Korean Job Discussion Forums

coler651 · Joined: 24 Jul 2007

From your experience what are the pros and cons of a male/female director and which is the best to work for?

Atavistic · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:09 am Post subject:

None. They're all crazy cheats.

coler651 · Joined: 24 Jul 2007

all crazy cheats? That is quite a grand sweeping generalization for someone to make. And I suppose government/public school is soooo much better, correct?

chinook · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Location: canada

I prefer female, because in the Confucian system or whatever, both already have age and position to lord over me, I'd rather not add gender to the mix. I've had two contracts; my female boss was so much better. But that doesn't really say much.

I think the best thing is to be working with someone who has themselves lived overseas. They are more sympathetic to your issues, I think. If not, my next criteria would be an ability to speak English, so that fewer communication issues come up. Gender isn't as important as either of those two things.

Atavistic · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject:

Well. I worked for several hogwon directors, all of whom had lived abroad, male and female.

There were two key people. They both spoke very good English and had lived abroad.

One lied about her education (saying she had a PhD in education when she didn't even have a BA in anything), tried to get us to stay and extra 90 mins to 2 hrs a day without overtime pay, wanted us to work Saturdays without overtime pay, and made us do the BS that Korean teachers do (riding the bus with kids, etc) without overtime pay. She also took away our planning periods, took away our lunch and separated the two foreigners during lunch "because we don't want you talking to each other."

The other screwed me out of more than 2 million won and got my butt evicted from my apartment by not paying my rent!! WITH NO NOTICE! I'm still battling her three months later.

Public school, I get paid on time in full. My apartment is the best I've had, one of my two coteachers is a pain in the butt but not nearly as bad as other people I've worked for. I get along with the Korean coteachers, my bosses let me leave early when I need to.

Yeah, a sweeping generalization based on my evicted-butt experience. YMMV.

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

in general, i'd rather work for a man here. korean women aren't well voiced in how to deal with leadership roles, and a lot of them go loopy on power trips. i've had some bad experiences with korean male bosses, too, but at least they tend to be semi-predictable. the women bosses i've had, on the other hand, have been out to lunch...on venus.