitching about them later).

Again let me abuse a few men linguistically here in my little blogger space (I don't hate men, I just hate STUPID men!). As usual it seems generally, females are much smarter than men when it comes to conversations. Again, when it comes to the dumb cliche crap conversation opener in msn or in person "Are you working now?", there are some IDOITIC men who don't understand full-time tutoring is a legitimate job (Yes we tutors do not enjoy the same privileges or status that a regular 9-5 job bring but nevertheless we contribute to the economy as well by educating young minds.) Thereafter the next line comes, " Are you looking for a full-time job?" Fuck la, which part of your tiny pea sized brains do you not understand the term full-time? Geez.

FYI, the Sunday Times article on Supertutors make tutoring to be a highly profitable career with the ones featured earning $10000-$20000 a month, but the truth is this only applies to tutors who work from home and give group tuition. My own experience was during my secondary 4 schooldays, my mum was paying this tutor Catherine $500 a month for 8 sessions of A Maths and Physics 2 hours each time in her home and sometimes the no of students in her home can reach 10 or more. Anyway she is an assessment and textbook writer and she had a good reputation so she commanded such rates. I had to stop after 3 months as my parents were quarrelling incessantly about money and I told my mum I could study on my own. My other tutor Mr Chan who has a Masters degree in Mathematics, in my sec 3 days charged $150 for 4 sessions of 2hours each for A and E Maths and the classes were held at his home and it was group tuition as well. To tell the truth, I didn't find their classes that useful as basically what they did was to summarise the concepts and then you do questions which took up most of the time. The thing is they couldn't explain sufficiently in depth to me regarding the concepts and most of the time I was left trying to figure things out on my own. This is due to the lack of individualised attention as they would flit from student to student after doing the requisite teaching. I have attended both individual and group tuition classes and seriously for cases like mine where I was failing A Maths and Physics then, group tuition is not very useful as I couldn't even comprehend my basic concepts. However, group tuition is more affordable and good for students whose grades hover in the 60s range and above.

Anyway, Just look at the rates I quoted for times then and multiply by 10 students you can roughly see how much the tutor is earning for a short time session of 2hr. That also explains why Catherine can afford to stay in a condo and book cabs most of the time while Mr Chan who lives in a HDB flat can go on his yearly trips to London which is the 2nd most expensive city to live in in the world. For tutors like me who give individual tuition, we earn only for the 1.5 or 2 hours for 1 student at one time and not to mention the time wasted in travelling from one student's home to another and this is worse if you have to rely on public transport. That said I can say starting out we can command about $2000-$3000 and above depending on how hardworking we are. For now, I work 5days and Fris and Sats are my days off. Don't forget we don't have CPF so in fact we have to save extra as we do not have the 20% CPF from employers. However for now I'm happy I'm not at the beck and call of some horrible upper management and able to use my brain to work on problems (results of my personality tests at Recruit Express interview showed I was too analytical and dislike structure which could work against me for their lame recruitment consultant sales job which was misleading in their recruitment ad where they place the job title as HR executive. The asshole recruiter wasted my time waiting for her for 70 minutes coz she was in a meeting and she was the one who gave me the time slot).

Generally I'm quite happy with my present batch of Sec 3 and 4 students since I've fired 2 students, Y and M for the reasons below who made me less than happy.

For Y:
1. Cancel lessons a little too frequent for my liking. As I've tuition twice a week with her, to wait till the end of 8 sessions for $320 is ridiculous as my pay is postponed as well. I need to eat too. Plus this shows the student isn't very committed.

2. She's lazy. The homework I assigned her which was basically some questions in the ten year series is almost always not done. Only once did she do it just before the mid year exams and no amount of encouragement or praising or reminders was useful in getting her to be more motivaated in her work.

3. No improvement in her results. Due to 2., she failed both E Maths and Combined Science in her mid year and it didn't make sense I blamed myself for her failure when I've taught her the concepts and allowed her to practise during class where she seemed to grasp understanding of it. However, lack of revision contributed to her poor results and I didn't want to continue torturing myself psychologically anymore as I was really sick of teaching her. No point getting my blood pressure up when I'm getting so little money.

Result: Told her mum over the phone a few weeks ago that I wasn't going to continue and she was rather surprised. She asked if her daughter was too slow and I said no.

For M:

1. Her mum is a bitch. So far I had only 1 lesson with her 2 weeks ago. Then, this lady from a tuition agency called me to teach M and she requested that I show the parent my certs on the first lesson. On the first lesson before it started, M's mum told me the lessons had been changed to 1.5 hrs instead of the 2 h I was told the day before by the agency lady. During the lesson, she kept walking in and out of the room as if to check on me. After the lesson about half hour later, she called me on my mobile phone. It was only then she revealed she was the tuition coordinator whom I spoke on the phone regarding this assignment and I didn't know till then (Yes I know how blur I am). She told me that she picked my profile out of the many profiles on the tuition agency website. And that when she asked her daughter how I fared as her tutor, M said I was ok. M's mum said that she wanted to make sure that the tutor can teach her daughter well. Plus she mentioned that some tutors were taking up too many students and they couldn't commit or give their best (This is rather ironic, you will see later) She came across as being rather shrewd and I don't mean that in a good way.

Last week came and she smsed me that her daughter had a bad headache from her period and tuition had to be cancelled. In moi opinion, theat's a lousy excuse. Please la, I got my first day of period when I was due to teach 4 students in a day. whether I had to cope with the cramps or giddiness I still went to teach. You mean to say for every single month your daughter will miss 1 lesson of tuition coz she's having her period? So duh.

On Saturday night, I called both her daughter and her regarding tuition for this Monday and nobody picked up.

Sun was the best part, she smsed that M had the Physics 10 year series I bought and whether it was possible I returned the book. She apologised this matter slipped her mind too. FYI I informed her on the first lesson itself I would be getting the book for her daughter then she said OK. After going through the trouble of getting it from the Popular at Pasir Ris, she told me this nonsense. I don't own the Popular bookstore and I have to travel to one to get the book. I smsed her that it has passed 2 weeks and I doubt I could return the book. She called me thereafter and asked if it's possible she buy stationary in lieu of the book and if I could pass her the receipt and book after I call the customer service hotline. She said there was no point that M has 2 identical books. Hello, it is your mistake, why is it I have to settle it for you? If she had called earlier within a few days of discovering the mistake, I would have gone to exchange it though I will be grumbling and seething in temporary anger for the inconvenience. In any case, I will just absorb the cost of $8.55 for the book since I need a 10 year series though it's not the one I want. After telling me about the book she said this week tuition was to be cancelled as school just started and M will be having a change of teachers and she didn't want to fix a date only to have it changed later. Then she started asking me which schools my other students are from and if it was possible to get their schools' papers. Dearie said I was too nice that was why the bitch is taking advantage of me. To tell the truth I was quite pissed about the book thing. Seriously if you can be so stingy and calculative over $8.55 I doubt I will see my pay as cancellation of lessons seem frequent. Then again she was just paying me $25 an hour and she expects the whole universe for the measly amount she's paying me. Dearie say she seemed like the sort who change tutors every 4 lessons. And then again she is the tuition coordinator which means she will be pocketing half of what I will be getting for the first month. In all, I can say this woman make me very dulan. Ma also advised me that it was better to forego the first lesson fees than to continue and incur further losses.

Result: Planning to tell M's mum that I won't be teaching next week if she calls, that is.

On Sat crap shit nearly happened when this lady from Star Tuition Agency tried to pull off a fast one. She told me that my student G changed the frequency of tuition from once a week to twice a week before I started teaching G 2 weeks ago. The agreement was to have 50% of $400 I would be getting for 8 lessons. However, this fraud left out the part that G would only have twice a week lessons during the holidays and switch to once a week once the holis end. She had agreed that G was to make payment of $100 to the agency however she changed tack and demanded that my student pay her $200after I finished the 4th lesson where G paid me $100. All this while, I was wondering why was the agency only collecting $100 and not $200 when my student informed me earlier on. The full picture emerged when G forwarded the sms Jerlyn (the lady) sent her as below:

But i already informed u about payment details..first half of month should go to e agency, not to e tutor. Den for chem only, u have to transfer $100 to our agency. Since u having once a week 2 h fr next week onwards right?den u need to make another transfer $100 after completion of e next 2 lessons for CHEM, den we will deal with e tutor. We will also inform her about this. PLS nite that for ECON, Pls transfer $400 to our agency after e completion of 4 lessons n not to pay her directly, den we will deal with her.tnks a lot jeryln

In actual fact this Jerlyn did not inform me that the frequency will change after the holis and for the Econs tutor who is awaiting uni entry, her schedule was the same as mine. Didn't make sense that the agency was to get the full 2 months pay when in the terms and condition this was written:

Commission payment

Upon completion of the 2nd week of a tuition assignment in the first month, Startuition Agency will incur half of the total tuition fee from the parent. Parents may pay by bank transfers or cheque.

The remaining half of the tuition fee will be given directly to the tutor by parents, upon completion of the 4th week.

For the subsequent months, tutor will receive the full tuition fee.

Anyway, this fraud kept pressing my student for payment (Thank God she hadn't transferred a single cent yet) and she turned to me for help. So I called Jerlyn and asked her why was it the frequency was changed to once a week after the holis and I wasn't informed. She got the gall to say she only knew that change as G only told her during the 2nd lesson. In any case, shouldn't she call me to inform of any changes in schedule? And she replied that she wasn't told directly but by her colleague as she was overseas. Truth was, she was the one who was communicating with my student all this while and she came up with the lame story. Then the best part:

Jerlyn: There are 6 lessons in this month
Me: But wasn't the agreement for 8 lessons in the first month? And in any case there are only 5 lessons for this month. So why do I have to pay commission of $200 for half of 8 lessons which doesnt make sense.
J: There is exams all that.
M: Hello! This is holiday period and there isn't any exam. In any case exams period would be later on and it wouldn't concern the agency then.
J: Erm, i can't make decision, I help you speak to my head.
M: Ok Why don't you give me her no?
J: I will inform her and ask her to call you.

20 minute later, an sms from her:

Hi i called up regina already. Yup have come to compromise that we incur $100 as for e agency fee. Yup cuz its sort of miscommunication. Sorry about that. jerlyn.

TRUTH: There was no head and all that she told me were LIES. All along this woman wanted to intimidate my student into paying her and usurping extra commission from me and the Econs tutor. The full fees for the Econs tuition which was nearly usurped was blatant cheating. I shudder to think how the poor tutor will feel when she isn't going to be paid for 2 months but she has to carry on if the unthinkable happened.

I called my student and told her that she only had to pay $100 each for Chemistry and Econs as commission fee to Jerlyn and pay her Econs tutor $100 on the 4th lesson. If that fraud still harass her again I told her to get Jerlyn to talk to her mum directly and let her know what actually happened or ask jerlyn to talk to me instead. In any case the Econs tutor was unaware of anything amiss.

On the bright side, G and I get along very well as we both take ballet lessons and she's a chatty girl. She even gave me an extra Chemistry textbook that she bought last year. And I'm seeing a little growing interest in his studies in one of my male students g. He did the Science homework I assigned him last week. Small progress but definitely helpful as he had failed 5 out of 6 subjects in the Mid year and he needs to do very well to be promoted to Sec 4 Express next year. In addition, His mum smsed me this morning that he would like to take up Maths tuition with me as he is comfortable with me. Hopefully he does well in the final year as he is quite a bright boy just that he is uninterested in his studies. My other students are also a joy to teach though sometimes they stump me with the weirdest questions which means that I have to go home and do research. The flip side of tuition is sometimes I have irregular or skipped meals as I am always travelling from place to place hence leading to gastric pain 4 times in the first week. Eating at 10+pm for my dinner from a lunch at 2pm is quite common. If I do pass by a food outlet I have to take it away and eat either on the bus or at the bus stop.

The thing which made me excited in the Monday papers is: WATER IS FOUND ON MARS. But it was in a small column in the world page and hardly noticeable unless you really read from page to page. Guess oil prices are more interesting to people now. Anyway the Phoenix mars lander found ice under the surface of the red planet's north region and it is trying to find microorganisms beneath the surface now.

Not many people know this but I've always been fascinated by Astronomy since I was a kid and I wanted very badly to be an astronaut but I had to give up my wild dream upon learning that there are no astronauts in sg as we don't have facilities for space programs and that the US is the place to go for that. Not only that, even if you do make it there, selection was tough and you need to do very well for both Maths and Science in school. Guess I was only good in Maths and my Science was in the 80s in primary school so i decided I wanted to be a teacher for the next 7years instead.

To end off, my next post will be on shopping during the Great Singapore Sale. lol. :P

On Pointe @)~~

1:44 PM