Things do not always go according to plan in business or life but we have found that being prepared for it makes all the difference in the world. In this article you will find our experiences with traveling while being a contract teacher for VIPKID. You will also find our list of items that have gotten us through some turbulent experiences along with two real life stories of when we s*&t hit the fan. Please enjoy and if you have any of your own stories I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
Transitioning to Life as a Location Independent Contractor
The major shift we have had to make in the past two years while living and traveling abroad has been relying solely on the internet to make ends meet. Sometimes this can be a scary thing if you are in a youth hostel or seasonably stormy area that has power blackouts for minutes or sometimes even hours at a time.
Typically power outages for us have never been an issue. Blog articles and youtube videos can wait until after the power comes back on. If you follow us on our blog you know that Nate started teaching with a wonderful online English teaching platform called VIPKID in April 2019. This makes the power fluctuations even scarier as VIPKID counts the number of no shows or cancellations that you have which can affect the renewal of your next contract or even cause a termination from the company.
It has taken us some time to get the right tools and gadgets to make the quick transition from an unexpected pitch-black room without internet to a semi-normal, usable teaching area in a matter of crucial seconds.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” ― Benjamin Franklin
Real-life story #1 of a blackout in Merida, Mexico
Have fun reading the story of a time that we somehow survived an entire night of VIPKID classes unprepared. This is from Cassie’s perspective while helping Nate in a power outage.
“Story time! —ok, This is what happened in a nutshell… it’s been weird timing. (As most of you know) We now live in a foreign country. We got jobs you can do in a foreign country. Mine is more freelance and Nate has the most regular one— he teaches English online with VIPKID. We both need internet, electricity and lights. He especially does on a consistent basis.
At the end of summer 2019 we drove our car down to Merida from the USA. Then we got the house (rental) of our dreams.
Then Covid hit. With the pandemic we were isolated, staying home. Then the government imposed a curfew from 10:30pm to 5am. A week and a half ago we got bikes which we have been planning on getting for almost 2 years but decided to pull the trigger for our 8 year anniversary. It’s been so fun getting around town this way. A few days ago my car died. There was a problem with the starter. It’s now in the shop. Won’t be fixed until tomorrow.
Tonight Nate is teaching and I’m making dinner. Things are going good. Then bam! 💥 all of the power goes out. In this whole section of our neighborhood. No light. Nothing.
We haven’t charged our auxiliary battery that can charge our laptops for hours. Nate’s computer is at 20%. My computer notoriously dies quickly from a corrupt battery when not plugged in constantly.
We have been in this situation before and are typically prepared for any occasion, except for this time (Murphy’s Law?).
Nate used his phone’s telcel hotspot as we lost power and wifi. We plug in a usb ring light into another phone auxiliary battery for Nate’s light plus use a lantern so his students can see him (which is super important).
Nate recovers and starts to teach as if the world around him is not in utter chaos. Smiling and squinting his eyes to see the dim screen of his laptop that is attempting to conserve as much battery as possible. After class 3 (which is a miracle on that amount of battery life), the first laptop is dead.
I rush out on my bike with Nate’s dead laptop and his charger in a backpack to try and find electricity somewhere while he uses my laptop which won’t hold its charge for long. It’s creepy going through the blacked out neighborhood.
Back at home in our blacked out house, Nate is continuing to teach with the second laptop. The laptop is fully charged, however the battery on the 2012 macbook pro is corrupt. It starts at 99% but by the time he is done teaching his class number 4, it is at 51%.
I approach the other side of the neighborhood on my bike and there’s light again. I consider asking a stranger in a house with a light on if I can use their electric outlet but think twice. Keep going and try the los trompos restaurant across the way which is still open but only doing to-go orders. I ask in my broken Spanish but they claim they have no electricity to give me even though their lights are on.
I say “adios” and I bike to the very bright pharmacia at the corner of the street and see some outdoor outlets. I’m so relieved until I see they’re wackadoodle outlets for something else that my plug doesn’t fit in.
I keep going. I make it to Starbucks in uptown but it’s completely shut down. My friend texts me that the curfew ends at 10:30 not 10:00 (I couldn’t remember).
I start riding back feeling defeated and see a text from Nate- “any luck?”
“Nope” I write back. I try calling my friend in the neighborhood again to see if I can charge up at her house but she doesn’t answer. I think – what if Nate loses his job because of this? He’s only allowed to miss so many classes.
Then I get home a few minutes before curfew and Nate has taught 3 classes with the corrupt laptop and miraculously has 5% battery left. It will die any minute. It’s four minutes until his last class and before the 10:30 curfew hits.
We sat thinking – well, we gave it our best shot. 6/7 classes isn’t bad considering the circumstances, and that hopefully we can explain to VIPKID that we tried our best in an impossible situation. Watching the clock tick down, the last laptop finally dies.
Then suddenly 💥 bam! all the lights and power come back on!!!!!! “Thank God!!” both of us exhale! Then we scramble to charge up all the computers and Nate is back up and running. He entered the classroom with his regular student waiting patiently for his arrival without a clue that we had just gone through 3 ½ hours of chaos. In the end with a ton of luck he taught the entire night without a single no show happening.
Miracle? I think so. ❣️❣️❣️”
Real Life Story # 2: That time, I ended up teaching from my Car in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night
We recently had this happen to us while on a trip to Tulum, Mexico moving from one Airbnb in Centro to a new Airbnb near the beach (which was a much worse signal area). The beach hotel had stated that it had 24-hour wifi. We thought, no problem, and on our arrival went through our normal tests of the system, checking power outlets and testing the speed for a 4:30 am scheduled class. Everything worked great so we went and had some dinner and an early night of sleep.
Waking up the next morning the internet that was previously working well was completely gone. On the screen was the dreaded grey bar (with over 1000 pings in the network test) on the VIPKID app. VIPKID has 4 signals for your internet quality:
Green: means good to go
Orange: teachable but not stable
Red: You are in danger of lagging and possible teacher IT issues
Grey: you have internet but no chance of teaching a class since it’s so bad
Along with the internet being out, my cellphone signal was down at 3g Lite. If you did not know 3g Lite is the equivalent of paper weight cellphone service. I had 15 minutes before my class started. I thought to myself, What do I do?
Unprepared for this, our survival instincts kicked into high gear, and we jumped into action. Because we did not have our oh s*&t kit prepared, we frantically started grabbing everything (but the kitchen sink) and throwing it into reusable grocery bags. Tangled cords looked like a rats’ nest sitting in the mess of external batteries and battery-powered lights. I grabbed my laptop in my hand (no time to neatly pack it in my backpack), along with the 2 grocery bags.
I stumbled out of the hotel and into the calm yet very dark Caribbean night armed with only the light of my laptop and camping lantern. In my frantic state, I ran past the parking lot where our car was parked, doubling back when I saw there were no more buildings on this section of the road. I tossed all of the bags into the passenger seat of our car and I was off.
Cell phone in hand, I was on the search for 4g network on my cell phone. Driving quickly but safely down the road, packed with potholes and speed bumps, the cell phone service was sporadic at best. Time was ticking down and looking at my clock, I had only 3 minutes left before my class started.
With 1 minute remaining, I heard a “ping” as my 4g network popped up. I was in the middle of a long stretch of beach road with no turn off except for an emergency exit of one of the walled-off beach resorts. I had no other choice so I tossed my laptop on the dashboard, set up my trusty ring light and connected to my phone’s hotspot.
At 30 seconds before class, my laptop was waking up from sleep mode and I anxiously waited for things to load. I hit the refresh button on the VIPKID app and crossed my fingers. (The VIPKID app will load without a strong signal but one telling feature if you are still low on wifi is that it will load without the graphics or styling).
Thank god it loaded up. With 17 seconds left to go, I logged into the classroom and hit the start class button. Up popped my wonderful student’s face, unaware of what I had just gone through. The first question I asked while covered in sweat was “where do you think Teacher Nate is?” He burst out laughing and said, “in your car!” We had a great laugh and started our class together without any issues. I ended up teaching in my car for the next 4 hours that day. Got back to our hotel with the sun rising, completely exhausted and ready for a much-deserved nap.
Since we didn’t want to cancel our hotel reservations, I taught in my car for the next 3 days finding a grocery store parking lot closer to town. I would position our car in the parking lot to show the rising sun to my students and to make use of the best lighting available there for my mobile classroom. Every night before we went to bed we would carefully pack my “oh s*&t kit” in multiple bags, with everything I needed for teaching the next morning. In the end, it made a great story and all of the students had a fun time being in our new teaching environment.
Moral of the story: even if you feel prepared while you are away from home, always have your plan b oh s*&t kit ready to roll so that if something happens like you lose power or wifi, you can quickly adapt and create a working teacher environment wherever you are.
Why Missing a Class as a VIPKID Teacher is an issue
You might be thinking at this point why does it matter if you miss a class because of a technical error. The fact is that as an independent contractor it is solely your responsibility to be there for your students. VIPKID understands major power or Internet outages but error or bad choices on location as a VIPKID teacher fall on the teacher and can negatively impact your future on the VIPKID platform. The VIPKID policy allows each teacher up to 6 missed classes (cancellation or no-show alike) per six-month contract. If you feel that a no-show or cancellation is beyond your control, then you can apply for a soft or medium cancellation. However, without good evidence of why you missed it and how it was unavoidable, it will be hard to get them to not count it against you.
Teacher No-show
This happens when you miss a class without informing VIPKID that you are going to miss the class. Commonly it happens in power outages, sleeping through or internet issues. VIPKID fines you 10 dollars on your potential incentive pay and counts the class as a running total in your contract of missed or canceled classes.
Teacher IT issue
If you somehow get into the classroom but have wi-fi connection issues they will count it as a Teacher IT problem. You will not be fined for the class but you will also not be paid and it counts against your finished class percentage for the month which can hurt your bookings.
Teacher Cancellation
If you are out of luck and there is no other way to teach the class, then VIPKID gives you the option to cancel the class. When you cancel classes within a 24 hour period you will receive a fine for the missed class and it counts against your contract’s missed, canceled or no-show class tally.
Power Outage Prep
Power Outages Near Me
If you lose power, but you still have the internet on your phone, then check your local power outage map to see if it is localized to you or if you could jump in a car and be somewhere with power in a couple of minutes. I have even heard stories of teachers sitting outside a Starbucks teaching in their cars. So make sure to see what else is available as a plan B, and always screenshot everything you come across to send to VIPKID as evidence that you tried your hardest to teach the class.
Power Outage Emergency Kit Checklist
*****This is not a sponsored list and we do not receive any financial benefit from these items. This is a list of items that we currently own, have previously owned or have been recommended from friends.
*items that we currently have in our oh s*&t kit
External battery for phone
External battery for laptop
Ringlight with USB connector
Camping lantern that runs on batteries
Simcard from the local country
There are so many options for sim cards but my one piece of advice would be to check the coverage. Some of the best luck we have had when it comes to coverage and price is going to a local seven-eleven or other major convenience store and asking for a basic card that includes the internet.
We learned that it is good to be prepared while teaching online in Bangkok, Thailand in 2019 when the power in our hostel would go on and off at a moment’s notice. The first thing we learned was to get a local sim card with the internet attached and to not rely on the internet being a stable thing. They are so inexpensive and will save you with the option of a hotspot on your laptop.
Moral of the Story? Always Be Prepared
All jobs have there ups and downs. I will constantly say that the relationship I have with my students makes all of the struggles in the background worth it. I have really enjoyed working for this platform and in the end, all of the experiences have given me a better understanding of what I need to do to succeed when the walls cave in.
If you are interested in creating your own experiences with VIPKID or are looking for a great way to make money on the road, please feel free to contact me about how to get started. If you are a self-starter and just want to support us on our journey, please click this link for my referral to get started in your teaching career with VIPKID.
I hope you liked my stories and would love to hear your thoughts or your own stories with teaching online in the comments below. As always happy teaching and traveling!
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