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Daphne
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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If either atomic or kasparov have been former ESS employees then please spell out your experiences, otherwise best only to ask questions rather than give input.
From my count out of the 5 former native speakers who have worked for Ted and posted on this thread only the current employee seems satisfied which is saying very little. |
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maymay
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject: My two cents |
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It sounds like it is time for me to get in on this debate. I worked for ESS last year and my contract ended in August 2007 at which time I returned home, so from me you can get all the dirty details. I have no stake in the school anymore. However, there are no dirty details.
I have taught English for almost ten years (not all in Korea) and Ted's running of ESS is fine. It sounds like in the past there were some issues (around the time his father was dying which is probably a good explanation) but now Ted knows what he is doing. I was very happy during my time at ESS and would have stayed on except I was returning to university. I was paid on time, every month, and all taxes, bonuses, holidays etc. were done correctly.
Also, before I worked at ESS my previous contract in Korea ended (badly) and I was looking for a position. ESS was recommended to me by 3 different English teachers who had all worked with Ted and had moved on to university jobs with the help of the ESS reputation. The number one and two reasons they recommended ESS to me was Ted's honesty and ability to understand a foreigner mindset. I've read what others have written and understand that they disagree, however this is truly what I believe and am considering returning to work with Ted when I am done my studies.
To teachers reading this trying to decide whether you want to work at ESS, please remember teachers who have been with Ted for the last year or so have been happy and the people I knew who worked with him previously were happy.
Also, ESS does not have an odd schedule when taken into context! Most adults work from 9-5 or so, obviously adult classes would be empty if classes were offered at these times. That is not just in Korea, but anywhere!
Finally, I worked with happyspraffer and on her behalf want to say she is neither a liar nor blind to Ted's ways. She is a nice woman, who you have no right criticizing because she disagrees with you. She is a great teacher who supplied you with the honest answers asked for. You can no longer say whether they are the truth or not, you haven't worked there recently to know! I, however, have and she is telling the truth.
I enjoyed my time at ESS immensely. The students, staff, administration and management were great. I would highly reccommend it, especially to a best friend. |
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mspencer1983
Joined: 17 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| RachaelRoo wrote: |
Glass23, not paying medical is definitely a blacklistable offence, but you hurt your overall credibility with some of the other complaints you make.
You write:
5. I was lied to before I came to Korea about what I would be making for interviews and when I informed my boss of this once I got to Korea, he chose to ignore me.
I don't understand this. You were lied to in your interview, or you agreed to a specific wage for doing interviews with students....??
6. I strongly suspect that my boss pocketed my taxes that he took from my paycheck. He never gave me any paperwork to suggest otherwise, and I shouldn��t have to ask for it either.
Strongly suspect because you weren't given paperwork? You need more than that as evidence for your allegation. And what do you mean by "shouldn't have to ask"? "Shouldn't" by what standard?
7. My boss repeatedly refused to be reasonable and decent when teachers were negotiating their contracts. On occasion he even rejected every condition that a teacher asked for.
So what? He has every right to refuse whatever a teacher wants put in their contract, and that teacher has every right to walk away from the bargaining. If he can't get a potential teacher to agree to the contract he is offering and he won't change it, then he'll have to take a different approach if he needs a teacher. That's how a free market works. Furthermore, the teacher may have been making ridiculous requests.
8. He withheld the following money from me, which he would not pay me unless I finished my contract: the pension money that he deducted from my paycheck, my severance, the housing deposit, my vacation pay (which was reduced from the normal pay), and the cost of my flight home. This was one of the ways of forcing me to stay at ESS and trying to force me to put up with his abuse. (Severance pay is equal to one month��s salary, and it is the law that an employer must pay it to his/her employee once he/she has completed twelve months of work.)
hunh? Did you or did you not complete your 12-month contract? If you didn't, then you aren't entitled to severance or a flight home - and what do you mean by vacation pay? Did you take a paid vacation and still get money deducted from your pay for it, or do you think he owes you money for a vacation you didn't get because you left your contract early?
9. There was a total lack of organization in his managing. It seems that as soon as a teacher is hired at ESS, another one quits or is fired. Having teachers come and go all the time creates an unstable and unorganized working environment.
This is an annoying one I have to deal with at my hagwon too, but it is a cultural thing and the standard here.
10. My boss has repeatedly waited to the last minute to make decisions, which has cost the school more money and caused everyone at the school to experience unnecessary stress. My boss changed the vacation days for August with hardly any advanced notice time. That made it difficult for the teachers to plan vacations. He cancelled the ESS seminar day the day before it was to have taken place. If I had known that I would have that day off, then I could have planned a 3-day trip to Seoul or some other place. Further, he didn��t have Emma moved out of her apartment before Jen arrived. He moved me, Jen, and Julie into dirty apartments. He hired me, Julie, Jen, and Errol at the last minute, which only cost the institute more money and the teachers unnecessary stress because we didn��t have time to get properly oriented to ESS before we started teaching there. This irrational behavior of my boss�� has not changed. Two weeks before September started he still had two teachers to hire for September that he had not hired.
Same.
11. He continuously makes bad decisions in how he chooses to put money into the school. For example, why do the students need new lockers and a big screen TV in the lobby when one of the computers in the teachers�� room often gets a floppy disk stuck in it? The computers in the teachers�� room are running off of Windows 97, they don��t even have CD-burners, and one of them doesn��t even have a CD-Rom drive. The printers to the computers in the teachers�� room are constantly breaking down, and when teachers ask to have it fixed, they are repeatedly ignored. The copy machine in the teachers�� room never works. You would think that my boss would realize that only having one copy machine that works for a whole office full of teachers causes a lot of unnecessary stress for his teachers. I could go on.
It's his school and he is perfectly entitled to make bad decisions. Perhaps he felt that the school would attract more students with the t.v. in the hall, whereas buying a new printer for the teachers would not bring in more $$. Why do you care about this one?
14. My boss was charging teenage kids 40,000 won per hour for private lessons, but he was only paying the teachers 16,500 won per hour to teach these kids. In one case in particular, he had a 12-year-old boy paying 40,000 won per hour for a teacher, who had no teaching experience.
I find this complaint to be the strangest. He is charging for lessons with a foreigner - you teach for the overtime rate agreed to, and the student pays what is agreed to. What does it matter that the teacher had no experience and why would you care about that? Most of us had no experience when we came here - we all have to start somewhere.
20. Also, Aria and Julie are not the only cases of my boss trying to cheat his teachers out of their severance pay. There was another teacher my boss tried not to pay his severance to. He also tried not to pay this teacher his flight money. Because the school was losing students, my boss simply chose to blame it on this teacher, and he fired him before he could even finish his contract.
What matters here is when the teacher was fired - at the 11 month mark or after a few months? One girl at my school almost got fired for gross incompentence at the six month point, and she felt she should be entitled to half of her severance pay - even though she isn't and trust me, she really did deserve to be fired (constantly late, that kind of thing).
It's not my intention to rip you apart. Not paying the medical and giving you a crap apartment are not o.k., but most of your complaints are either lacking in the necessary detail or are illegitimate things to complain about. Also, you write quite a lot about how your boss inherited his money - yes it's annoying that we live in a system where people don't always work for what they have, but that's irrelevant to your point and it takes attention away from your legitimate complaints. |
why would you take this kind of time out of your day to defend the actions of a horrible korean employer??? you are just DIGGING for every little thing to defend. people like you are the worst thing about korea. there's nothing more digusting than a foreigner eating their own. get a fucking life. |
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Daphne
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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Dear maymay:
Please give some statistics as far as the average number of native teachers employed during both the peak winter and summer months and the off months as well. Great if you could give an approximate average of how many students were enrolled in classes taught by native speakers during such periods also... |
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maymay
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| On average ESS employs about 6 foreign teachers, during peak times the students we receive are usually from highschool or uni (adults don't get breaks from their jobs). The foreign teachers do not usually deal with the highschool or uni students unless they are asked if they would like to do overtime work teaching intensive courses on their off hours. ASKED is the key word, I accepted this offer for the overtime but I know of another teacher who turned it down and Ted didn't pressure her at all. The average class size is about 8. There is a limit of 14 students per class and I, like happyspraffer, also had to turn students away. However, I also had one small class. Happyspraffer already answered these questions, and I said I agreed with her answers in my last post. I have now shown my support for ESS and their teachers, which was all I wanted to do. I am not going to argue over the details. I honestly do not feel Ted is a "bad Korean boss" but in fact a good one. |
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Buddhabelly
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Quite curious to know whether the likes of maymay and happyspraffer asked Ted regarding all his blacklistable offences before signing up with ESS (as these unscrupulous doings have now been well-publicized over the web for quite a while now).
If they did, and he denied it he is an ABSOLUTE LIAR and the people and papers to prove his dishonesty are available on very short notice.
If they didn't even ask, then they are ignorant, foolish, moronic, sappy, obtuse, imbecilic, etc.
If they asked, and he confirmed his wrongdoings, and they still signed up.....well they are certainly even much more of a failure as a human being than Ted himself. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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If the accusations levelled at this school are true and he is still allowed to advertise on this site it proves a few things.
1. Dave's doesn't screen prospective advertisers and is all about money.
2. Dave's doesn't really care about teachers and is really all about money from prospective employers and advertising (shock!)
3. The forum is really only set up so he can show said prospective employers that his site gets a lot of traffic. It is not really for us posters.
But I'll keep posting here anyway as I'm bored. This shows that
1. I'm fickle
2 A lot of my convictions lack courage.
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glass23
Joined: 19 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:56 am Post subject: He he. |
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| Buddhabelly, of course, it also means that they were so unprofessional that they didn�t even look on Dave�s to check up on their prospective employer before they took the job. Happyspraffer may not have even known this website existed before she took the job. It wouldn�t surprise me as she�s obviously not a veteran teacher. I have to agree with your description of maymay and happyspraffer. I�d like to add another vocabulary word of the day to describe them though. Let�s see if we can get the students to repeat after me: MENDACIOUS! |
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glass23
Joined: 19 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 12:12 am Post subject: Beware -- Another ESS job ad on Dave's |
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Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. ESS is advertising on Dave's again. http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=38969 What courage! They were using a recruiter for a while to hide from all the bad press they've gotten here. It's a wonder they're still in business, what with YBM across the street and all the bad press they've gotten. They must have had more money stored away for a rainy day than they were letting on to us lowly underpaid, overworked teachers. At least they've gotten a native speaker to edit the job ad this time around. The English is actually presentable.
"English Speaking Society Looking for a qualified teacher Teaching Adults in a Beautiful Coastal City - Busan, Korea
Posted By: English Speaking Society <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, 15 September 2009, at 9:50 a.m.
English Speaking Society has a teaching position available in the ECO department (English Communication by Objectives; native English speaker-guided grammar and conversation classes) beginning December of 2009 or January of 2010. Established in 1960, ESS is the oldest and most reputable institute in Busan. We currently maintain a native English-speaking staff of five.
Benefits:
2.1 ~ 2.4 million Won/month base pay; higher depending upon education and
experience
One month paid vacation
6 hours/day, 5 days a week; 20 days a month; no mandatory weekend classes
Opportunities for extra pay
Classes: between 2-13 adults per class
Good pay and free furnished housing arrangements
Severance: one month's pay
Airfare paid to and from
Insurance : 50% subsidized national medical insurance
Requirements:
4 year college degree
Enthusiastic, conversational, friendly personality preferred
Business administration majored preferred
Teaching and travel experience preferred
Please contact us for more information.
Kim, Taekyun, Vice-director
[email protected]
38-1, 1-ka, Kwangbokdong, Jung ku
Busan, Korea 600-031
82-51-257-3355" |
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cdninkorea
Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:46 am Post subject: |
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| A month paid vacation is great for a hagwon. |
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glass23
Joined: 19 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:02 am Post subject: Progress? |
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| Quote: |
| A month paid vacation is great for a hagwon. |
Rebellion, class struggle, and protesting do eventually have positive consequences, especially if enough people are willing to step forward as has been done in this thread. At the end of the day though if you sign on with ESS you're still left working for an employer who doesn't care about you but is only trying to appease you. Just keep that in mind. You will always be a foreigner and a pawn to them. |
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Grantasmagoria
Joined: 04 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:14 am Post subject: Re: Progress? |
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| glass23 wrote: |
| You will always be a foreigner and a pawn to them. |
And how is this different from every other ESL job in Korea?
Man, one month of vacation? Beats the heck out of public schools. |
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Daphne
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:04 am Post subject: |
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First of all, yours truly would like solid confirmation of the major incentives listed in the new ESS ad (such as the very long holiday and 2.4 milli a month and up in pay) from multiple erstwhile employees.
Just as important, is KTK (Ted) finally ballsy enough to come on this forum and answer about all of his misdeeds and mismanagement over the last decade?
And my dear glass, ESS has kept going due to the aforementioned person's huge inheritance upon his father's passing. The joke floating around Busan over the last few years is that ESS stands for Everyday Same s**t! |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Home sweet home
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| I applied with them a bit ago and they finally got back to me. Ted said that the one month was a typo and that it was really 10 days. I had a current teacher email me. She said the hours were really tough to get used to. NOt really sure what to believe, but there seems to be a lot of controversary over this school, which can't be a good thing. |
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cdninkorea
Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:12 am Post subject: |
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| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| I applied with them a bit ago and they finally got back to me. Ted said that the one month was a typo and that it was really 10 days. I had a current teacher email me. She said the hours were really tough to get used to. NOt really sure what to believe, but there seems to be a lot of controversary over this school, which can't be a good thing. |
Of all people, you're thinking of coming to Korea? I've read some of your posts while perusing the Latin America board, and I have to ask: why would someone who's married, owns property, has lots of connections for privates, etc. be interested in a move to South Korea?
(don't take offense to this- I'm merely curious!) |
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