This past week was my last full-time week at VIPKid, it seems for the foreseeable future. I have decided that I will not work until 6 September for VIPKid and instead will concentrate on the English Center, my private clients, and Lingueo. That gives me at least some semblance of a vacation. My sister has triple booked her house and may need us to do a bit of moving around. I am certainly not going to want to try and schedule VIPKid classes in conditions like that. Although, dear reader, you’re probably thinking “why the hell does she care so much with the company going bust”. And you’d be right. I am a bit conflicted. On the one hand I want to get all that sweet sweet money, but on the other hand it’s gotten to the point where I could care less about VIPKid. But on the other hand, I have that pesky work ethic that doesn’t allow me to welch on a commitment. It is a conundrum to be sure.
The blog project that I was doing for English Center seems to be in limbo as I have heard no feedback from my boss about the changes that I have made on the article. On Tuesday as I was packing, I was also doing a bit of work on it to show that I was still interested and that I didn’t wanna give up on the project.
I opened up a few hours to italki last week and had no joy. I suspect that my friend Gretchen’s experiences, will also be my own. The pandemic really affected the English language teaching industry. Everybody and their mother has decided that they can teach English and are charging anywhere from $2 to $80 to do it. Faced with that kind of spread in money making potential, I do not hold up much hope that the set your own rate platforms are going to be any good for me. I already have preply as an example. It is a bit concerning because eventually VIPKid will no longer be possible. And it remains to be seen just what changes the company will make so that they can still employed their teachers. If I was them, I would switch to the international adult business English market and focus on getting in company lessons. Where they can charge upwards of €100 an hour. Then they can raise teacher prices to €30-€40 an hour and I would be a happy girl to sit online for that kind of money. As it is, I have to rely on the English Center for those kinds of prices. It also seems that Conversation Playground is no longer going to be viable for me either. The owner of the company wants to open up the Amsterdam market for teachers like me so that he doesn’t have to pay transportation and that is fair enough but it also leads to a little bit of stress because it means that there’s no consistency in my income.
For all of that, my lovelies, I think I have a plan. In the first place I am going to open up every possible slot I can for Lingueo because at least they pay in euros and I’ve had some success with them. Then I’m going to switch my video on preply and see if I can get any students with them. Italki will be some thing on the side I think. But I also have other ideas that I don’t want go into because I don’t want to jinx them just yet. More on that once I get to Greece and have a farmer idea of whether my thoughts are even possible..
On Thursday last week we had a writers group and I hosted. It went quite well and it was just me and four boys. Which is always fun. There were two new people that I was able to connect with and I think we’ve got some new members as a result. I even managed to get some writing done which was wonderful. It had been some time since I’ve been able to connect with my characters. I also managed to arrange getting a location for this week. I’ve left the rest of the time while I’m away in Mark’s capable hands. I hope they’ll be able to find a place, but if not I hope that people decide that they have no problem going to zoom for the moment.
That’s all she wrote for this incredible installment. But stay tuned. As always there is more to come.
There is of course the possibility that I will be going to cut my trip short as well. You see, my father has decided that he is not coming to Greece and since he is the reason for the christening, my sister is thinking to cancel the christening for another time. I am a little annoyed because I already extended my trip to stay later and do not want to been make another change but will do what needs doing when it needs doing. That’s all I’ve got, and I am off to pack.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there’s more to come.
Inkreadable 