I went for an interview recently for an adjunct teaching position at an educational institution here. Basically the job involved delivering a programme set out to help students preparing to enter the workforce by teaching them to write CVs and conduct themselves during a job interview.
One of the questions my interviewer asked was how I would motivate unmotivated students. After all, I’d only be seeing them once and it’d be difficult to get to know them. Well, of course I said the politically correct thing. That is, talk and reason with them like adults, get them to see that this is for their own good, and try as much as possible to share my own experience.
The real answer swimming inside my head was, ‘Sod them’. Ha. I’m only interested in helping people who want to learn and help themselves. Anyway, the young and impetuous will learn the folly of their ways in time to come. The lessons from the School of Hard Knocks will be the best ones they’ll ever receive and the ones they’ll remember for life. Some things have to be learnt and not taught.
But if they wanted career advice, here’s what I have to say. If you want the money, go into finance, banking, business or accountancy. There are no other pots of gold to be found at the end of other rainbows.
For the girls, if you want easy and good money, take to the skies – be the Singapore Girl. Put on the kebaya which clings to the body like cellophane, coif your hair, slap on the hedious peacock blue eyeshadow and fire engine red lipstick, and then zip around the world. While you’re at it, find some high-flying jetsetter executive husband who works in an MNC. Then at the end of your five-year tenure, get a nice bonus payout and retire to be a taitai.
Boys, don’t despair. If you aspire to be the male version of a taitai, start taking up dance classes. Not just any dance class mind you. It has to be latin or ballroom dance. Master those steps and keep yourself looking fit and trim, and soon you’ll have mega-rich taitais knocking on your door, asking you to dance the Argentinian and horizontal tango with them.
And don’t tell me you don’t want a desk-bound job ‘cos it’s so boring. I’m sorry to tell you that whatever you’re going to do (unless it’s one of the two vocations above) at executive level and above, there’s always going to be some part, if not all, of the job that’s going to be desk-bound. There’s always going to be a need to be seated in front of a computer and there’s always going to be paperwork to be processed in some form or another.
As you may have guessed by now, I didn’t get the job. Hahaha.