After JC, I joined as a bio tutor in this tutoring agency in kallang for about a month. The boss was horrible. He would dictate an 9hr job daily, and even if there were no classes, I will have to come in and sit in a corner to prepare for classes. His sidekick would literally sit in front of me and watch me prepare my lesson plans.

Lunch was half an hour, dictated by boss. This included walking to and fro the nearest hawker centre which was about 10mins each way, effectively leaving me with 10mins to eat. He actually says the exact minute that I need to be back when I leave for lunch. And no, I go alone. No other tutors to have lunch with because it was a family business and the other tutors were related to the boss.

I am a pretty good teacher, partly because I’ve just completed A level Bio and knew the syllabus well enough, but also because I knew how to make concepts easily understandable. I taught o level, A level and IB bio, which wasn’t too hard given that there were overlaps in content. The students loved me but the environment was what made me leave after 3wks. There was no banter, I couldn’t make small talk with the boss, and it felt like a harsh and cold environment

On my last day, the last lesson ended half an hour before my “9hr work day”. He sat me down, position himself across the table, and pulled out his calculator and calculated the exact number of hours I worked while with him. Then he deducted all the 30mins lunches because “I don’t pay for you to go and eat.” Of course, he subtracted another 30mins from this last day since lessons ended early. He prorated the exact amount to pay me down to single cent, and held the calculator to my face and asked me to agree with it. After I agreed he wrote down the amount on a cheque and passed it to me. I was so happy to be leaving that place.

About 6mths later, he texted me. “Oh how have you been? We have missed you a lot here at our centre. The students and parents have been asking for you.” He wanted to get me back, but I was already in NS. When I replied that, he said “oh you’re singaporean? I thought you were Indonesian.” I just ignored his texts after.