Part-time/ Summer job as a English tutor

[big_panda]

instead of planning to earn money as early as 15, may be it's time for you to think about your own root, how weird of being Chinese but not good at either Cantonese or Putonghua, great parenting of your parents

Well its generally common for Chinese born abroad not to be fluent in spoken/written Chinese due to the strong daily use of English as a primary language, but its a shame when local born Chinese cannot master their own language to a native level.

[Satay Sue]

I earned money when younger than 15 - newspaper rounds (delivery), washing neighbours' cars etc, then at 16 I got a Saturday job in a supermarket. Don't knock OP for that!

[bryant.english]

I sold papers when I was 13, my dad was down the coal mines at 7 for thruppence a day.....

[carang]

no one is knocking him for looking for a job! i, too, got my first job the day i turned 16... and have been working ever since.

perhaps, though, he is setting his sights just a little too high? he's 15. he is unlikely to get a job in a tutorial centre. i know, if i sent my kids to a tutorial centre and their tutor was only 15, i would not be going back.

i would also say there is no way he's going to get to be "an accountant"!

don't feed him false hope!

as i said, perhaps someone is looking for an english speaker to come into their home and play with their kids over the summer? or maybe the Y has summer camps that need "counselors" or assistants? more than that, it is HIGHLY unlikely he will find anything.

does anyone know if there is a minimum age law for employment? i know that in canada, there are quite a few industries that it is illegal to obtain employment if you are under 16. (i realise that we are not in canada, but just wondering if there is anything similar?)

[Satay Sue]

Carang, my post was aimed at the poster who actually said "instead of planning to earn money as early as 15..."

[justjoe86]

I remember when I was 15, I worked for betterware, the catalogue company. I had to drop off catalogues, then come back a few days later to see if anyone had made any orders. I'd also compliment them on how nice their pet dog was, or their car, and check they definitely weren't interested in buying something. If they had an order, I then had to go to my boss and collect the items, manually write them out some receipts, deliver the items to the buyers (on foot... some items were heavy) then collect the cash and give it to my boss.

What did I get?

8%!

So when someone bought some garden tools for 6 quid, and I hand delivered them, what did I get? 48p!

Can't believe i did that fu**ing job.

Mind you, I got plenty of rich teas and chocolate digestives from old sympathetic ladies.

[Satay Sue]

I delivered the fu**ing NewsShopper! It weighed a ton! Got less than a fiver (or something like that!). (about HK$50)

[carang]

Carang, my post was aimed at the poster who actually said "instead of planning to earn money as early as 15..."

sorry, i didn't see the part of the post in question.

my first job: price ticketing products in a discount department store (Zellers)... it was about $.30 above minimum wage at the time. within 4 months i was cooking samples in the local supermarket making $1.5 above minimum wage... then was offered a cashier job... took that and was making over $2 above the minimum wage.

within 5 years at the supermarket (as a cashier, i was making almost $15 above minimum wage.... about $19 CAD/hour... in 1995!) it was an amazing wage for the time, but i only worked about 12 hours/week, which was ok as i was in high school and uni at the time.

[justjoe86]

In all honesty though, OP, cara is probably right BUT this is not because it is a sensible world.

Plenty of parents pay $400-$800 an hr for a native English teacher to come over and play some games with their 3 year old. Is this worth it? No way! But people pay it.

Fact is, in an hr a week, Jesus himself wouldn't be able to turn a kid fluent in English (for one thing Jesus wasnt English.) For the same price this parent could get a 15 yr old with perfectly adequate English to come over for 8-16 hrs a week. Almost certainly, this would yield better results.

But, unfortunately, the world isn't always logical and parents will generally want a 'proper' foreigner to come over, and theyll pay for the luxury.

Can I complain about this? Nope. I'm a beneficiary.

But anyway, good luck. And go for it.

But one more question, is it legal to work at 15 here?

[justjoe86]

Oh and OP, I left some deliberate English errors in the above post for you to correct