lying at job interviews

so i got a job...yay for me. and there was no interview....more yay for me....

when i was younger my mom always told me what to say in an interview. but i never could say it because it was always a lie. she told me its not a lie and would proceed to twist it around into a white lie. whatever. im not self-motivated. i dont work well with others. i dont work well under pressure. im not interested in your company.

ive been thinking of being a teacher. i have zero aspirations to inspire and educate. I want something simple, no pressure, laid back, i make my own rules type of deal. the pay sucks but the time off in the summer is great. therein lies the soul of my desire. not really interview material.

so what in the world do i say at an interview??? ive never been a good liar. im kinda worried that who i am will hinder me from ever getting a "real" job. its exhausting having to keep up the facade of actually caring. when will it ever be acceptable to not care. why does everyone have to care about their job. isnt it acceptable that people just need money and a little security. i can still do my job well and not care, but that is a conundrum to most.

Well I can tell you right now that you're not going to get a job as a teacher at a public school without a FULL college degree. It just won't happen.

I'm at the end of my own college degree in history/government education at the secondary level (high school), and it's been a LOT of pressure and hard work. And I'll tell you right now that teachers DON'T get to make their own rules AT ALL. We have to follow strict guidelines given to us by the State and local board of education.

And there's NO time off in the summer for teachers. Sure, it SEEMS like there is, but a teacher will still be working during the summer, either with sports programs or by revamping and preparing educational materials and schoolwork, or BOTH. There might be time for a two-or-three week vacation, but mostly teachers still work during the summer.

So I'm sorry, but given what you've said, I would recommend AGAINST becoming a teacher, ESPECIALLY if you say that you have no aspirations to inspire or educate. What the fresia? You want to be a teacher and NOT educate? Seriously, do us all a favor and forget becoming a teacher. The last thing that any education system needs is another teacher who doesn't give a honeysuckle about the work they're doing.

*heretostay* said:

isnt it acceptable that people just need money and a little security. i can still do my job well and not care, but that is a conundrum to most.

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Well, it depends on what your goal in life is. If all you want to do right now is make money at ANY job, then sure, go for it! But some people feel the need to have their work MEAN something. And others like to ENJOY their work as a part of their life and not just the means to create money to relax away from the job. *shrug* It just depends on the person, that's all.

I don't think there's wrong with seeing it either way, as long as people show up and put in good effort at work.

Work can be enjoyable.

But it's like this. If I have to pick between you, who wants a paycheck, or the hard-working fella who I know is going to put his heart AND his back in to the job (whether it's because he enjoys it or just because he enjoys performing at top notch), I know the other guy is going to be a much better investment. He'll perform better because he -wants- to work, and as an employer I'll have reason to reward those efforts.

Same with public service jobs. You don't half-ass your way in to fire, police, or EMS jobs most of the time. For every lazy sack who just wants good benefits and a retirement, there's 1,000 other candidates dying for that job who will give 110% every time they show up for work. They are performers, and performers get hired because they get the job done as opposed to just getting by.


I had a teacher when I was in school who didn't really care, didn't want to even try and spend an extra minute to help me with math, and certainly was everything -but- inspiring. I think he's a big part of the reason I have such a horrible math phobia now. As a part-time school custodian, I have the opportunity now and again to see teachers working after hours (which they do fairly often, by the way). Twice now I've seen one of them an hour after the last bell, patiently helping a struggling student with both english and math.

I cried a bit when I got in to the next room, because I wish I'd had a teacher like that instead of the miserable sack of honeysuckle I was stuck with.

*heretostay* said:

.. im not self-motivated. i dont work well with others. i dont work well under pressure. im not interested in your company.

ive been thinking of being a teacher. i have zero aspirations to inspire and educate. I want something simple, no pressure, laid back, i make my own rules type of deal....

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And you think being a teacher will meet all these criteria?
Oh my...you're in for such a rude awakening, dear.
Being a teacher - NOT simple, NOT laid back, NOT pressure-free, NOT make your own rules, MUST play well with others...
No, do yourself, and the children you might have taught, a huge favor - go for some other vocation. Really.

If you were to become a teacher, you would, by your own admission, be a bad one. Teaching is a vocation, and is NOT an easy job by any means.

Badjedidude said:

Well I can tell you right now that you're not going to get a job as a teacher at a public school without a FULL college degree. It just won't happen.

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ya i know. im about a year from getting my biology degree and then will get a masters in virology. i love biology- especially virology. i like learning it. truthfully id stay a student the rest of my life if it was economically feasible. school is pretty easy for me.

I think how one defines a job as "easy" can be misleading. I realize there are rules, regulations, etc. But ive worked in hospitals in the NICU, ICU, oncology, post-surgical, and many other areas for a good ten years and there's not a much harder job then that. on so many levels its exhausting. when i said easy, i was referring to not having to work with dying, angry, abusive patients in an environment of disease and indifference with work shifts that last 12+ hours at a time. the money is good but it is not worth it. relatively speaking teaching is a piece of cake compared to working in a hospital. i think i can handle putting together a lesson plan.

ive been at different colleges and universities off an on for ten years. Ive had "good" teachers and "bad" teachers. Only immature people blame their desires and their grades on their teachers. So many times students will complain about their grade. I tell them that's not going to get them very far. the teacher will still have their job, but they wont have their education. There was a girl this semester that dropped the class because the teacher was a hard and "bad" teacher. give me a break. I told her if she keeps up that attitude life is going to be very difficult for her. she failed out of the other class with the "easy" teacher. Another student was complaining that our professor didnt teach the test material very well and the test was ambiguous. he felt his answer was "close enough". again, please. I told him to study harder. he was of course aghast that i didnt agree with him like every other clone of a friend. it was incomprehensible that his own grade might be his own fault. he said he did study. I told him to study harder then. There are so many whiners out there its unbelievable. grow up, learn to work hard, or leave. that's the kind of teacher im going to be. I have zero desire to pamper immature whiners.

Steel said:

If you were to become a teacher, you would, by your own admission, be a bad one. Teaching is a vocation, and is NOT an easy job by any means.

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this is exactly what people think when i say i have no desire for teaching. this is what i meant in my original post that i dont understand why people automatically assume that just because you dont like it you're no good at it. why do i have to like it to be good at it? truth is i am good at it. i volunteer for Junior Achievement and teach a seniors computer class. i've been told so many times that im a natural and very good at it. ive been given little things like a statue called "Angle of teaching". its an angle holding a book open. i tutor numerous kids in my classes. that's what's so ironic to me. but just because i dont really have any desire to actually do it people automatically assume im no good. hence the interview dilemmas.

*heretostay* said:

this is exactly what people think when i say i have no desire for teaching. this is what i meant in my original post that i dont understand why people automatically assume that just because you dont like it you're no good at it. why do i have to like it to be good at it?

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Teaching is NOT like other jobs. It's not a factory-line. In a factory line, you can hate the job and still do it well.

But with teaching...it's quite different. I can guarantee that if you DON'T like teaching, your students will pick up on that and respond in kind. It depends on what LEVEL you're teaching, also. If you're planning on teaching at the college level, then yeah, what you're talking about may work. Because college students PAY to be there. They WANT to learn. University professors don't HAVE to care to get their students to pay attention, because those students are there by their own choice.

But high school students (and younger) don't get that choice. Given an opportunity, they'd rather be at home. High school kids see school as an INTERRUPTION in their day. They have to be coerced and cajoled; carefully led to the information with great care and planning. And if they sense that you don't really like what you're doing as their teacher, then they're quite simply not going to be interested. The #1 way to get kids interested in learning is for the TEACHER to be interested in learning and teaching.

I quite honestly don't think that your attitude would be conducive to successfully teaching anything less than college-level students, *heretostay*, and I really hope that either your outlook changes or you're barred from teaching. As I said before, the last thing that an education system needs is another teacher who doesn't enjoy the job.

You mentioned an interest in virology...why not look into some fields that use such a degree and pursue those? If you DO end up teaching, perhaps it would be best for you to teach university biology/virology. But it might be best for you to stay away from high school teaching if you don't really have the desire to teach and be in the job with 100% of your heart and passion.

being that there will be so many kids relying on you to be a motivational teacher, and to get them through their exams, i advise you not to become a teacher heretostay. Do something where people are not so is dependent on you.

As for job interviews, i think everyone to some extent lies in them. i know i sure did, but they weren't major lies, eg i think i lied about my interests and made out i actually had a life in the outside world lol. but i really really wanted the job and i love it not just for the money. i think you need to find something that you do actually like doing because then you will never REALLY have to work again in the traditional sense.

do you really want to be a teacher just for the holidays? just think for the rest of the year you will be as miserable as sin.

congrats and good luck with the job heretostay!
my story: my first job ever was like a dollar store type deal and i lied about being able to speak spanish
untill i was asked to speak spanish to a customer and i was all "wait.....what?" that didnt go over to well
with management

My dad's a teacher, he gets paid very well, and he gets the summer off to do whatever he wants. This is Canada, mind you.

He's always said it's not the actual work of the job that makes it difficult. It's dealing with the students.

They're not like seniors where they're fairly pleasant people who want to learn. It's not the students who struggle and need to work with a tutor so they can learn the material if they want to pass. The students who make your job hard will be kids who were expelled from their old school for some crime they committed, but who either want to stay in the school system to continue dealing drugs, or who think society owes them an education so they can make lots of money, even though they refuse to work. In some cases teachers have been targeted after school for the way they've handled such students.

Teaching used to be considered a career you only pursued because it was your purpose in life.

Anyways... Any job you find is going to be pretty demanding. That's why if you don't care about your work 30+ years of it will drive you mad. If you really don't have any job you'd care to do because you're so unmotivated and indifferent, maybe taking a little time off for self-development would be a wise move.

Badjedidude said:

I can guarantee that if you DON'T like teaching, your students will pick up on that and respond in kind. It depends on what LEVEL you're teaching, also. If you're planning on teaching at the college level, then yeah, what you're talking about may work. Because college students PAY to be there. They WANT to learn. University professors don't HAVE to care to get their students to pay attention, because those students are there by their own choice.

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I would never teach anything less then community college. Just like i wont be a personal fitness training for anyone other then older adults. they are the only people that understand why they are there.

Mysis said:

My dad's a teacher, he gets paid very well, and he gets the summer off to do whatever he wants.

He's always said it's not the actual work of the job that makes it difficult. It's dealing with the students.

That's why if you don't care about your work 30+ years of it will drive you mad. If you really don't have any job you'd care to do because you're so unmotivated and indifferent, maybe taking a little time off for self-development would be a wise move.

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my mom teaches and she said the parents are what is the hardest part. the students, yes, but the parents can be intolerable. but i dont plan on teaching kids that young.

As far as the suggestion that i take some time off for some self-development, that's cute. you must be young. have you worked yet? and by worked i mean you are not in school anymore. have you had your own place, paid your own bills, your own health insurance? do you own your own car, pay for gas, utilities, cell-phone, animals?

*heretostay* said:

...your own health insurance?

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he's Canadian. one perk of which includes not having to pay insurance companies for healthcare.

Work full time, and I'm finishing my highschool through correspondence, pay my own rent split with a roommate, bills, groceries, etc. Don't have to pay for health insurance cause I'm Canadian. Don't have a car cause I can get by without it and the money will be useful once I'm in university. Same deal with a cellphone. Hoping to avoid as much debt as possible later on.

But I'm pretty good with my money, so I can afford to take extended time off if I have to. Whether for personal reasons, or if I just don't have employment.

Just one of the benefits to living below what your income could support and saving your money.