Corproate Ladder? No thanks, I'll stay down here.

I had a work experience a little while ago I thought you might appreciate. I had my first in-class evaluation at the jr. high. I was pretty nervous, but found out that they thought I was a "good teacher who seemed to care about the students."		My primary job at this point in history (in case you read this substantially after October 2003) was that of assistant language teacher at a junior high school in Saitama, Japan. It was maybe the second time in my entire life I can recall really caring about a job.
	Flying high on that, I went to Ikebukuro (the part of Tokyo where I work at the crappy conversation school) and decided to spend 43 of the 45 minutes before my first class browsing in a bookstore. I roll into work with two minutes to spare, and find my manager smiling at me like he'd rather tear out my throat. I step into my cubicle, meet my student, and teach my lesson, only to find that he's cancelled all my other students for the night. Naturally, I figure he's trying to tell me something, since I can hear him seething over my shoulder as I type up the class record. He summons me to the back room, then takes a few minutes to let me wait for him. Presumably a move intended to give me time to sweat over the prosect of a dressing down.	(It's worth noting that my new manager started at the company at the same time I did, was previously a failed dot-com/day-trader, was less than impressive as a teacher, and is all of 5'9" and 155 lbs, before you count his stacked-sole shoes. He's not a man that inspires anything even close to fear in me, especially since I was due to receive my first jr high pay check, thus removing his threat to my wallet.)
	Anyway, he pulled up the manager chair and sat back, fingers tented like Mr. Burns, waiting for me to take the plastic lunch seat. Which I ignored so I could stand and look down on him (that made him mad). After a few seconds of fuming, he finally got to the point: he wanted everyone there 15 minutes early. Quickly realizing that (1) he wanted me to show remorse, contrition and even some fear, and (2) that I truly didn't care what he wanted, I elected to remain calm, convesational in tone, and a bit authoritative by leading the conversation and getting to his next point before he could.
For example, his final threat sounded like this: "This is strike two for you, Sam." "OK, Joe, if there's a three, will you take me off the schedule for a week, a month or will you fire me?" "You'll stay off until I deem ready to put you back, Sam." "OK, as long as we understand each other." "Just go home, Sam."
	I haven't had anyone so mad at me for quite some time. Of course, I haven't had a crazy girlfriend for quite some time either. But I think I know why he was so pissed and why I felt so good.
He was supposed to be my superior.	But...	I wasn't afraid of him.
That's a good feeling to have.

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