I am technically paid by the month but I think it’s time to start paying me for my time. Specifically, I think it’s time to start paying me for repeating things to teenagers.

There are three things I need to be paid for.

First, what typically happens in class is I introduce a topic and give instructions. With lower level classes I write the instructions on the board (although that may soon be replaced by typing them into a computer and “posting them via projector). I then walk my students through the instructions and turn them loose. I then spend five minutes explaining the instructions students who weren’t listening and apparently can’t be bothered to look at the board or ask a friend what’s going on.

Second, if I’m using a lesson in the textbook, I have to repeat the page number several times before the “What page are we on?” questions stop. (Note: this happens even when the page number is on the board.) Some students never figure out what page they are supposed to be on. If I instruct them to memorize the conversation, inevitably at least one pair will fail to get that memo, so to speak, and will try to use their books. There then ensues a conversation something along the lines of:

Them: Really?
Me: Really.
Them: Really?
Me: Really.

Finally, I’m looking to get paid at home because I have two daughters. The teenager is worse because she’s developed what I call  “teenage hearing” and “teenage answers”. Teenage hearing requires a sentence to be repeated several times before it is acknowledged. This is true even if the teenager is not wearing headphones.

Once teenage hearing is breached, teenage answers take over. For example:

Me: Go to bed.
–several repetitions have been skipped–
Oldest: hai.

(Note: “hai” is Japanese for “yes”, but as a teenage answer it means “I hear that there are words coming out of your mouth and that it is in my best interest to give a response to that you will think I care however this will not actually prompt me to change any of my current behaviors.)

(Note: “hai” is properly said as softly as possible so that She Who Must Be Obeyed cannot hear it in a different room.) The conversation then changes to:

SWMBO: Go to bed.
Oldest: hai.
–repeat several times until SWMBO gets angry–
SWMBO: I said go to bed!
Oldest: I said I heard you why do you keep hassling me!
–She Who Must Be Obeyed officially “loses her shit” and an argument ensues guaranteeing oldest more time awake before going to bed.–

Eventually all school projects get finished and our oldest goes to bed. Then the process starts again the next day. (I also need to get paid for that repetition.)