Last summer, I got a full-time job at a local English-teaching organization in my hometown as a Teaching Assistant. I got the job because one of my friend who was once a student also a friend of the boss introduced me to the boss. After a not very formal interview, I was told to come to work in two days. Since it was not a really formal job, there was no contract. The boss told me that I could just help with the front desk issues at first, and if any students wanted to ask for help, I would go to help them. The work time was 9 to 5, 5 days a week. And my boss promised a month salary of $300, which was not that much considering the working time compared with similar jobs in other organization. But the job was more likely to be a experience instead of wasting my free time, so I didn’t show any disappointment about that.

However, things began to change in the second week. There was another TA, Harvey, who was assigned to give some tutorials sometimes, thus earning more than me. Sounds fair, right? However, due to trying to get his driving licence, Harvey began to be absent for most of his tutorial time. Therefore, my boss let me take his job. Actually I was pretty happy with that because the front desk work was so boring that I felt tired of it only in one week. So I gave tutorial classes probably three times a week, but I have to say it went well since students were interested of what I was talking about. And I felt kind of proud of myself, too, as a teacher.

However, my boss called me on the Sunday of the fourth week, telling me that he was so sorry but I did not need to come for the following days because they found a new TA. I was not that emotional at first but when I saw the money he transferred to my bank account I got really mad: it was only $200! That was so unfair since I did more work than our deal but got less paid! Especially when I knew that Harvey still got $300.

Such distributive injustice made this definitely the worst work experience of mine. And it shows how injustice in working environment will affect the employees.