Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xingyiman]

Well, that's the impression I get from nearly every expat I talk to these days. No one ever seems to have left a dead end job. No one has ever been paid less than $50,000 a year right out of college. No one ever worked at a hogwan in Korea. No one ever dated a less than perfect gal back home or had a string of galpal phone numers to call at their leisure. It's gotten to the point where I just can't believe anything I hear anymore because it's so BS laden. Does anyone here have a less than Hollywood story about why they came to SK? I feel like I'm in Wonderland.

[zpeanut]

If you read more on the board.. you'll see plenty of non-hollywood stories.

Ppl don't come to Korea to become pimps. Besides.. half of us are women.

[xingyiman]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I'm a PhD dropout and student loans defaulter who was getting seriously depressed and agoraphobic shortly before I came here. My girlfriend had left me for a job in France and I had maybe two dates in the year before I came here. I was making around $13,000 / year on a TA fellowship. Spending $10 on Thai take-away was a luxury. My future as a likely part-time uni instructor didn't look much more lucrative. I lived in a one-room apartment that had a five-year collection of used furniture.

I only wish that I had come to Korea sooner. I just got back from two weeks away and was warmly greeted by all my co-workers who were all really happy to see me again. It was my fourth holiday outside the country in the past year. Today I'll order something for lunch without even considering the cost. It's not exactly living the high life but I'll be the first to admit that I was no superstar who came to Korea for the sake of expanding my knowledge and altruism.

[xingyiman]

[Pooty]

Sorry, I'm not going to make up a sob story just to make you feel better. The first time I came to Korea, I was straight out of uni and I made a teachers salary. Even back in 1996, 2.7 plus housing was good. I worked for Halla Heavy Industries teaching business English. My E2 visa was sponsored by the company. I left 2.5 years later after IMF was in full swing. I went to work for several companies and later got on with IBM in their IT dept. I married my wife and after living in the states for 8 years, my father in law passed on. We came back for several reasons that I won't disclose here because it would probably be construed as bragging. I now work for a large Korean company and make 5 million a month. I didn't start out like that when I got here a year and a half ago. It took interviewing and job hunting and some patience. Same for my wife. She had 3 jobs before she finally got a job in her industry. My wife makes almost 3 million a month now. I have an F2 visa. I don't care about other people and why they're in Korea, I don't even ask people when I meet them why they chose to come to Korea, and I don't care if they were dirt poor before coming here, it's none of my business.

[billybrobby]

Ah, pooty, you're taking the fun out of this, nobody gives a sh*t if you're life was OK. I want to hear tales of woe and misery!

I worked at a Home Depot before I came here. Granted, I was still in college. 6 years of college. And 2 years of dating the same girl. That was the sad part.

[xingyiman]

[RyanInKorea]

[maddog]

Before I went to uni, I was getting paid about $50,000 a year. But that was living in Cardiff. A crappy apartment was costing about $800 a month and a car was a necessity. Add in the cost of insurance, road tax, fuel, council tax, tax for the sake of being taxed, etc, etc, and that 50K gets whittled down pretty quickly. On a super-tight month, I could save about $1000. But that meant staying in all month, and living off tesco value beans on toast. It's safe to say that I'm FAR better off with my my crappy 2.4M a month in Daegu than I was in Cardiff. On a crazy month, I save a million.

I'm sure there are some people who had good gigs back home, but decided to drop out of the rat race. But I'm sure there's a lot of BS on this board.

[nolegirl]

[Faunaki]

I was poor before I came here but that's because I messed up and began teaching ESL in 2002 and haven't stopped yet.

This is how poor I was (due to my shit job in Canada which was paying 26.25 an hour but couldn't cover rent, car insurance, gas, loans, etc.,):

On the 30th floor of a shitty download apt. near a park nicknamed sex park (all the homeless did it there), 4 of us rented a two bedroom. One girl in one room, one girl in the other and me and boyfriend changed living room into a room. We all shared the kitchen and bathroom. Rent for the hellhole was 1200 a month.

It sucked ass. That was a year ago in Canada. Now, in Korea, we have a house.

[Zutronius]

I was out of work in small town Ontario and wanted a change of scenery. I had $25,000 in student loans to pay off (down to $15,000 now). No credit card debt (never spend more than I can afford to pay off). I live pretty well here and send home a thousand a month to pay down debts and build up a small savings. The teaching has its good and bad days, but its generally good.

[Pooty]

I fly business class, nana-na na!

[bejarano-korea]

You haven't read 'whose wandering the wide world at 30 thread' or my post about my stint as a night security guard. I was a bum - then I got myself an education and now I'm here - I'm not ashamed to admit it!