Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

I've been working since 4th grade and, given that I'm a serial job-changer, I've had a lot of experience with various vocations. Although some have been pretty cool (black-and-white developing, CD shop, coffee shop, testing new exhibits at a science museum), I've had my fair share of unenviable duties (office janitor, busboy at a snobby restaurant, Best Buy sales position).

Because of my experience with all types of duties, I've long enjoyed comparing other people's situations to my own. Of course, every country has terrible jobs that no one ever dreams of doing, but hey we're living in Korea, so..

I'll list a few of the jobs I've seen people doing that I really would not ever want to do.

1. Parking lot attendant at a large store. It's bad enough just standing around for hours upon end, but the worst part is them having to breathe in all the exhaust fumes. Plus, the heat in summer, cold in winter.

2. This one I saw in the subway station the other night. There was this platform on wheels. Two ajummas were on top, wielding rags with which to wipe off things on the ceiling. At the bottom was a semi-eldery gent pulling them along. I'm not sure which of them had the worst job.

3. Salarymen. Can hardly think of a more horrifying fate for oneself than becoming a salaryman in Korea.


Feel free to add your own ideas of the worst jobs Korea has to offer. (If you say ESL teacher yer outa the club.)


p.s. mindmetoo - make that video! I'm sure it would be funny.

[sock]

Pink puddle-of-puke cleaner-upper.

Any job that would require me to touch one of those ubiquitous filthy mops, bathroom cleaning/maintenance of any kind, especially toilet paper trashbin emptier.

Maid/cleaner at a love hotel.

Room salon girl.

Bus driver.

Korean English teacher in a public school.
It's got to suck when you are so incredibly incompetent, and in such an overexposed way that pretty much everyone knows you're an idiot.

[caniff]

화장실 아줌아

[Lizara]

I've often thought that being a bargirl in Itaewon has to be one of the worst jobs out there. At least when I get harassed by horny guys in Itaewon, I have the option of telling them to *beep* off and leaving.

Those guys that stand guard by the blue buildings at Panmunjeom. I'd hate to spend my whole day staring at half a wall. I wonder what they think about.

Traffic cop at a busy intersection. You get to wave your arms around and blow a whistle, but you have to spend hours standing in the middle of tons of cars and buses and scooters and ... who aren't paying the slightest bit of attention to you.

Department store worker... the ones who stand around five feet from each other and harass whoever wants to try to shop for anything.

The halmonis and harabojis who go around collecting recycling.

[freshking]

The Chinese food delivery guys on scooters. They run their a**es off in all weather and have to ride like idiots through Korean city traffic. I've seen two of them go down hard in my time here. Nothing nice about a bloody, road rashed guy covered in 자짱면

[blynch]

The mods.

Do they get paid (by mr. sperling) or just have too much free time on their hands?

[Mashimaro]

foreign factory worker

[Dev]

Street vendors - The job is so boring that many of them have tv sets to pass the time away.

Restaurant flyer person - the people who decorate your apartment door with garbage.

Waiter / waitress - because you have to run to the customer's table when he / she shouts "yogi -o!" I don't know how polite Korean customers compared to westerners, but neither would win any politeness awards from restaurant staff.

[jdog2050]

[Reflections]

[cruisemonkey]

Ashtray cleaner. Imagine having to ladle out gallons of ajoshi phlegm.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Pretty far down on my list of jobs not mentioned so far is sitting on the sidewalk in all kinds of weather selling garlic, right next to a dozen other old ladies selling exactly the same thing.

Next is the toilet shop owner. Just how often do people go window shopping for a new crapper?


To balance things out, if I ever get tired of teaching English, I want to graduate to Popcorn Boy at a nice, not very busy, bar/hoff--a place where no one ever again asks me a grammar question. My ideal would be to work at a place called Base Camp in Taejon.

[SPINOZA]

Sure thing, Korea has some of the most eye-popping-out-ingly crap jobs I've seen and for such low pay.

The one that always gets me is the greeter at the Emart/Homever entrances.....

"감사합니다....블라블라블라습니다" with a bow, constantly.

And parking lot pointers and bowers. I live opposite an Emart, and whilst the staff of pointers and bowers rotates with university students working part time and stuff, there's one girl who's been doing that job since I came (Aug 2005) almost every day of the week. She's such a legendary figure that I've taken a photo of her in mid-bow.

[mindmetoo]

Anyone remember the elevator babes?

[Qinella]