charles not in charge

Charles is not in charge of his life. He comes to work late. He would leave work early if he could. The stress from his job causes him great anxiety that leads to physical sickness. Charles has no great interest in his job, and it reflects in his work ethic and attitude towards his job. If given a better job opportunity, Charles would take it without a second thought to what he has now. Charles is a Korean-Canadian teacher at my English school, and I suspect soon to be former teacher.

Student enrollment of Poly's night classes is slowly dwindling. Because of the loss of students, some classes have one to two students. When these students don't show up for class, the teacher is given a break from teaching. In the past two weeks, I have been enjoying my breaks by working on grading, report card writing, and decorating classrooms. Tonight, I had a two hour break. Charles had an 80 minute break.

For the first thirty minutes of his break, Charles slept at his desk. He sits behind me and I could hear him cooing like a sleeping baby that coos throughout the night. After his nap, Charles says that he is tired and then thinks of ways to leave work early. Searching for Chang, the director of the school, for twenty minutes and unable to find him, he packs his things and readies himself to leave. He beckons me to go with him, and after I tell him no, he leaves twenty-five minutes before he is supposed to leave. I see him leave and so does the front desk consultant. Ten minutes later, Chang asks the front desk the whereabouts of Charles. Chang spends the rest of the evening in his office behind a close door. Normally, his door is open.

I hope Charles figures out what he wants to do soon.