I'm teaching two or three lessons a day, and the largest class has four students. Usually it's one or two.
The universities and schools are having their final exams, so a lot of students are skipping english classes for last-minute revision, which is understandable. So hopefully they should come back in a week or two, after the exams are finished.
Except there were smaller exams three months ago, and most students didn't come back after those.
There's the promise of a big contract just around the corner. But it's been just around the corner for six months. The delay is the same, only the excuses change.
Last months takings wouldn't even pay for my wages, so I agreeed to defer them until this month. But the takings of this month are just as low. So should I go two months without wages on the promise of getting them as soon as there's money to pay them?
Ordinarily, no way in hell. I've worked for schools which bounced cheques, and schools which were late in paying - but they always managed to pay in the right month.
The point of doing a job is to get paid. If you don't get paid...well, you'd better damn well love what you do. And truth to tell I'm pretty bored with it.
So I could walk out, if not exactly with a clear conscience, at least with some justification. But if I do, that means going home - at least in the short term.
And that means....
- Imposing on my parents, because I can't afford to live elsewhere
- Exchanging free accommodation and cheap food for cheap accommodation and expensive food
- Exchanging a friendly but unpleasantly hot small town in the middle of nowhere for an unfriendly, unpleasantly cold small town in the middle of nowhere much
(Yes, it's snowing in britain. In may.)
I'm working maybe twelve hours a week, and even if no wages were to appear for the remaining six months of the contract, I have enough saved from the first six months to live on. So I'm free to work, alone and unhindered, on whatever seems interesting for several hours a day, and there's no immidiate money worries. For some, that's a situation they dream of.
I think...wait till the end of the month (that's the saudi month, not the one the rest of the world uses)...and see how things stand. And then decide.