Nancy Green7 said:People just don't get that good things happen when you actually get off your ass. With the internet, you don't even have to leave your couch. 🙂
Case in point: three years ago, this massive American marketing agency scouted me on Dribbble for a job. They had even worked on a campaign for Obama. I was an idiot and turned it down. But I bet some journalist would spin it like: "American rejects the US President!" 😁
Thanks. Not trying to start a fight here, but you, unlike this guy over here leaning against the bar...
Thomas Hernandez11 said:Sure, anything is possible, but those opportunities don't just fall into your lap every day... I mean, look, as long as you're alive, there are possibilities, but it's like saying it's technically possible for a Boeing 747 to fall out of the sky and land on your head—realistically? Not a chance.😉
Now, I have no idea how much schooling she actually has... But one thing is absolutely clear: she isn't some massive success story, she isn't particularly stunning, and she's certainly not "young" anymore... and obviously, she lacks any real connections. I personally dig her lifestyle, but calling her "successful"... well, that’s an idea only someone who considers having a kid or landing a job at Walmart as a peak achievement would suggest. If she actually had any clout, she’d be working on a decent project with a respectable salary somewhere, rather than scraping by teaching English in some random town where anyone can show up and claim to teach it just because they're white. She's in some band that nobody has ever heard of (despite whatever YouTube views they claim to have)....🤣
Just for comparison, let's look at some other trash... you know, these "success stories," the young and beautiful types from that "industry."
Half a million views in a country of nearly 330 million people, and then you look at China...🤣
...you see how it works. You also know there are platforms where major corporations browse every single day, hunting for top-tier talent, and if they need someone or find them nearby, they bring them on full-time. In that sense, picking up a one-off project isn't some rare miracle. It's what these platforms call group projects, and it's honestly kind of hilarious to read someone compare something so standard to a plane crash. Plus, let's be real, you aren't getting a gig like that unless you're willing to sell your soul to the employer when you're miles apart...
That wasn't even directed at me, but let me weigh in for a second. I think the point is that the article is basically just a bunch of accurate facts wrapped in fancy gift paper. Don't forget that journalists have to eat too, but it's also true that nowadays, in our media, a story about some small business owner just managing to stay afloat is considered big news. I remember reading an article once about a woman running a souvenir shop. She sells American-designed goods, and get this—she’s been successfully doing it for years. So, it's something totally normal, but the media treats these stories like some huge miracle because someone managed to be self-employed and survive in the market. It's definitely great that they succeeded, but is it really "news"... who knows, I guess around here it is.
I mean, my gut feeling is just that these kinds of articles are usually written by these totally insignificant nobodies who are just trying to act all condescending, while everyone else won't even bother giving them the time of day.
Honestly, in this digital age, it’s totally doable for some huge corporation to scout you out while you're just chilling at home if they actually dig what you're doing. It happens more often than you'd think.
Also, journalists are the ones shaping the narrative, and if you've ever had the chance to read a story after getting to know the actual backstory, you'll see how much can get lost in translation—not to mention the facts being twisted. At the end of the day, the reporter just wants to write something catchy that grabs attention.
About ten years ago, a reporter dropped by the company I was working for because they wanted to do a piece on us, since we were doing pretty well in such a niche field. He asked a few questions and then just took off. I couldn't stop thinking about it, though, so I insisted on seeing the draft before anything went live. When it finally hit my inbox, half of it was just flat-out wrong, and the headline was so over-the-top dramatic that I had to nix that too. I guess the article never ended up running; the reporter probably took it personally.
Then there was this one time after an exhibition where my director told a journalist how much he valued the experience, especially attending a four-day seminar in London led by a world-class expert in our industry. Well, the published article claimed he had graduated from a four-year college in London instead.
Finally, a few years back, some reporters came around again, and this time the piece was actually decent—still a little clunky, sure, but accurate. And no, there was absolutely no need for them to list exactly how much stuff we sold to whom.
The girl featured in that article is clearly educated, talented, and really driven. She’s got the connections that are going to carry her far in the future. For someone starting out, that’s a win; nobody expects you to just wake up with a million dollars in the bank. Plus, she's young and pretty, so you basically have the perfect recipe for a news story right there.
So, about a year ago, I headed over to JPMorgan Chase to set up a CD with some cash I had saved up. I don't actually have a checking account there or anything, I just wanted to lock this money away for a bit. When I finally got to the front of the line, I pulled out my cash and told the teller I wanted to put it into a fixed term. She starts printing out all these documents—like, several pages of A4 paper—and just shoves them toward me. I take a look and realize she’s handed me this massive questionnaire that basically wants to scan my entire life; asking if I'm married, what my husband does for a living, how many people I support, and all that deep stuff.
I honestly hate standing in line for even five minutes, so I just looked at her in total disbelief and asked if she was being serious, like, does she actually think I'm going to sit there and fill out all those empty pages?
"Oh, you know, it's just so we can get to know our clients better," she tells me. 😁
"Well, in that case, never mind," I shot back, and just started tucking my money back into my wallet.
Of course, she ended up calling me back to say that just writing my email on the first page would be enough.
But I'm pretty sure they really do vet the people they take more seriously; if I had walked in there asking for a loan, I bet they would've insisted I finish the whole damn thing.
I'm just trying to flag this really annoying post over in the Career & Jobs subforum that Elizabeth Baker38 (? ) seems to be totally overlooking, so I'm hoping someone actually in charge can step in, deal with the author of the next post, and maybe even look into why the moderator in charge isn't really doing much about it.
I guess I’ll just jump in here and add my two cents to this complaint because, honestly, I’m dealing with the exact same kind of nonsense. I actually flagged a super nasty post earlier, and while a mod popped up on the forum in the meantime, things actually worked out.
Jobs and Career, Employer information, Zepter thread
Tomislav Zgb: "Man, Zepter is such a total scam, and honestly, what else would you expect from an owner like that!!! Their stuff is basically cheap knockoff junk (it's all made in China, and some of those vacuum cleaners are such fire hazards they might actually burn your house down...) People there are just straight-up fake... they act one way and then pull the rug out from under you... they're high-level manipulators!!!! Just stay far away from the company and their products. You can find identical, better quality stuff for a fraction of the price at any big-box retailer like Target or Walmart. Zepter is just garbage wrapped in fancy packaging..."
Anyway, since we have someone who actually cares about keeping things civil and isn't afraid to step up (William Bennett53), do you think you could take a look at this complaint for me?
Jack Torres2 said:I was just sitting here thinking, and I wondered if any of you might actually be interested in a dedicated channel featuring films from the WWII era—specifically those productions made during the Independent State of America period, including various documentaries.
Totally! I just wonder if they’ve ever made a documentary about how swearing used to be strictly forbidden back then, because honestly, that's what really gets me. Here we are constantly whining that things are basically perfect for Josić, yet we swear like sailors at every single opportunity, which definitely isn't part of our supposed heritage! We go out of our way to respect people who don't fit the mold, which is fine by me, but the constant cursing feels so off.
If a documentary like that doesn't exist yet, someone really needs to get on it!
It’s honestly wild seeing how much that old-school American sentiment is creeping back into our local boys' circles!
I caught it just yesterday on this show. We're talking about the fans for our local minor league baseball team, those big-time Celtics from The Trinity. Even though they rock the checkerboard pattern, man, that anthem melody is something else. The lyrics go: “Screw your mom, screw your dad, if you don't love the local minor league baseball team!” Seriously, once those beats start hitting, you almost feel like shouting, “America, ohhh America!”
Plus, there's way too much cursing going on. And we all know exactly where that kind of attitude is coming from.
It's such a shame, really, because the guys themselves are actually pretty decent, genuine people.
Hey, can the religion mods please tell me why my comment on the thread about the new University of California, Berkeley rector got nuked? I was just linking to that open letter where Father Stojic writes back to Paul Močic after he sent his own letter to the new rector.
There’s this old saying: "Avvocato non chiamato con la merda va pagato."
I was basically just trying to give Father Stojic some friendly advice to stay out of the fray, because honestly, nobody's going to thank him for jumping into this mess.
Basically, the proverb means "don't get involved, because no one will be grateful and you'll just end up knee-deep in crap."
Or maybe the moderator is just really good at Italian and decided there was some secret, hidden meaning in my words?
San Antonio, Saint Alberto, find what has been lost!
I've read through this whole thread. I have the title of "teacher," but definitely not the actual job, thank God. I only ever did one single hour of student teaching with a group of fifth graders. Do you want to know what the very first thing I heard was when I walked into that classroom and caught a comment drifting in from the back row?
“Man, I’m gonna screw this up!”
Fifth grade.
Just a few minutes before that, I was standing outside the faculty lounge with some colleagues, just waiting for our mentor to assign us to our specific classrooms. In those five minutes, a couple of eighth graders drifted by with cigarettes in their hands; one kid was actually so bored he just swung open the door to a classroom where a lesson was already in progress. There was this teacher, probably in his sixties, standing there by a map of the world, and this kid just bursts in and yells, “Hey, Piksi, Piksi... how's it going today?” The teacher politely asked him to close the door, but the kid thought it was hilarious and wouldn't budge. The teacher just looked exhausted—he basically gave up and just endured it until the kid got bored.
My lesson actually went pretty smoothly after that initial "greeting." Once my practicum was over, we sat down in my mentor's office to chat. She told me that when she was young, she used to cry a lot. Like, crying at night kind of a lot. She said she could always pick out the most problematic kids after class and would try to talk things through with them, but honestly, it rarely did anything. She mentioned that nowadays she’s tougher and just doesn't let it get to her as much.
A friend of mine from college is teaching in a school right now. She says it isn't terrible; she can manage the students well enough, but it's the parents that are the real headache. Someone else mentioned this earlier, too—how at the end of the school year, parents come storming in demanding better grades. She usually just gives them the grade they want because she honestly can't be bothered to argue, especially if the kid actually tried but the results just weren't great.
She told me about this one time a parent contacted the homeroom teacher accusing a specific instructor of not liking their son. The teacher basically had to explain that his job isn't to "like" the kid.
I could go on about pedagogical methods. Back in college, I sat through all these pedagogy lectures. While things like didactics are actually super helpful when working with kids, pedagogy felt like a joke to me even back then. All that stuff like, “If a student is restless during class, give them a task to redirect their attention toward something constructive, blah blah blah...” At the time, I seriously wondered if the author of that textbook had ever even stepped foot in a real school, let alone taught in one.
Someone asked why people in the profession seem to feel more empathy for the teachers than the children in cases like this. For me, my sympathy shifted toward the teacher the second I read that a mother wasn't just looking for an apology, but was actually looking for revenge.
Then you have people calling for private schools, imagining this fantasy where they’ll finally be the bosses of the teachers. Sure, but have you actually considered if you could afford that? You might end up in a situation where, due to lack of funds, you're sending your kids to public schools staffed by people who are way less creative and have zero drive.
All these insults claiming that people only end up in teaching because they aren't good at anything else are just nasty and completely untrue. It's mostly just shots in the dark from people who can't make a real argument. Look, not everyone who majors in English wants to be a novelist, and not everyone who studies Art History wants to be a museum curator. It's not like you don't realize how life works once you graduate and start hunting for a job. Some people find other opportunities and move on, some start as substitutes and eventually land a permanent spot, and others finish a totally different degree and just take a teaching certification course to get into the field. My impression—and I'm not saying this is an objective fact—is that college doesn't really teach you how to be a good educator. They try, but I think it's something you either have or you don't. Knowledge and techniques are two different things. That's just how it is.
I really think funding is a massive issue in education. It's not just about teacher salaries; it's about having the resources to actually run a quality classroom. One of my colleagues literally buys supplies for her lessons out of her own pocket.
And finally, a story from my college days. We had this one professor who everyone called a dragon. She would absolutely shred you during an exam, often accompanied by insults. The material was huge, so the exam was split into four parts. Like everyone else, I thought passing this exam would be the end of my life. But you know what happened? Nothing. You just had to learn the material deeply. Since a few of us were always in her office, I had the chance to hear what other students were saying. Believe me, some of them were truly bottom-of-the-barrel. And yeah, she was cruel and bitter. She knew exactly how to make a student cry, and occasionally a mother would show up at the college too. “She was always such a perfect student, the professor must be the problem.” By the way, in terms of teaching quality, she was actually the best professor I had. Years after I graduated, I saw her in the news. A group of former students had banded together to try and get her fired because they claimed she was mistreating them.
See, the thing is, those teachers teaching your kids are someone else's children too, and their parents probably raised them to be precious little angels who can never be criticized, so if that means lowering the bar just to keep everyone happy, then that’s what happens, and now they’re the ones standing at the front of the classroom because nobody was ever allowed to tell them they were being slow or making mistakes.
P.S. Just to be clear, my comment about people being called stupid isn't meant to target the specific situation this mom described here, since I think we can all agree the teacher handled herself poorly, the mom did the right thing by going to the principal, and the teacher actually did the decent thing by apologizing publicly, so really the only debate left is whether an apology is enough or if she deserves to get kicked to the curb, but personally, I think the apology settled it.