A rant
So I've been working in this art store since February of 05, and teaching Anime classes there since April of that year. I've had to put up with their cold shoulders, not hiring a friend because I recommended her (and telling me that was their reason), adding whole 6 week sessions of classes without telling me, cancelling my classes without telling me, having too many students or too few, moving locations between classes, not having a big enough space to hold classes, no lunch break, no break between classes, working there constantly and faithfully for over TWO YEARS and not getting any kind of raise while maintaining one of their longest running and most popular classes, and that's only the big issues.
Why have I stayed? It's easy money. The kids are happy to just sit there, draw, and yap about anime. I barely need to do anything except lend an occational opinion and give a brief lesson each day. I've had students that have taken my classes so often, we started a class just for them, to be more of a workshop for advanced artists. The kids are nice, if not a little silly (all right, really silly) most of the time. It's nice to have a class that I can do some of my own art in, and not have to worry about grades, slackers, parents, or admin suddenly popping up. The classes themselves are fairly stress free.
But working there is starting to get tiresome. I have to come in early to gather up our supplies for every class from the store, because the groups have gotten so big that we hold them in another building. Then today one of my kids is showing off a flyer for the summer camps, and would you know that there's my anime classes, all set up.
We had talked previously about doing a camp during a week, but we'd never settled on dates. I told them the only times I knew for certain that I might be able to run them would be the end of June or early July. No August, period. So when are the dates set for? Mid July (9-13) and the second week of August. They have me scheduled to be there from 10 until at least 2. No one called me to confirm dates or times. No one has said anything, and there are the flyers, already printed and being handed out. I'm so mad it's not even amusing.
Croik says I should quit. The extra money is nice, of course, but I'm not so sure the hassle is worth it. It's been hard not really having a full weekend, especially when I feel like I've been way behind in the personal things I want to get done (like cosplay, and my own artwork.)
It might end up depending on what they say when I talk to them next week. I'm going to have to say I can't do either of the camps. August is just out of the question. And July.... Though I might not be camping during that week, that weekend there's a convention I'd really like to go to. I'd just decided recently to try for it, mostly because a friend of mine lives out there that I really want to see ^o^. If I'd known earlier about the classes, perhaps we could have worked it out, but now? When they schedule without telling me? I'm all "to hell with them" on this matter.
They'll probably decide to "fire" me and get all huffy. -_- Maybe I'll be able to start sleeping in on Saturdays, for once.