Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Oreovictim]

Have you ever had a foreign coworker who did something so unprofessional that you just had to wince?

My foreign coworker, my Korean coworker, a student by the name of "Chris", and I were in the teachers' office. The student started to leave, and the Korean teacher called for him to come back. My foreign coworker then laughed and mocked her pronunciation right in front of her face, "Ca-ris-uh, ha-ha!"

It was an embarassing moment.

[bosintang]

[Atavistic]

The first woman I worked with dropped the F-bomb all day in kindergarten. Apparently though, this is OK in Korea since my replacement did the same.

She also once forgot her money at the grocery store. She asked me if I could spot her some cash. I couldn't, and some ajummas pushed in front of her. She then called them UGLY HAGS very loudly after saying, "I KNOW there's a word for 'excuse me' in Korean." She claimed that they wouldn't understand her. Three minutes later was complaining that Koreans are stupid because they talk about foreigners in Korean and we know they're talking about us, even if we don't understand.

One night I was having dinner with some high school boys from my taekwondo studio. She came to give me something and sat down next to a poor kid with a bad cold. Three times she looked at him and then me and said, "I'm not going to get AIDS from him, am I?" The high school boys kept calling her my friend. She doesn't speak Korean, so I said (in front of her), "No, she was my coworker. She's not nice. I don't like her and I didn't want to meet her. But she had a gift."

I know these things didn't happen AT work, but we lived in an area with very, very few foreigners. Everyone in the neighborhood knew who we were. She didn't think so, but shopkeepers were always asking me if I was friends with "the fat girl." Whatever she did influenced how they thought of me.

She's Canadian (Regina, baby!). And she's re-signed. Lucky Canada.

[mrsquirrel]

I worked in Thailand with some complete and utter numpties.

A Filipino lad who couldn't live in the town. He couldn't sleep there so he stayed nearly an hour and half away. He thought because he had 20 sick days that he should just use them whenever he didn't want to come to work, when he was sick he often came to work and slept in the sick room.

Same lad organised resits for students then didn't come. Called up the secretary and told her to reschedule them. I called him back and chewed his head off.

I went on a five day science camp. Came back to school at 11pm at night after being ont he go from 5am on a bus all day. I went to work the next day but only 10 kids turned up. 5 went to his class 5 to mine. He then sent his five kids to my class because there wasn't enough for him to teach. I was happy enough to have the kids but his excuse was somewhat crap falling on rather tired ears.

I tore him into little bits in front of all the teachers and the director. He couldn't see what was wrong.

Same lad was fired. I fired him. School insisted though that he be given a letter stating why he was being fired. Which was fine. I wrote a letter saying that his behaviour at school was unacceptable his inability to teach the correct cirriculum was in excusable and his constant lateness and sickness meant that we couldn't keep him on.

I warned the school that they should just not rehire him. There was no need to write a letter or anything. They insisted. He got it and then spent an hour crying to the director about how he needed the job. She gave in and let him stay.

What did he do. The same bloody thing again the next year.

His Filipina friend joined up as well at school. Nice woman, very good teacher, terrible money management. She got paid a decent salary, yet still kept borrowing money off the secretary downstairs who had only a third of her salary. She used to wait for people to leave the office and sneak in and borrow money from her or send her a txt message.

The poor girl couldn't say no since the teacher was older than her.

[koon_taung_daeng]

mrsquirrel did you by any chance work at a Sarasas school?

I only ask because they are known to hire any fillipino they can find and shove them all into one room to live in

[mrsquirrel]

No never at one of them.

We just had a bad run of useless Filipino(as). Soured the dirctor a bit.

[pest2]

I have to say I have had such moments... annoying, isnt it?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

At my first job two of my waygook co-workers got into a fight (with each other) after a staff dinner.

[Typhoon]

I have to admit I am often the one being unprofessional. Sometimes being unprofessional can be kind of fun. Lighten up a little guys.

[The Perfect Cup of Coffee]

[butlerian]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[oneofthesarahs]

I used to have a foreign coworker who used to try to get through her lessons as fast as possible, and then would just give the students word searches. She got away with it because at that time the native teacher classes weren't really monitored in any way. I have her to blame for my boss breathing down my neck all the time now, probably.

In her last two months she basically stopped teaching altogether, and would write snotty things in the student evaluations and in our daily log. She would say in reference to our director, "What's she gonna do, fire me?" She told one of the students that she hated him. She also gave candy out every day in every class because it was the only way she could get them to behave. All of the classes I inherited from her were bratty and spoiled and it took me a while to whip them into shape.

She liked spreading gossip around the office too, despite her total lack of Korean. Occasionally she would tell me that one of the Kteachers would be fired "any day now." That teacher still works there today. When I was a newbie to the school, I believed most of the gossip she told me (but did not repeat it), but I later came to find out that she just thought she was good at telling what Koreans were saying based on their facial expressions and tone of voice. She believed she was some sort of psychic. I was sort of seeing one of my coworkers for a while, but we were keeping it secret. (I know, I know, dipping my pen in the company ink....does that phrase work for females? The company pen is dipping in my ink? I don't know.) She managed to figure it out after overhearing a conversation, and SUDDENLY the whole staff knew. There were a couple of classes of students who knew...guess how. It was really annoying dealing with "Oooooh....do you and Mr. Kim KISS?!?? OOOOH!!"

[dogshed]

[dogshed]