Korean Job Discussion Forums

[maddog]

This board is awash with complaints of dishonest employers, mid-term contract changes, failure to pay severance and flight, pension and health deductions that are never actually paid in.

I have a friend who WAS considering coming to Korea, but changed his mind after reading some of the posts on this board.

I have worked for two employers on two seperate occasions in Korea. The first one shafted me completely. I was in-experienced and came here on a tourist visa with the promise that my E-2 would be arranged within days.....oh, and that my airfare would be re-imbursed on arrival. My airfare was never re-imbursed, my salary was light, and my visa run was stalled indefinately. I left after 11 weeks, still on a tourist visa, and with an empty wallet.

My current employer is trying to screw me. I gave about 2 months notice. I was informed that I'd get half of January's salary at the end of Jan, with everything else being paid on my last day. There's another thread on this so......

I'm ranting. Anyway, I just wanted to ask - are dishonest/dodgey/unscrupulous employers the norm rather than the exception in Korea?

For those of you who've worked in other countries, is Korea any better/worse than those countires. I have worked in Thailand and Vietnam and, while the money wasn't as good, the overall experience was much better.

I put my first Korean experience down to bad luck, but I'm now starting to wonder if the Korean ESL industry is symptomatically dishonest.

[lover.asian]

I've taught in several other countries in Asia, and yes, the Korean ESL experience is by far the worst.

Most ESL professionals won't even consider teaching in Korea because of their poor reputation.

That being said, I find Korean language learners very stimulating and I really enjoy them. They are the real losers, as most have to travel overseas to get proper ESL instruction.

[Kimchieluver]

Get into a public school!

[dulouz]

Yea its a crap shoot. I've seen some real bad ones. That angry-stress "gonna punch my boss" feeling can really wreck your state of mine. One time I was cranked off I burned all of Korea souvenirs and I shouted bad things at the survey takers.

[Bibbitybop]

Kimchieluver has the best answer, and if you can't get into a public school, do your research. Remember, the people who love it in Korea don't get on eslcafe.com and write about it much. The amount of bad postings would probably equal the good ones, but most people don't need to "vent" the good things that happen here.

[ESeufert]

it seems like it's only a roll of the dice if you don't do the legwork. You flew to Korea on a verbal agreement that your airfare would be reimbursed? That's your own fault.

[lover.asian]

[ttompatz]

[wylies99]

OP- the fact that you know about this site and have this much info available to you helps you a great deal.

[ChuckECheese]

So you crapped out twice in a row. Maybe next time you'll get lucky and roll 7-11.