Korean Job Discussion Forums

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

Ok, let's see if I can word this right...

In the years I've been here, I've encountered both good and bad in Korea. I've worked in a number of companies and made a decent living at it.

But sometimes (and it comes in waves), I get a little fed up with things here and find myself noticing the 'faults' more than the good.

A thread on here reminded me about something that occasionally happens to me - I think something is one way, and it turns out to be another.

A few months back me an my bud were walking down the street by my house chatting away (nothing loud). The woman in front of us seemed all pensive and kept looking back. She did it 5 or 6 times, and I nudged my friend and siad 'WTF does she keep looking at us? Does she think we're going to do something??'.

Two seconds later, she found the cab she had been looking for. Embarassed

Yesterday, I went by a business card shop to get a set of cards done up. The old guy in the front was polishing all the medals and such, and I showed him what I wanted. He kept telling me 'no' and to 'go away'. It was only about 5:00 pm and I was thinking 'WTF, why doesn't he want my patronage? Maybe it's the English on the card or something."

I decided to go back today and try again. This time it was a totally different guy who actually knew what he was doing. I realized, the other guy was just a cleaner (this is a one man shop), and that he was trying his best to tell me that.

/shrug

So, anybody else take anything the wrong way, and willing to fess up about it?

Underwaterbob · Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Location: In Cognito

My worst forays were when I first starting ordering take out. Once one place kept asking me some questions I didn't understand over and over until I finally got exasperated and told them to never mind as best I could and hung up. I took off and went downtown to get something to eat. While I'm eating my lunch I get a phone call from the delivery person at my door with my food wondering why I wasn't home.

I didn't order from there again for a long time. The next time I did they remembered and actually apologized to me realizing I probably couldn't understand what they were going on about.

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

skconqueror · Joined: 31 Jul 2005

Well there was the time last week when I went to pay my phone bills. The guy looked at my Samsung card and promptly ran away with it... I could hear him asking his supervisor if foreigners were allowed to have Korea credit cards. Oh wait, no he was just being a moron.. never mind

ps. have you been working overtime since homer left? How is the mod position treating you? Fed up yet?

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

IwalkAlone · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Daegu

I called up a pizza shop at 10ish one night. A Korean man answered and I placed my order. He kept asking me who I was, and I kept repeating that I was an American and would like a damn pizza. I couldn't figure out what the hang up was (lived here for over 3 years and my Korean and pronunciation was fine). Well he finally hangs up on me.

I call back, a bit pissed, thinking maybe he was being lazy, or he didn't want to deal with a foreigner. So I told him "I want to order a pizza! Why can't you just deliver the damn thing to a foreigner??" He hangs up again, but first gives me some attitude.

So I took a seat and calmed down some, and as I was staring at the pizza add, I realized that I had been calling a local pizza shop with my cell phone. I was entering the regular number, without the area code (053 I'm in Daegu). My cell was defaulting the number to 010-xxx-xxxx instead of 053-xxx-xxxx. So I was calling some poor guy on his cell at 10 at night demanding a pizza.....

It's not always Korea's bad...

Cheonmunka · Joined: 04 Jun 2004

Take your cleaner guy. You spoke Korean with him, yet he says, "No," either in English or Korean and perhaps flicks his hand at you as he says, "Go away"-or 가, 가," kind of rudely. If the man simply told you, "I'm sorry, I am the cleaner," all would be completely understood, yet what he did was actually quite rude. I think you can be exempt for being angry. I've had very similar things as that occur.

But, they should also expect me to curse them when they do like that.

GoldMember · Joined: 24 Oct 2006

The classic one is when something bad happens, and instead of dealing with it seriously the Korean person giggles. There's a Korean saying that you can't be angry at a smiling face.

Hey I just ran over your foot and crushed your toe HA HA HA, still as human reactions go, it seems damm idiotic.

jinks · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Location: Formerly: Lower North Island

I arrived at the railway station to find a long queue to buy tickets. I got in the line and winked at the little girl in front who was staring up at me. I got my paperback out of my pocket and absorbed myself in a chapter as the line snaked towards the ticket counter. I was reading for a while when a lady kept trying to push in front of me 'Oy! Where are you going?' I growled at her, she gave me a withering look and said 'here' pointing to the gap in front of me. 'Not likely' I told her and froze her out. Anyway, the woman got behind me and was cooing to her kid about the nasty foreigner, I turned around to tell her to mind her mouth and I got a hell of a shock to see her holding the little girl who was in front of me when I joined the queue. When I was next in line for a ticket counter I invited the woman and child to go next. I must have looked pretty embarrassed, but the look on the woman's face was priceless.

xingyiman · Joined: 12 Jan 2006