Korean Job Discussion Forums

[joesp]

guys,
----- E-2 is a scurge
----- E-2 need drug tests
----- E-2 needs AIDS test
----- E-2 needs apostille and criminal background check
----- immigration doesn't like E-2 and is very hard on that.

however, Korea just wants to be able to respect its teachers, that's all. Not discrimination. Not racism. Not denigration. Respect~~~~

[oskinny1]

[joesp]

I had 3 or 4 E-2 visas, but now I got an E-7 which is 'translator/interpreter'. I'm gonna be just the CHECKER but anyhow. No transcripts, no diploma, no health check, no apostilled letter, and I overstayed my visa and don't have to go back to my home country, all cuz it's not an E-2. One way most teachers look at it, at first, is that they're getting screwed, and heck an E-7 is better than an E-2 (at least for me, enough of those classrooms....)....

[OnTheOtherSide]

It is what it is......

If you think it sucks then why did you go through with it?

I thought that it sucked too. But I felt it was worth it in order to get the job here in Korea, so I jumped through the hoops and now I am dancing around with stacks of money like a rap video.

If you think it's so bad, go teach ESL in another country.

Personally, I don't think it is too bad. After all, we are working with kids. And we are working in a competetive industry with a lot of money changing hands. They have to make sure we are at least somewhat decent and qualified.

[KoreanAmbition]

I recently went through the entire process.

I had to do more work and pay more money to prepare my application to work at this university than I did for the process to get the E2.

I don't see the big deal. Yeap, it's a hassle, but so is a large number of other things in life....for example, wait till you go to buy a house.

[Starla]

It's not bad if it goes smoothly on the non-Korean end and you have the ability to travel to the necessary offices. I went through a lot just to get my documents ready. This is going to be long but I need this opportunity to vent...

First, one of the recruiters I dealt with told me that due to a spelling discrepancy in my first name (one letter) that doesn't match with my passport name, the schools may not accept my Diploma as is. It's a letter that is pronounced differently in my native language than in English. So I had to go down to my college and get my Diploma changed to match my passport exactly. Boy was that a headache! If I told you the whole story, you wouldn't believe it. Besides everybody not being able to get a thing straight in my former college, I had to apply for a name change which took over a week but should have taken a couple of days because they put my papers to the side and forgot about them. Then I had to apply for the new Diploma and nobody could get it straight how long it would take. I was ready to go down to the college and take away my original Diploma because they were holding onto it and now said it would take 3 weeks instead of 1 week as promised when I asked for confirmation. Between being accused of not showing my receipt for the spelling change payment which I did and was told to keep and having to go down to my college about a half dozen times to get everything completed, I was supremely pissed! Well, that's when I summoned the b*tch in me and I got my Diploma in 3 days rather than 3 weeks. But that wasn't until they showed me how disorganized and uncoordinated they all are at my college.

Part 2...I had to get my new Diploma Apostilled. I had done it before with the old Diploma so I knew the drill. First go get it notarized at the Department of State and then get it Apostilled at the Certification Unit. Well, you'd think getting things notarized is a straightforward task. So I had to see this notary who was so nice to the person before me, telling her how well her parents had raised her because she's oh so pleasant and well-mannered! Well, this notary turned into a b*tch on wheels for lack of a better term when I asked to have my Diploma notarized. She told me I had to get a certification signature from a school official saying this is truly my Diploma before I could get it notarized. I told her I had just got my old Diploma notarized a few weeks ago with no problems with the guy working right next to her and I pointed to him. She asked me what did I want to do about that. WTF? I said to please notarize it since he was able to do it so I doubt the rules changed in the last couple of weeks. She told me to read the paper that states it needs to be certified by a college official and she circled the paragraph for me. I said I did it before and I should be able to do it again. She let that go so she told me where's my copy of my diploma. I said I tried to make a copy but all the copy machines in the front are broken. She said, really!? There's some copy machines in the back. I said how am I supposed to know there's any in the back if they're behind doors and there's no signs pointing to the room? So I said I'll make a copy there and I'll be right back. Well, when I came back to the notary desk, this time the guy who had originally done a notarization of my diploma called me over. He told me I was probably wondering why his co-worker was giving me such a hard time. I said yes. He told me it's because a lot of countries are being strict nowadays and Italy requires that a diploma first be certified by a college official before getting notarized and this is why she made a fuss. I said so this rule applies only to Italy? He said yes. I said that there's a whole lot of countries in this world besides Italy that this rule does not apply to then, right? He said yes. I just kept giving this lady dirty looks not only for her rudeness but for her idiocy.

This is to illustrate that what's frustrating is not the documents that are needed to get the VISA but the time and effort that's required to get everything together, especially when people in government offices don't know what in the world they are doing even though that's their job and they have nasty attitudes. It's a good thing I'm off from work right now because I spent many days running around to various offices getting my diploma, criminal background check and all the notarization/Apostille business completed. I had to take time off from work to do it or just take longer lunches. So in the end, I'm upset with government employees in New York and how inept they are and not Korea necessarily. I have nothing to hide so I don't mind getting all these things done for them since I'm hoping they have high standards for me as I do for them.

[ardis]

I'm on the F-4 and had to the HIV test, drugs test, etc. If you work for the public school system, you HAVE to. My co-teachers all have to do that stomach test thing where they shove a tube down your throat to check your insides, so...the blood sample doesn't really bother me.

[PRagic]

I have an F5, but I still have to submit an updated CBC. The funny thing is though, I've been over here for so long that they said them might just roll over my older one. I also have to submit the health check, although I doubt they check for any drug use.

Basically, I have to submit everything that a Korean prof has to submit. No discrimination here.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I wouldn't mind so much if (a) Korea Immigration actually knew how getting docs in other countries works and (b) if they kept a bloody data-bank so that we didn't have to submit the same docs every damn time.

[matthews_world]

Do we really want our privacy stolen and our lives invaded this way?

I'd rather do the paperwork than let someone break into a computer file.

[BritishinSuwon]

Why is this such a surprise? Or, I guess the better question is, why is it such a big deal that we are expected to provide these things? After all, we are working with children (or most of us here are). I would hope that anyone who works with children should be subjected to checks and balances in order to weed out any potential problems.

[some waygug-in]

So why don't other visas require this?

So as long as a p#$%^&** marries a Korean, they are good to go?

Yeah, that makes sense.


Read through a bit of this thread and see. It's not the requirements that are unreasonable, it's the mis-information, inconsistancy, constant changes and other useless BS that are the problem:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=132868

[Summer Wine]

[koreandefence]

[Young FRANKenstein]