This morning I dressed up and wore a very special piece. It was that batik shirt Mr Boyfriend gave me for my 20th birthday a few days ago. I thought it was going to be a special day because I was going to a job interview. I applied for an English teacher position in a course institution for elementary school students. The office was not too far from my house. It was only 10 minutes by motorbike. I arrived there at 10 am.

I was greeted by a young man who looked like a receptionist. He stood behind a desk which was supposed to be the front desk, but it was empty. There was only a telephone. No computer, no sheets of paper, no sign. There wasn’t even the institution’s logo behind the ‘front desk’. There were only the man and a telephone. I told him I was there for the interview. He gave me a form and told me to fill it, but he didn’t give me a pen; I had to use mine.

While I was trying to fill the form, he kept asking me about nearby elementary schools. I patiently answered his questions, trying not to be rude because he might become my co-worker. When he finally left me alone, I finished filling the form and a girl came from inside the office and greeted me. She introduced herself as Intan. She was there for applying for the position too, but she had been interviewed. She took my form and brought it inside, and then came out again with an older man. The man then asked Intan to go to find nearby elementary schools with another man. After they went, the man greeted me and interviewed me.

At first, I was very nervous because job interviews aren’t really my stuffs. I had only gone throught it once. But as he asked me questions, I found some odd things about the institution. It turned out that the institution, which had been there since one year ago, didn’t have any students. I was like, Okay, that’s weird… but I played along. He asked me when I had free times. I said I was free on Tue-Wed-Thur’s afternoons. He asked me if I was free on weekends. I said Saturdays were fine, but Sundays weren’t. He looked disappointed and assured me that they would need me on Sundays too, so I said yes.

And then, I was very surprised when he said “As I’ve told you before, our institution currently doesn’t have any students. I know when you walked in to this building you were expecting to teach children, right? But we currently don’t have any. We’d be very glad if you’re willing to help us promote our institution. Of course without payment. Our staff members can only be paid by the money we get from students, but we don’t have students right now. Therefore, we can’t pay you unless we get students.”

He was saying that I had to work without getting paid until they got students, which I didn’t know when. Wait, what???

I don’t want to be hypocrite here, but the reason why I applied for the job in the first place was to get money. He asked me if I could work there without getting paid. The answer, mister, was NO. I’m not going to waste my time for uncertain things like that, of course. Dear Lord…

It was such a waste of 30 minutes!

Sincerely,
Putdar.