I suck at my job and my boss has been curtailing my role

[GuyIncognito]

Hi everyone,

Some-time listener, first-time poster.

I live in Southeast Asia as an English teacher. I don't want to say which country or school but suffice that I am at an international school.

At first, when I first started about half a year ago, my boss showed me a lot of faith, despite my own trepidations. As the year went on, negative student feedback came in and the boss tried their best to support. However, ultimately, my own anxities and depression came into conflict and now my boss, while thinking I am "a good human being" has come to question my effectiveness as a teacher. This despite added effort on my part and many long nights and early mornings, the results are being seen as perhaps "Not Enough." As such, they have been slowly but steadily curtailing my responsibilities. My boss is a fellow American, incidentally.

This has been causing me tremendous stress in my own mind, having been basically told "You're sucking at your job and we have no faith in you getting better despite you trying harder" is an horrible mindblock. I know that ESL jobs are in no short supply here, but it hit me especially hard. I feel miserable and it shows in my work. I have contemplated killing myself but I know that this isn't the solution.

Has anyone dealt with this. How do you move on?

[manuel_moe_g]

I suck at many things, I just try to remember that my abilities and my capability does not define my worth as a person. I have sometimes asked my boss how specifically I could improve, and if those things are outside of my capabilities, then I try to be honest with myself. A life well lived will have much more failure than success, because a person will keep failing until they finally succeed, and after they succeed they will move on to a new challenge and begin failing all over again.

I used to live in terror of failure and rejection. I am much better now, dealing with those realistically.

You yourself said that you could always get another position somewhere else. Why not embrace the failure and turn it into a learning opportunity. I know, easier said than done...

Please take care, you are suffering and you don't deserve to suffer. We here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow!

[oak]

I suggest you sit down with boss and find out how/if you can improve, or if the situation is too far gone.

If the situation is indeed lost, be sure to learn what you lessons you can so you don't repeat the same mistakes at your next job.

And don't be too hard on yourself: we've all been where you are.

[GuyIncognito]

My boss has pretty much lost of their previous patience with me. It's clear that I have violated their trust, insofar as business goes, and they feel that they have to just ensure I cause as little damage as possible to their school.

I really didn't want to go other schools because, perhaps this is unknown to most people out of the Asian English racket, most ESL places aren't known for being great places to work and have kind of a low reputation. I am currently in a place which actually has some status and functions more or less as an actual school and less like a profit generator.

Having failed as hard as I have makes me feel really crummy and, yes, I am in pain. It's made worse because the boss acknowledges this pain and related to me their own experience in therapy (which I am undergoing). There is little worse than having someone above your position who completely emphasizes on a human level and wants to let you aside on a business one. It's really wrecking my self-esteem and, coupled with some other negative experiences with expats in this country, I have little urge to even go outside and even less trust of other people.

I am currently on break for the term and focusing on planning out more in more detail. At least, I am relieved that I am pushing on instead of just thinking about tossing myself the many high-rise buildings here.

[oak]

Please don't kill yourself: it will get better.

As I hope to demonstrate below, your situation can be used to your great advantage. Long term. Short term you will have to take your medicine. But you may as well take this soul-growth medicine now.

Really, at this point, your situation is a job search situation. Your bosses will keep you around in order to minimize their annoyance. That is, at this point in the school year it would be big hassle to replace you. So they'll wait til your contract is up then say goodbye.

I had a friend who just got back from a church-based east Asian English school and yeah, the whole industry is slightly shady. My impression is that they advertise on craigslist. Even if that isn't literally true, it is the general consensus. Fair or not, most Americans view your job as somewhere above "backpacking around Europe" and certainly below the Peace Corps. But the truth is most Americans don't really care about your job.

And that is really good news for you.

My advice: reframe one aspect of your situation, and absolutely don't reframe another aspect.

Reframe: Meet with your boss and see how you can complete your contract. Do exactly as they say, time on task. But then do nothing, absolutely nothing, more. If they ask you to teach until 5 pm, then do that and only that until 5 pm. At 5:01 forget about work. Time on task. When you leave this job reframe the experience as "diversity", "cross cultural experience", "language": all the amazing experiences future employers will be interested. No one will really care what the specific situation of your previous job site was: they are interested in solving their own problems, otherwise they wouldn't be bothering to interview you. Reframe this experience into solutions for future potential employers.

Don't reframe: This job exposed several ways that your job skills suck. If you face these facts, painful as they are, at this age you won't have to keep facing them as you age.

I see people all the time in their 40s and 50s making obvious professional mistakes based on pride/stubbornness that their mentors/employers should have rooted out twenty years ago. These awful employees are reviled and earning very little.

Don't be that reviled person in twenty years. Take a ruthless (but not unkind) and objective look at where you messed up.

Please don't miss this. IMHO this could be the difference in your professional life.

Now of course there is plenty of blame to go around: your bosses, the students.

But for now I encourage you to make a list of debacles and mistakes you made. See what the common threads are: some were just bad luck but others (especially if you repeated the mistakes) are character flaws. Honestly face up to them, and above all please discuss them with your mentor.

You are in a situation that sucks, and you can make something really good out of it. Focus on where you can improve, and focus on that. Someday this will be in your rearview mirror.

And trust me, we've all been where you are.

[GuyIncognito]

Oak, thank you for your kind and through reframing of my situation.

I should emphasize at this point that I have absolutely NO INTEREST in going "back" to the country I was born, but everything else you have said rings true and is relevant. I am getting therapy and, if they permit, I will bring them up with my boss in a time outside of work to, as you said, tackle certain character flaws.

Thank you.

[oak]

Very good. You are going to make it. Things will get worse, then they have an excellent chance of getting better. You have a good head on your shoulders. Keep us posted. Good luck out there.

[manuel_moe_g]

oak rules at breaking things down into actionable steps!

[GuyIncognito]

As luck would have it, last week, I found out that one of my neighbors in my apartment complex had done a Masters degree program in a European country and, if qualified, fully compensate the degree. I found out that the deadline was literally last Friday and scrambled to get all of my required documentation as quickly as possible. The aforementioned boss actually has given their full support and wrote me a quite touching letter of recommendation, understanding the potential long-term benefits this would have. I get the results of my application next week, so here's to hoping!

[manuel_moe_g]

That is pretty awesome that you took this action step, GuyIncognito. Good luck, all the best!