A few days off

The sign in the elevator of my apartment. For 3 months I saw this sign every day.

Last week I asked my boss for 4 days off. My parents will come to visit me next week and they will only be here for about 5 days, it will be nice to show them around Wuhu and to travel with them to the famous mountain, Huang Shan, or in English the Yellow Mountain. Showing them around Wuhu won’t take too long, cause I have to admit that there isn’t that much to see here. Although on the other hand it’s so different from Holland that there is actually a lot to see and I’m sure this city will be full of surprises for my mom. My dad has probably been too often to China to be surprised. My mom has never been here, so I’m curious what she will think of it. She also doesn’t really like China, so I can be sure that they don’t use me as an excuse to have a far away vacation, but that they really come to see me.

Back to asking those days off. My assistant informed me, that she couldn’t arrange 4 days off. This would be impossible because those 4 days are normal weekdays, and our school has contracts with the middle school and the kindergartens. This means that they have to send a foreign teacher to these places on those days. I understood this problem, but that didn’t really change my situation. Cause I’d still rather go to Huang Shan with my parents than teach in the middle school. My assistant told me that the boss would probably be very angry with me if I would insist on those free days, and that she would not accept this.

With this in mind, I went to my boss and explained to her that I needed four days off. I was very proud that I could already explain this in Chinese, and looking at her facial expression she understood completely. Her first answer was simple “bu keneng”, I also understood this, “No, not possible”. Then she asked my assistant to come and translate for her and I heard the same story my assistant had told me before. It affects the image of our school if we can’t send you to the middle school and the kindergartens, so it’s not possible. I insisted on having those 4 days off, and revered to the contract, cause this worked before in an argument with my boss. Somehow she really respects the contract, which I think is a bit odd, cause the contract only exists on my computer and she hardly knows what’s written in it, besides the contract is only in English so she’s not even able to read the contract. Since I insisted on those free days, my boss understood that it was impossible to deny me those days off. So she gave me 4 days off, just like I asked. However she did warn me that, I should be aware of any consequences this might have, since I still am in my probation period.

This Sunday I had a formal meeting with my boss, in which she told me that she decided to end the probation period. She found a new American teacher and he will arrive in about one week, and will take over all my classes. I can’t say they didn’t warn me for this and I was not surprised to hear this because my assistant had already told me this in advance. Can’t say I’m too disappointed with her decision either, cause I was planning on working until the end of June and now I’m working until the end of this week. The boss has been kind enough to offer me accommodation for a longer time, so I’ll probably stay in Wuhu for about 3 more weeks.

It depends a bit on the accommodation though, cause I will now have to move to the dormitory room in our school. The new American teacher is going to live in my apartment, he really is replacing my live in Wuhu. I offered my boss to help him settle in the first few weeks, to give him some advice and to introduce him to some other foreigners. She appreciated that and I think, I can leave this place on good terms with her. I don’t like my boss, but she always paid my salary on time and the apartment she rented for me has been a very good place to live. Apart from that I do appreciate it that she offers me accommodation for the next couple of weeks, cause she doesn’t really need to do that.

So a long story short, I’m fired after 3 months already. Which is a new experience for me, cause I don’t remember ever getting fired before. Although let me put it differently, after a minor conflict with my boss, she decided not to prolong my probation period. This week is already my last working week here in Wuhu. My summer holiday is starting early this year. So I will stay in Wuhu to see parents, to travel with them to Huang Shan, to say goodbye to the friends I made here, and to prepare my travel plans. Planning to go traveling for almost 3 months around China, and then finally arriving in Xiamen at the end of August to enter university. Xiamen should be a really nice place, I’ve heard really good things about this city. It should be a bit bigger than Wuhu, but still not a big city (not for China), and it should be a lot more developed than Wuhu. I want to go there cause it’s supposed to have the best climate of China and it has a beach. Which made someone describe it as the Barcelona of China. Which sounds attractive right? Even though I’ve never been to the real Barcelona.

One last thing I have to tell about my very soon to be ex-boss is that I have no idea what her name is. Everyone calls her headmaster or boss, unless they use some bad word to describe her. Which they now do quite often, cause she also decided to cut down the salaries of my Chinese colleagues, which already wasn’t that high. She did introduced herself to me when we first met in February, but since then I never heard her name, so I guess for me it’s just the boss.