Phoenix

Dear Pippin Management:
This letter is to inform you that, as of 8 PM on Thursday, November 19th, 2009, I am resigning. Thank you for granting me this opportunity to work at Pippin, and it was a good experience working here.
- Brian Dinh

I told ya I wouldn’t get fired.

Ever since my mom emailed me and confessed to me our family’s money problems, I knew I had to up my hours. But I also knew that if I had to work day and night at Pippin, my school’s dining hall, I’d snap and take a shit in the rocky road ice cream. So I actively started looking for a new job, and instead of trying to get one at a retail store like Urban Outfitters or Active or anywhere I could get big discounts on looking good, I figured that I’d return to what I had cared about above all, that I’d rediscover what I used to love so passionately: teaching.

Google vomited a bunch of off-campus tutoring or teaching jobs before my feet, but all of them required bachelor’s or credentials. Except for one: the Education Academy. It didn’t have a fun name like SCORE!, which always had to be written in all caps and with that exclamation point, but it hired college students to teach kids in grades Pre-K all the way up through high school. I sent in my application to centers in Irvine and Laguna Hill, and on Thursday, the Irvine location sent me an email informing me that they had an interview scheduled for me the very following day, 6:15 PM.

I was late for that interview, and it was the most terrifying experience ever. I had left forty minutes early to go to a place that was only twenty minutes away, but what fucking google maps didn’t tell me was that the route it gave me went through a private residential community, one that I couldn’t drive through. So I had to improvise, and obviously, I wasn’t not good at that.

However, the center managers were very forgiving. We went on to have a thirty-minute interview that had one very general question, “Tell me about yourself,” and one or two specific questions, one strangely and frighteningly being, “So how do you discipline troublemakers?” Before offering me the job, the managers wanted me to observe the way the employees used this “Rotational Technique” to tutor the kids so that I could see whether or not this method was right for me. I knew without a doubt that I would take the job because it already had what I cared about: kids, and teaching kids, but I humored the managers anyway. They asked me to come in Saturday at 12 for the observation.

I was late for that observation. This time because of my usual lack of punctuality, but, again, the managers were forgiving. And yeah, once I saw the kids, I knew. There was this particular tiny little Asian girl who was quiet, but praise made her smile in a shy adorable way. In my head, I called her Amanda. And then I found out her real name was in fact Amanda, and that blew me away.

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“Spring in November, Part 2”
Written November 29th, 2007

I’ve counted 12 so far. 12 of my favorite kids at SCORE! are either quitting or transferring to Cupertino when SCORE! Almaden closes. Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to miss them.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I headed over to Oakridge at 6 after work. I had only wanted to play one or two games of ITG, but then Chris and Taka showed up, followed by Peter, and then later John. That was all very surprising.

While we were all enjoying several games of ITG, a family that included three little Asian girls wandered into the arcade. I recognized one of the little girls; it was Amanda, one of my kids from work. (Not sure about her age, but she’s stands up to my waist.)

Amanda was very shy with me at first. She didn’t really use much effort to talk to me, but it was through interaction with my managers Ben and Adria that she finally started to like me. I believed she first asked Ben, “Is Brian Asian?” When she got that answer, she later asked Adria, “Is Brian Vietnamese?” So, apparently, Asian and Vietnamese added together formed the necessary traits to have good rapport (does the commutative property of addition work here?).

So, fast-forward back to that Wednesday, Amanda came up to me and waved hi. I was very excited to see her; it was the first time I had seen any of my kids outside of work (albeit, at first, I had trouble telling if it was Amanda or a similar-looking Asian girl). I tried getting her to play ITG; I even coaxed her with SCORE! cards, but she didn’t budge. I played for her (to impress her), and I’m pretty sure she was delighted by my dazzling quick feet. Amanda was going to be talking about me during her next trip to work, whether or not I be there, and then all my co-workers will know about how I’m such a “DDR maniac.” (I quit a long time ago, I swear.) I asked her if she wanted to play my last song, but she only gave me this weird look that I noticed she had been giving me since shortly after she showed up at the arcade. Whatever, I was disappointed.

After my game, Amanda had to leave with her family, so I waved her off and continued to ramble on to John and Peter about how much I love my kiddies at work. After my temporary glee had finally died down, I sighed and dropped my head, only to notice that my fly was unzipped.
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I should’ve been teaching earlier. I was going to apply for on-campus teaching jobs at the beginning of the quarter, but I distinctly remember looking at an application, seeing that its due date was the following day, and putting it away thinking, “Nah, I’m going to go dance.” And soon before I knew it, there were no more openings. Way to burn myself, but I didn’t regret the decision too much because I was happy that dance had become a part of my life. And once the managers at the Education Academy offered me the job, I took it with open arms, warmly welcoming back a part of myself.