Is Teaching a Good Job?

If teaching is a great thing, teachers are the least paid in the economy. At least in France where teaching languages is one step from starving. And that is true for the large companies that charge a fortune their students (in general businesspeople whose companies want or need them to speak another language for professional reasons) and a very small part of it goes to the teacher. And that is a contradiction because the teachers are the second main important persons in the organization. Salespeople are, indeed, the main actors who sell languages lessons. But without the teachers, no school, in this case the company, could make money. Because the students have in front of them human beings who are, all the time, trained teachers who do the real job. But in France, and in large organizations, as well as in smaller ones, management act like in all companies: they think that they are important when in reality they are only hurdles and very often incompetent and therefore useless for the company.
So teachers are underpaid and also poorly regarded. Well that is not the only sector of the economy where the most important people of an organization get the worst paycheck monthly. But the French system is based on incompetency and non democratic ways of managing a company and people. One could write books about this and still would miss a lot of points. The problem is that that the system here is still like it was in the dark ages: one person gets (through force and relations, not to mention political help) to the top job of a company and thinks that it is his or her company. Therefore does not act as a normal and modern manager but as if he or she has the knowledge and as if it is only him who knows the truth. For him (more than for women manageress) everyone is wrong but him. So we can easily guess what is happening next: when the company does well (and it is not common unless the manager is from another country: we have a lot of such examples in France) it is him who is the main responsible for the good results. But when it does not go well, it is everyone else fault.
And teaching in schools, whether they are elementary, secondary or universities and of course private ones, is exactly the same picture. And to add another bad aspect, the pay is bad.

Fast Food and (Bad) Quality in France

If France has been known for its food and its gourmet dishes it might very well be something of the past. Today every bakery, eatery, even some restaurants offer a sandwich to carry out or some dishes for those who are in a hurry and cannot sit to have a real lunch. Furthermore, one can go to any supermarket and buy either a sandwich or even a ready-made dish that he or she just needs to heat to eat. However, this food whether it is a frozen dish or a sandwich bought in a french chain of supermarket is absolutely disgusting. The taste, if it has one, is of plastic and eventually a artificial sauce or dressing that has no flavor. In the bakeries, even the bread looks like a piece of plastic made a few days before and once in your mouth tastes everything except what a real "baguette" should taste: flower and yeast. Where are the old days where every city in France used to smell great bread in the early morning and where the taste of this very popular "baguette" or "viennoiserie" was just fantastic and made you dream while you had it in your mouth.
In fact what I want to point out is that the French who are still thinking that they are the only ones in the world who know what good food is, have lost something important in life: what a good dish, piece of bread or a pastry could make your day a happy one. They used to laugh at the Americans who, according to them, did not know what good food is and how important a good meal could be.
Believe it or not, the worst dishes (in general ready made and even in a lot of so-called French restaurant for mid-income people) I have ever had in my life are those I ate and still eat (unfortunately) in Paris. Even the famous "quiches", that you could have with a lot of different flavors, are not what they used to be. To get a good one, you have to cook it yourself or go to another country where people give some importance to food.
So to come back to what I was saying, I had the best dishes in my life in the USA (and in London and in Brazil, two other places where I lived) and not in Paris or in France. Why is that?
Well I would like to know but it is a fact that the worst Pizzas, to take another example, I have ever had in my life are also in Paris. Unless you go to an expensive restaurant where the chef is Italian. Even Pizza Hut in France (not to mention McDonald's) is not good. It is much better in England and even in Morocco.
If I want to have a good sandwich or a good ready-made dish I need to go to a bakery (but not all, only some are still good: so one has to know which one) or to .... Marks and Spencer where frozen food is great. The other day I had an Indian dish in a french supermarket that I just had to put in the microwave for 5 minutes to eat: it has a taste of tomatoes, nothing more. But I have bought often the same dish at Marks and Spencer and not only it was cheaper but much, much better. It had the taste of the same dish that one can have in a good Indian restaurant.
It is a pity that even the international fast food chains taste differently in French. I still don't understand why but it is a fact.
Too bad.