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Bad Jobs – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin. Welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Bad Jobs. So I thought for this commentary I would actually talk about some good jobs that I’ve had since the conversation was about all bad jobs. I have actually had some good jobs. And mainly those good jobs have been massage therapy jobs. So as well as being a teacher, English teacher, I’m also a massage therapist.

So I massage people to help them, if they’re having pain I can help to lessen that pain, or just to help them relax. So that’s…I’ve had many massage jobs and that, to me, is something that is very rewarding about massage therapy. Rewarding meaning it makes me feel good. It makes me feel good because I’m actually helping someone to either relax, maybe they’re very stressed about something in their life, work, school, whatever, family.

So I can help them to relax or maybe they have a lot of tightness in their body, like I talked about in the conversation. I was so stressed at my teaching job in Korea that it created a lot of soreness and tight muscles in my upper part of my back. So people come in and they have really tight muscles and tight upper back, mainly from sitting at a desk all day working at a computer.

So I can apply pressure to these areas and help to lessen, help to relieve or lessen that pain or that tightness or that soreness in their muscles. And I will say, too, that I can’t honestly think of any massage job that I had, that I have had, where I didn’t like my boss. So I have had good bosses and, like I said, it’s a very rewarding job, makes me feel good to be able to help someone.

So that got me thinking about some volunteer jobs I’ve actually had. Now volunteering means to work somewhere but you’re not getting paid. So you’re just offering your time for free. And I’ve worked, I’ve volunteered, worked for free at a few different animal organizations. Two of them are animal shelters, which means that they take cats or dogs and also some small animals like rabbits, guinea pigs, snakes, rats, and they try to find homes for these animals because they don’t have homes, for whatever reasons. So that’s what an animal shelter is.

So I’ve actually volunteered in two different animal shelters as well as I volunteered at an organization that trains dogs to guide blind people, people who cannot see or they don’t see very well. And what I did at all three of these organizations, the two animal shelters and the guide dog organization, is I just spent time with the animals, the dogs, the cats, the rabbits, the rats, y’know, the smaller animals I mentioned earlier.

I just spent time and talking to them. With the cats, y’know, they might actually get, sit in my lap, if I was sitting on the floor, they might come sit on me. And I would, y’know, pet them, talk nicely to them,

basically just love on them. And in so many ways, this would be very helpful for them because, especially in the animal shelters, well even at the guide dog organization, it could be such a stressful environment.

At the animal shelters, you’ve got dogs barking. You’ve got animals that are just very stressed out because they don’t know where they are. They’re kept in small enclosures or small areas. And they just want to be in a home with people and being loved on. The guide dogs that are in training, I found that they could be stressed, just from all the other dogs barking, barking, barking in the kennel, or the area where they were all kept.

But also they could be stressed because many of them, I could tell they took their job very seriously. Their job to be able, y’know, to go through this training to guide a blind person, to guide them around. They took it very seriously. So it was, I could see it was very nice for them to just take a break from their day of getting trained, of working, and just have time to relax and have some fun.

So even though that was…those were jobs that I wasn’t getting paid at, to me they’re still jobs. I went and I offered my time and I was there working. And also, I was treated very well at all three of…at all of those places. Volunteers usually are treated well because if a place has a need for volunteers, then they want to keep those volunteers. They don’t…maybe they don’t have the money to pay people and so volunteers are a very important part of their program.

So then, of course, the final job that has been a wonderful job and I’m only mentioning it last because I didn’t at first think of it as a job because it’s Learn Real English and this Advanced Conversation Club. I don’ think of it as a job because me, AJ, Joe, we all own this business so I work for myself. I’m not working for someone else. But it is a job.

It’s my job, it’s Joe’s job, it’s AJ’s job, to create lessons for you and to help you to improve or, y’know, to become fluent or improve your English. And it’s been a wonderful job. I have loved it. And especially when me, Joe, AJ, we travel and we actually meet some of our students when we’re traveling. To hear their stories about how far or how far they’ve come with their English or, in other words, how much their English has improved, it just makes me feel so good.

Just like, y’know, spending time with the animals to help them destress, to not be so stressed anymore, to relax. Or massaging someone to help them relax or to help lessen pain that they might have in their body. These are all things that are very rewarding to me. They make me feel good. So…and also we get comments, people writing in about how Learn Real English or ACC, Advanced Conversation Club, has really helped them to better their English.

Alright, so those are some of the good jobs that I’ve had and I’m wondering what good or bad jobs have you had, or maybe you have right now. And what made them good or bad? So share with us on the social site. We’d love to hear from you.

Alright, until next month, see you then. Bye-bye.