The Only Person That Went On Strike

photo: Florian Klauer

Hi! Today we will write about when approximately a graduate student lands his first job as a teacher. The time is  estimated to 3-5 years after graduation on average .

What does this graduate do in the meantime? Work as a tutor? A cashier? Make a career move? Open his own business? Work as waiter/tress? Change their career path? Do voluntary and unpaid work? Go into higher studies?

The answer for me was/is simple.

I would not wait for private companies or schools to hire me! Neither for public schools! I had sent my curriculum vitae to EVERY private school and they would not even bother to answer me or even call me for an interview. 

I tried one year. No result. I tried the next year. Same.

Well, guess what!

 After the 2nd try I NEVER ever sent them again my CV. 

"Why?" you may ask.

Because I will not beg for a f** job. I am not the type of person who will lick a(r)sses to get ahead in life. If you/them/anybody want(s) to work with me I'm fine with that. If you treat me like sh!t, this will be exactly the response you will get back from me at the TENFOLD. It's eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Remember the golden rule in school?

So beware! If you are looking for politeness you have stumbled upon the WRONG blog. Starting from 2011-2012 on-wards this distinctive faculty of mine vanished. It went ..poof! "Sorry, not there!".

 This was a reality. This was MY reality. 

After all was said and done, I realized that if I wait for "them" to ask me for work then my career progress and all that I had learned during  my school years and at the University would go down the drain upon the first gust of wind.

So much talent wasted. 

No! I would not let this happen.

Who do "they" think they are? Who gives them the right to expect me to fall on my knees or even bribe them to hire me? And most of all.. having not had a person from "within" to pass a good word, I turned my back on them and never looked back. I would not be their stepping stone. I would not ask the help of people whose only hope was to impede me, see me getting burned and destroyed and were jealous of me. I would not work with spiteful people. Period.

I had almost forgotten about the whole issue but.. Guess what?! 

Five years after my graduation I was called to work as redundant teacher at a public school. I thought myself to be very lucky. Little did I expect that I would meet there such disgusting people!  They were lucky, too, because I didn't work for anyone at the time so I accepted their "offer". And very quickly my whole experience there turned out sour.

Boy, oh boy! Did they expect me to cater to their whims! The first thing they asked me upon my arrival at the school was to file a report for a child so that the social services of the municipality could come in and intervene to take him away from his caretaker! 

And I'm not a social worker. It's not my job to file SUCH reports. This was the job of the child's teacher and the headmaster.

To make matters worse.. I was the only one in the whole primary school who went on strike on the day of the pan-hellenic strike in the month of May 2016 (not May 1st). The next day I found out that none of my coworkers went on strike. And this protest date  was not only relating to teachers but the whole workforce of this country!

...When almost 90% of the teachers working there had NEVER ever participated on any written test(s) or given an interview AND got the job on the merit of who they knew or which politician they liked.. this is the tragic results you can expect. 

I would not expect anything better, either!

And you know what? They were working at permanent positions/ posts. I was only working there for a couple of months under a signed contract! All these salary cuts and reductions were being announced and introduced by the Greek government and no-one protested! 

This was the first "shit-hole" and my first experience in the public school(s).

 I had the most difficulties to face with the school stuff rather than the -- sometimes difficult -- students. I certainly didn't fit in there with all the leaches, slimy pricks and (government) rats.

Let's change subject.

What was I doing in the meantime (before I got hired)?

Many things! Did you think that I would rely on the Ministry of Education for work? Then you are for the shills!

 I bettered myself -- of course!, I studied some more, I found work ELSEWHERE and gained work experience, learned new skills, met new people and a person WHO changed my life, practiced my favorite hobbies and many other activities! Stuff that these USELESS people would not even dream of and were not even capable of! That's how low-level were the majority people I was involved with at all levels of the process. 

I wondered why didn't they call me out for work the successive year? Because if they did, when I would have finished working at the end of the school term I would not even be able to get the unemployment subsidy. Bingo!

That's how disgusting this country is! 

And that's what they do not only to me, but to many others, too! If you don't have someone in the ropes and "in the know" to help you out... you are dead meat! These people impose and enforce all THEIR dramas and complex psychological issues on innocent young people. They laugh with our pain. 

That's how much degraded they are. 

My word to them is "keep up with all the "good" work folks"! Haha!

As for me.. I will write another article, too.

Because this story is to be...    

                                                                                                                        CONTINUED........