Back in Canada, looking for work

It was mid-1998. I had been half-heartedly looking for work in the Toronto area. Actually, I had come back to Canada with an arrangement with Heather's former boss, Harry, (a headhunter) to be his rep in Ontario. It was thought that I might end up either in southern Ontario or in the Ottawa region doing this work. I was going to advertise ESL teaching positions in Korea for Harry, plus I would be helping Korean engineers and computer programmers to find jobs in Canada's IT industry. The only problem was that I had no experience whatsoever in HR, and since my boss was on the other side of the world, my motivation to get out there and pound the pavement was lacking. Needless to say, this plan did not work out, but I was able to exploit it just enough to get my first car as I was able to say that I was employed and could afford the payments.

As the weeks went by, I sent out numerous resumes to companies that looked interesting to me, but for which I was eminently incapable of working. It didn't help that I couldn't write a cover letter to save my life, but the simple fact of the matter was that I had an undergraduate degree in history and political studies, and a resume that included two stints as an ESL (EFL) teacher in Korea. In other words, I had no skills for real-world work.

One day, while Heather and I were visiting my cousin Paul and his wife Jen in Hamilton, they took me to see a family friend who could give me some advice on my job search. This man was quite intelligent and rather blunt. When he saw my sample cover letter, he basically lambasted me AND my pathetic cover letter. Fine, I knew it sucked, and that was why I was there. Then he made the suggestion that I go to the community colleges and apply for part-time ESL teaching positions. This was an opportunity that I didn't even know existed, and I wasn't sure I would be hired in any event given that I had no formal teacher training.

I went to a number of colleges in the Greater Toronto area to inquire about their need for teachers in their ESL programs. As it turned out, Seneca College was looking for teachers and would be holding an interview session later that week. Wearing my new suit to disguise my inadequacies as a teacher, I showed up with a dozen or so other people to go through the interview process. This was followed by a sample lesson plan that we had to create for a two-hour class, and then we were questioned by current teachers about the plan each of us had created. There was also a written test of our grammar knowledge. One of the benefits of having been an English teacher was that I had relearned rules of grammar, so this test was easy for me.

Richard, the man who interviewed me, gave me the good word that I had been hired! I was surprised because most of the other applicants were experienced teachers, but Richard told me that my knowledge of grammar was better than anyone else's who had applied, and my lesson plan was unique and met the objectives of the communicative approach to teaching that they valued at Seneca. Cool.

Of course, this would only be part-time work, so I was going to need another job. At about the same time (and this was late August 1998), I had applied for a job with an Internet-based employment service in Toronto called Campus WorkLink. It was an internship position for six months, paying a whopping $1500 per month. But the work sounded all right, and it would lead to a full-time position after the six months were completed.

Thus, at the start of September, 1998, I had two new jobs in Toronto -- Institution Liason Officer for Campus WorkLink, and English instructor in the Faculty of Continuing Education at Seneca College.