After hitting the pavement for a day, I found a job!  I immediately hit it off with the girl interviewing me and I thought I was all set. There have been a few little problems though….

1) Remember how awesome it was that we found cell phone for $16?  I now understand, you sometimes get what you pay for.  My new boss has called me six times and every time I have to hang up and run back to the guest house because my cell phone is good for nothing except text messages.

2) The place I’m working doesn’t have the best reputation in town.  I’m beginning to understand why.  After receiving my schedule which included a solid ten hours of class next week, I get another phone call 10 minutes later explaining that all my classes have been cancelled.

So technically speaking I’m employed.  But I’m not working any hours this week, nor am I working any next week, so we’ll see how this all ends up.  I may just have to hit the pavement and see if I can find something a little more…. reliable.  I need a lucky penny for a day or something.  Or a lucky 1,000 dong bill.  Whatever works.

In less than two weeks of our arrival, I found myself standing in front of Vietnamese students in a well-respected Saigon language centre. My job hunt had been fairly straightforward – a combination of luck, skill, preparation and networking landed me at the very school that the Jet Set boys taught at one year ago (an amazing coincidence if you consider how many schools there are here).

(more…)

We’ve been in Saigon for two weeks now, and still no luck on the English teaching job front. Honestly, I didn’t really try very hard for the first week and a half. I was soaking it all in, getting massages, and being lazy, because I could. When the realization comes that you need money, and you need it fast, all of a sudden the urge to get a job becomes much stronger (go figure?).

There are a few things I didn’t think about before I left when it came to looking for jobs:
(more…)

HOLY SHIT. These are the only words I can use to describe Saigon so far. We’ve been here for 4 days now and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such madness in my life. If I was worried about crossing the street in Istanbul, well I guess I’m just fucked now. Crossing the road here is an art form…. I’m learning though. There are about 500 gazillion motorcycles and a complete disregard for traffic rules. We saw the scene of an accident yesterday, a pair of flip flops and a helmet lodged underneath a truck and a pile of blood. We didn’t see a body, and I am VERY grateful for that.
(more…)

What is it with this country? A man can’t walk into a room without someone offering him a job.

I got two more job offers today. Job #1: private tutor for a lawyer and his wife. Job #2: Airport shuttle driver, socialite and tour-salesman. The first is pretty self-explanatory, but the second would have me working for a tour company in Sultanahmet, picking up all of their clients bound for the Four Seasons hotel and trying to schmooze some tours out of them. Then, on Saturday and Sunday, I would go eat breakfast at their hotel and try again to sell them tours.

So fun.

No, there is no hidden lolcat.

Instructions:

1. Stare at the center of this window as long as you can (at least 30 seconds)
2. Click the ‘Continue Reading’ link below

(more…)

Yesterday I started my new job here in Istanbul, working as private ESL tutor to the owner of a textile and clothing manufacturing company. It’s by far the strangest and least structured job I’ve ever had, but has the potential to be very very interesting…

The Interview

I was introduced to my ‘student’ on Friday afternoon and spoke with him for about 2 minutes before he decided I was hired. No CV, no credentials, no discussion of the specifics of the job… just hired. Normally that would throw up a red flag, but since I’d been told that he rejected the previous candidate after 2 minutes, on the grounds that ‘he was a crook’, I was already expecting it to be a strange interview process. It seems that this guy has already tried every method possible to learn English: classes, computer programs, flash cards, living in London, etc., and hiring a full time private tutor is his last resort. Rob described it best as being an ESL version of Mr. Smithers from the Simpsons. My job is to follow him around all day and work on his English at every available moment. If he takes a drive to a client, I take a drive to a client, if he has to fly to Germany on business, I fly to Germany on business. He even went so far as to mention that ‘if I drink Ayran, you drink Ayran’, which may be my least favorite part of the job description. (For those of you who don’t know, Ayran is a really popular drink here in Turkey made from watered down yogurt and salt… yum!) Still, it’s a job, and I won’t complain if I get a free trip to Germany out of it!
(more…)

We have two of three jobs in Istanbul, rounding out Jet Set’s quickest and smoothest adjustment so far. We must be getting better at this– after two weeks on the ground here in Istanbul, we have a penthouse apartment with Bosphorus views, cell phones, transit cards, dates and a solid familiarity with the dangerous alleyways of Taksim’s bar district.

Job #1: English Teacher

This continues a three-country trend of ESL. Let’s face it, teaching English is the most lucrative and easiest job opportunity. It’s boring though.

Job #2: Hustling Tourists

Really. Jen will be working for a tour sales company as the friendly and trustworthy face, selling to hapless and unsuspecting tourists. She will make $4 an hour.

Two down, one left to go.

Finding fun in Tokyo without any cash is a constantly evolving creative challenge.

Finally, an episode out on time!  Ever since I made it back to the States I’ve had trouble keeping things on schedule.  Before I went to Japan I was always at a two week lag from real time, and when I was with the crew on the road I was experiencing things as they happened, but at all times I had to be thinking a few weeks ahead to do my job as producer.  About 60% of my time is spent as editor thinking about what did happen, and about 40% of my time is spent as executive producer/director thinking about what will happen, and the result is that I spend a clean 100% of my time confused.  I was too inexperienced when starting this project to know why production and planning staff are almost always separate, but I think I’ve got the gist of it after living for a few months in this scheduled haze.

This week also marks the debut of our newest musical contributor: Tettix!  I’ve been listening to Judson Cowan’s music for years, both in his current incarnation and under his previous handle of Cicada.  His work has been featured in a number of creative spots, including this Boing Boing short.  It gives me no shortage of pleasure to be editing to his music, in this episode The Graves of Good Humans from the startling Technology Crisis II.  I hope to use a few more of Tettix’s tracks before Season 2 is up, but in the meantime check out all his albums at www.tettix.net or purchase his songs on iTunes!