On being the hired hand

I am a hired hand.  I teach in two places - one, a community college, as part of its ever-dwindling (due to constant budge cuts) fitness program; and one, an art gallery/cultural center.  I have a schedule.  I have one hour at the community college, which I regularly extend to at least 90 minutes, and my other two classes are exactly 75 minutes long.  No more, no less, or else, as the guy who runs the center puts it, we have to change the price he charges for classes.

And ya know what?  I don't even know how much he charges.  I have no idea, because it keeps changing.  I really should go to the website some time and look it up.  The community college class is free for students, and there is a really nominally small fee for non-students (no wonder they have budget problems, but I appreciate the idea that they feel a communuty college should have some sense of "community").

I no longer get paid for the community college class.  It became free after a round of budget cuts almost two years ago.  I am a volunteer.  Even when I got paid, it was seriously the equivalent of carfare.  The gallery pays me a little as a contractor so I can theoretically deduct some expenses.  Again, it is basically carfare as well. 

But pay is not the issue.  The issue, for me, is: is this a dojo?  The thought came up again this morning, when a dance teacher and I were talking about our relationship to our students.  She noted that it was a conundrum - to have some kind of relationship without getting so close that things students do or say start to affect you in some way (any way - good or bad).  And she said, "Well, you guys go out drinking, so you could be said to have some kind of relationship rather than just in the class itself."  I had to respond that even when I was at my old place, we did not go out like we had when I first started.  Somewhere along the line work obligations or family obligations or financial obligations had taken over.  Now, as a hired hand, I can truthfully say that opportunities like that are practically non-existent.  I spend more time socializing on my brief training visits to Japan than I do with my own students here. 

When I first started on my own, I tried to replicate my earlier model, which had worked successfully (and still does, actually, over there, where I started it), but it did not work a second time; whether because the times are different (space is more expensive, people are busier, etc.) or because I am different, or whether it is the catfish pond thing.  I could not charge enough to meet expenses and still make it affordable for the people I did have, and the market seemed to be saturated enough that there was no good way to stand out. 

All the same, I have begun to think about it again, maybe someplace closer to home.  I have refined my curriculum so it doesn't duplicate everyone else's.  And it would be really nice to be able to stay an extra ten minutes without someone calling "time."