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Content Warning: Depression related to COVID-19 quarantine. I know everyone is going through this kind of thing in one way or another, and I know I am beginning to get angry when my mom won't stop watching CNN all day. Twitter is torture, and I just... know that some people might not want to read the nitty-gritty of my concerns because of it, so I'll place the bulk of this under a cut.
That said, if you can stomach it and have a sort of established "life," even if it's disrupted right now, I could really use some wisdom I'm not getting anywhere else.
So I have expressed this before, but I am one of those people who lost their income due to COVID-19 school closures. I am a licensed secondary English teacher, but I have only ever worked as a full-time classroom teacher for one (1) school year while having my license (since 2017). I have mostly worked as an interim teacher (long-term substitute) here in the US. I got my first interim job in my subject and age-group, teaching 10th Grade English in the place of a woman about my age on maternity leave. After that, I did a couple of other subjects, too.
In January of last year, I was supposed to do another six-week interim stint for a woman who was off work to recover from surgery rather than being on maternity leave. I did this for the first three or four days of the semester, only to be called into the office and apologetically told they no longer needed me because the woman's surgery had not been as successful (and therefore thorough) as she had hoped but that the bright side (for her) was that she would be able to return to work on Monday!
They put me on the regular substitute roll, but until it started getting around, I had weeks and weeks of feeling on-call but having no work. During this time, I had been making enough money to where it felt a little reckless but I had an opportunity to meet a friend IRL at Katsucon and she had a friend who'd backed out of his half of a hotel reservation she had booked (two separate rooms but for some reason she had been the one to make the plans). I was just then getting to know this friend after years of kind of being aware of each other's existence in a certain fandom.
She suggested that I try overseas English teaching one night when I was posting -- before going to Katsucon -- about being so underemployed and discouraged. I asked her specific recommendations about companies to look into, picked one that for some reason sounded/felt/"smelled" right to me, of the options available. I mulled it over until the middle of February, and when I was there at Katsucon she more or less convinced me to put in an application at least.
Not too long after that, I was accepted, and on the same day, the system I was working for in the US called to offer me an $8/hour type full-time job doing RTI (intervention/remedial) Aide position. I informed them that I had accepted a job overseas and that I would be leaving at the end of April, but they said, basically, "Please, we need help with the standardized testing season. Come work as long as you can." So I did that. And when I got back from Japan in December, we worked it out that I would finish up an interim position that they had failed to find a currently-licensed teacher to fill for the past month and a half of the previous semester.
So this school system has mostly been accommodating and worked with me to let me work is my point. They haven't offered me a job with the title, responsibilities, and benefits that I took out $20k in loans to qualify for, but that seems to be everywhere unless you go into dangerous, desperate circumstances. And oddly enough, it is easier to swing moving to Japan than it is moving to Memphis, Tennessee, for example, because the moving costs I have to pay up-front can be put on a credit card and are either partially or fully reimbursed. They arrange housing and basic needs. And so on. None of that happens when you switch locales in the US.
Most recently, I had started a new interim position on March 11. It was supposed to run through May 13, when the schools would basically have two weeks left for the regular classroom teacher to finish up. Then, on March 17 (five working days later), they closed.
The way interim teaching's pay scale works for this county is that, at first, you make roughly ten cents over minimum wage ($7.25/hour) for the first 20 consecutive days you work. After that, they up the pay to $80/day from the previous $55/day. After that, if the teacher runs out of sick days (and only if) you start getting the averaged out daily payrate of a regular classroom teacher.
And, I have learned, you are not actually considered an official "interim" until that last, third step happens, if it ever does, which it rarely does due to sick day banks and the fact that most women, even young women, who are having babies and taking time off work to do so, have had a few sick days build up over time beyond their provided maternity leave, so they can stay out of work for up to three months with that never even happening sometimes.
And that is why I got screwed out of getting paid anything. Every other type of full-time worker is getting paid their regular pay right now. But because I was still considered a "substitute" even though I had the responsibilities of a full-time employee? I get nothing.
I think I have ranted about this before. It's still so disheartening and blood-boiling. I get why they do it. It's a county system, they're underfunded, and they do try to do the best they can for kids. They, like many public schools, are providing food for all kids, regardless of academic status, under 18 and under as best they can. And when schools are in session, students in 8th grade and below get a free basic breakfast and lunch without ever having to apply for free or reduced lunch. They have to pay for extras and chips and ice cream and stuff, but that's fundraising and not considered necessary nutrition. High schoolers are expected to pay by default, but the free and reduced lunch program is still available for them if they apply.
I have a lot of good things to say about the school system I was working for. But right now that policy about how they classify who is and is not an interim feels pretty malicious, even though I'm sure they never foresaw this happening. The principal even tried to ask them to continue to pay me, but there was nothing she could do about the policy.
I have now applied for unemployment benefits, but I haven't heard a word about actually getting anything, and frankly, I don't expect to. There is always some reason that I don't qualify for help.
This is mostly retreaded ground. But now the hurdle I'm facing is how do I even plan for a future? Do I even have one?
I feel like my family is doing a pretty good job of remaining cut off from contact with the virus itself. I am hoping and praying that it stays that way. My mom is pretty much in lifestyle quarantine anyway due to her disability and depression/agoraphobia, so I am really concerned that it would be deadly for her if not for me or my dad (and it could be for him, too). But beyond that, it's like... I can't even plan on doing anything in two months or three or six.
My mom has been following the news more closely than I've been able to stomach. I still get plenty of it. But I keep seeing this two year projection for when things will ever be even close to normal again. And that makes me pretty hopeless.
A part of me would really like to start going back to Japan for the company I worked for before if and when it is ever possible/even sane, but again, I can't do that if it's going to be two years from now before I can do anything at all. I'm applying to a job for my own high school. It's a great school, and it's higher pay than I've had in years, but I don't think I would be happy there.
Even though I don't want to live there all the time, I would really like to find a way to get some kind of job that would be a stop-gap income from January until the spring term in Japan starts here in the US... I could do that. Except I don't know if I should basically write off the rest of the planet and other states from even existing.
I feel like I am going to be 31 years old (in two years) having no life. No career, no personal life, no money, and no choices.
I can't even enjoy anything in this "free time" because I feel like I've lost the ability to even be a person at my low moments right now.
A lot of people I know on here have marriages, kids, and even more than one career under their belts. I feel like a good part of my life is going to be over regardless of what happens.
If anyone has some kind of wisdom, I would appreciate it.
That said, if you can stomach it and have a sort of established "life," even if it's disrupted right now, I could really use some wisdom I'm not getting anywhere else.
So I have expressed this before, but I am one of those people who lost their income due to COVID-19 school closures. I am a licensed secondary English teacher, but I have only ever worked as a full-time classroom teacher for one (1) school year while having my license (since 2017). I have mostly worked as an interim teacher (long-term substitute) here in the US. I got my first interim job in my subject and age-group, teaching 10th Grade English in the place of a woman about my age on maternity leave. After that, I did a couple of other subjects, too.
In January of last year, I was supposed to do another six-week interim stint for a woman who was off work to recover from surgery rather than being on maternity leave. I did this for the first three or four days of the semester, only to be called into the office and apologetically told they no longer needed me because the woman's surgery had not been as successful (and therefore thorough) as she had hoped but that the bright side (for her) was that she would be able to return to work on Monday!
They put me on the regular substitute roll, but until it started getting around, I had weeks and weeks of feeling on-call but having no work. During this time, I had been making enough money to where it felt a little reckless but I had an opportunity to meet a friend IRL at Katsucon and she had a friend who'd backed out of his half of a hotel reservation she had booked (two separate rooms but for some reason she had been the one to make the plans). I was just then getting to know this friend after years of kind of being aware of each other's existence in a certain fandom.
She suggested that I try overseas English teaching one night when I was posting -- before going to Katsucon -- about being so underemployed and discouraged. I asked her specific recommendations about companies to look into, picked one that for some reason sounded/felt/"smelled" right to me, of the options available. I mulled it over until the middle of February, and when I was there at Katsucon she more or less convinced me to put in an application at least.
Not too long after that, I was accepted, and on the same day, the system I was working for in the US called to offer me an $8/hour type full-time job doing RTI (intervention/remedial) Aide position. I informed them that I had accepted a job overseas and that I would be leaving at the end of April, but they said, basically, "Please, we need help with the standardized testing season. Come work as long as you can." So I did that. And when I got back from Japan in December, we worked it out that I would finish up an interim position that they had failed to find a currently-licensed teacher to fill for the past month and a half of the previous semester.
So this school system has mostly been accommodating and worked with me to let me work is my point. They haven't offered me a job with the title, responsibilities, and benefits that I took out $20k in loans to qualify for, but that seems to be everywhere unless you go into dangerous, desperate circumstances. And oddly enough, it is easier to swing moving to Japan than it is moving to Memphis, Tennessee, for example, because the moving costs I have to pay up-front can be put on a credit card and are either partially or fully reimbursed. They arrange housing and basic needs. And so on. None of that happens when you switch locales in the US.
Most recently, I had started a new interim position on March 11. It was supposed to run through May 13, when the schools would basically have two weeks left for the regular classroom teacher to finish up. Then, on March 17 (five working days later), they closed.
The way interim teaching's pay scale works for this county is that, at first, you make roughly ten cents over minimum wage ($7.25/hour) for the first 20 consecutive days you work. After that, they up the pay to $80/day from the previous $55/day. After that, if the teacher runs out of sick days (and only if) you start getting the averaged out daily payrate of a regular classroom teacher.
And, I have learned, you are not actually considered an official "interim" until that last, third step happens, if it ever does, which it rarely does due to sick day banks and the fact that most women, even young women, who are having babies and taking time off work to do so, have had a few sick days build up over time beyond their provided maternity leave, so they can stay out of work for up to three months with that never even happening sometimes.
And that is why I got screwed out of getting paid anything. Every other type of full-time worker is getting paid their regular pay right now. But because I was still considered a "substitute" even though I had the responsibilities of a full-time employee? I get nothing.
I think I have ranted about this before. It's still so disheartening and blood-boiling. I get why they do it. It's a county system, they're underfunded, and they do try to do the best they can for kids. They, like many public schools, are providing food for all kids, regardless of academic status, under 18 and under as best they can. And when schools are in session, students in 8th grade and below get a free basic breakfast and lunch without ever having to apply for free or reduced lunch. They have to pay for extras and chips and ice cream and stuff, but that's fundraising and not considered necessary nutrition. High schoolers are expected to pay by default, but the free and reduced lunch program is still available for them if they apply.
I have a lot of good things to say about the school system I was working for. But right now that policy about how they classify who is and is not an interim feels pretty malicious, even though I'm sure they never foresaw this happening. The principal even tried to ask them to continue to pay me, but there was nothing she could do about the policy.
I have now applied for unemployment benefits, but I haven't heard a word about actually getting anything, and frankly, I don't expect to. There is always some reason that I don't qualify for help.
This is mostly retreaded ground. But now the hurdle I'm facing is how do I even plan for a future? Do I even have one?
I feel like my family is doing a pretty good job of remaining cut off from contact with the virus itself. I am hoping and praying that it stays that way. My mom is pretty much in lifestyle quarantine anyway due to her disability and depression/agoraphobia, so I am really concerned that it would be deadly for her if not for me or my dad (and it could be for him, too). But beyond that, it's like... I can't even plan on doing anything in two months or three or six.
My mom has been following the news more closely than I've been able to stomach. I still get plenty of it. But I keep seeing this two year projection for when things will ever be even close to normal again. And that makes me pretty hopeless.
A part of me would really like to start going back to Japan for the company I worked for before if and when it is ever possible/even sane, but again, I can't do that if it's going to be two years from now before I can do anything at all. I'm applying to a job for my own high school. It's a great school, and it's higher pay than I've had in years, but I don't think I would be happy there.
Even though I don't want to live there all the time, I would really like to find a way to get some kind of job that would be a stop-gap income from January until the spring term in Japan starts here in the US... I could do that. Except I don't know if I should basically write off the rest of the planet and other states from even existing.
I feel like I am going to be 31 years old (in two years) having no life. No career, no personal life, no money, and no choices.
I can't even enjoy anything in this "free time" because I feel like I've lost the ability to even be a person at my low moments right now.
A lot of people I know on here have marriages, kids, and even more than one career under their belts. I feel like a good part of my life is going to be over regardless of what happens.
If anyone has some kind of wisdom, I would appreciate it.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-12 09:05 am (UTC)From:I have considered it, and I was even considering it before we knew that the quarantine was going to have to be global and everything. The couple of issues I have with it are that:
1) remote teaching pays less per hour and having done it in person, I know I'm better at it
2) I'm a slug without externally mandated structure so the thought of working from home in a fashion that is directly accountable to other people with my current living situation sort of paralyzes me? I may have to get over it, depending on how long the apocalypse lasts, but for now I'm just trying to hold off on making the decision to pursue that and hoping I can teach in person again when it's safe.