Thursday, December 06, 2012

I'm officially an educator--I think

Every so often I get a phone call from a market research company that does focus groups.  If you fit into a particular demographic and also fit into whatever they're currently studying, you get paid something to sit in a focus group for a couple of hours.  I've done several over the years, although I often don't qualify because I turn out not to eat enough fast food, drink enough wine, go on enough trips, buy enough boxes of chocolates...but I usually get picked for the groups where they're looking for people who don't do those things.  (It pays to be honest.)

Anyway, they usually ask you right away, when they call, if anyone in your house works for market research, public relations, or other conflict-of-interest companies.  Recently they added, "or is anyone in your house a teacher or educator?"  "Well," I said, "I do homeschool my kids.  Ha ha."  "Just a minute," the person said, "I'll ask my supervisor."  "Really?" I said, "It's not like I'm getting paid for it."  "Well, let me check anyway," she said. 

Back she came and, "No," she said, "or that is, yes--you do count as a teacher, so that disqualifies you from the group."

Well, how about that?  Somebody out there thinks I'm legit. 

Linked from the Carnival of Homeschooling at Our Curious Home.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Ok, so most of the time I have trouble convincing people to consider me teacher (like when a teacher discount applies). Sometimes I actually feel guilty saying I'm a teacher because our online curriculum (Time4Learning)really does most of the teaching for me. I love it that you were disqalified because they considered you a teacher! Congratulations, that's awesome!