Hey everyone, just needed to rant with people I know will understand haha
I'm a ESL teacher here in Brazil, and have been since 2021. I got tired, is too much work without the proper recognition or even proper payment, so this year I started looking for new jobs.
Thursday I got an interview and in the same day got the job to be a Bilingual Receptionist. This job would be registered, whereas at my current job I work as a SP. Because of this, the money I get from teaching now is less than I would get from this new job, so I scheduled a meeting with my coordinator on Friday (following day as I got selected for the receptionist job) to tell her I would be leaving.
When I told her that next week would be my last week with them, she got shocked and tried to talk me into staying with “there isn't anything we can do to make it better for you?” Like, girl, you could pay me better from start but too late, sorry.
The problem is, I have some anxiety problems and I was holding my breath basically so I wouldn't cry out of anxiety. I think she noticed this, bc then she started saying things like “leaving at this period of the year is complicated to us, we won't have a teacher to replace you, the coordination will have to do your job!”.
I felt guilty. I really did. But I was stronger and could say “I know, but it's been really hard for me, I will do what I can to help you, but I'm leaving”.
And she kept talking as if it were my fault that they don't have a substitute teacher ready, they don't have the means to hire a new teacher, like omg it took me 2 days to stop feeling guilty and start seeing it as what it was.
I'm happy to leave!
Update: Today, Monday, first contact from one of the other coordinators was to try to guilt me into staying again, saying how she was so upset about my decision, that in 12 years of her working there only one other teacher made the decision of leaving with only 2 months for the semestre to finish, how complicated the situation was… I'm really more than happy to leave, I truly do not wish to stay in a place where they resource to guilt instead of trying to just be professional about a professional choice