Since September I've worked at a small local studio teaching guitar and bass to students. It was never great but I made decent pay for a 17 year old ($12 for every hour of lessons I taught) and I liked a lot of my students.
The owner has notoriously been flaky, doing things like leaving me to tend the studio the whole time I'm there with no supervision (which would be illegal if I were an employee and not a contractor, I think), scheduling lessons at times when he specifically agreed to give people off, giving the wrong student to the wrong teacher, not showing up/leaving a key anywhere so I had to do an entire lesson outside on lawn chairs that were in the back of a car until he showed up to unlock the door, etc.
Well I just found out on Facebook of all places that the studio as a venue is closing. They are moving operations to a different place where there will be no music venue, only teaching and recording. He didn't tell me, I only found out because he posted it for everybody to see on Facebook. I responded asking what the plans were for lessons that day, and he called me later and asked me to cancel all my lessons and tell the students I couldn't make it
. He said the reason was the landlord was moving him out that day, which makes me think he couldn't make rent and got evicted. I called the students and told them the venues were moving and wouldn't be ready for that lesson.
Previously another teacher quit to pursue being a chef. He and I had bonded and he trusted my knowledge so he wanted to leave as many paying students with me as he could. He had between 25 and 30 students. Even half of that would have been the beginning of a career for me. I ended up with 2, who are brothers and come together. I was supposed to get Tuesday and Wednesday night. He later called and said he didn't have a Wednesday for me. I then found out he hired a new teacher for Wednesdays. When I asked him he said that the students weren't comfortable with a 17 year old teacher. I never told any of the students my age and all of my students that I asked about later said they thought I was older (a 22-year old student thought I was older than her). I can only imagine he made a big deal out of it.
So, as it is now, I have 2 and a half hours of lessons on Tuesday nights and I drive an hour round trip to do them. I make roughly $220 a month if all of my students come and don't miss a single lesson, which is rare for students.
So, the other day I went out and applied for jobs. I love some of my students but I'm not going to degrade myself continuing to work in this environment, especially for the money involved. There is a student that comes to my house who I will keep.
I really learned a lot teaching. One of those things is that I may not be cut out for teaching. I'm good at teaching things but when it becomes a routine that I do out of financial obligation and not a 2 sided interest, it becomes soul sucking and disheartening very quickly. A couple of my students I came to care about a lot and will miss. I worry that they will find a worthwhile teacher. But I have to move on.
Just thought I would share and rant.
