Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dulcineadeltoboso]

At my hogwan, teachers are on-site for seven hours a day. The first hour is unpaid planning/meeting time, and the other six hours are for a maximum of 6 50-minute classes. We usually have 2 to 6 free class periods per week, which we use for planning, meetings, paperwork, textbook editing, monthly evaluations, or interviewing new students, but rarely for personal time or break time, unless it's to crouch in an empty darkened classroom for 15 minutes to have a snack. We stay busy all the time. We barely have time to get everything done, but we manage.

None of this has been a problem until recently. Now our hogwan is getting more students and our paperwork and prep time is increasing as our free periods are decreasing. This means that we'll have to put in more time doing non-classroom work. When we were hired, we were told that our one unpaid hour per day was all the prep time we needed to put in, but it's impossible to do everything they want us to do in one hour. The director is complaining because the quality of our work is decreasing and we're not completing our paperwork on time. She's right. Anyway, to make a long story longer, here's what I think should happen.

My solution is that they:
1.give us less non-teaching work or
2. they have us stay late and pay us 15,000 won/hour overtime.
I think this is reasonable since reducing our non-teaching work would be as simple as excusing us from the daily staff meetings that are conducted in 90% Korean. If they don't want to do that, then paying us overtime at a low 15,000 won/hour wouldn't exactly bankrupt them.

Their solution is to have us do our paperwork and planning at home, obviously unpaid. They're holding firm to this proposal because teachers at other branches bring their work home and do it for free. We're holding firm against it because we were told that our planning would consist of coming in early one hour a day, period. It's important to us that we put our foot down now, since they have a record of trying to make us do extra unpaid work, like inviting us to lunch on our day off, telling us to meet them at the office, and then when we get there, having us give English tests to job applicants who they just happen to be interviewing that day. Sometimes the directors just show up at our apartment on our day off so we can have meetings with them. But back to the current situation.

In the meantime, we're spending all our non-class time holding so-called meetings over this issue. These "meetings" are turning into arguments that are getting uglier and more disturbing by the minute, not to mention it wastes everyone's time. Since the value of our time is the main cause of the disagreement, it's sadly ironic.

So the question is, what do we do? Do you do more planning time than I do? Do you do less? If it's more, did you agree to do more when you were hired? What is my obligation? The contract is ambiguous, but we were told that our prep would be one hour a day.

Our directors aren't monsters; they've compromised in the past, but I don't think it's going to happen this time.

[Derrek]

If you approach them and make it an issue that you are working more than your one hour of prep time, you risk being looked at as a thankless, lazy, mouthy individual who is selfish.

In other words, you are at risk of acting like a foreigner in a society where everyone else takes it like a lemming.

The decision you make is yours. Do you put up with it, or do you rock the boat because you are sick of it?

The key is in the presentation of the argument to your boss. Point out that things are going well at the school. Student numbers have increased, and you are proud that the school's (choke) programs have paid off. Kiss his/her butt. Smile. Act like the director is a hero for putting together such a great program and it's so great to be a part of it (choke, choke).

But then suggest kindly that you don't mind working overtime to meet the new demands of increased enrollment -- it's a good thing for the school, because to keep the success going by keeping with what works, more time must be put in.

At this time, pause for a few seconds, then as a kind suggestion, ask if it would be possible to consider paying the teachers for that extra 30 minutes to an hour it takes to do the work, since it was agreed early on that there would be just one hour of prep.

Kindly say that this will surely solve the problem that things are slacking off a bit with the prep work, and things could continue to prosper more easily.

If the boss doesn't agree to it, then decide if it's worth it to you to stick it out until the contract is over, or go home.

If he does agree to it, you will have praised him and his school, appeared to really give a darn, and get your extra $$.

Whether or not you decide to become a hard-ass on the issue of working too much if he says no is up to you.

[dulcineadeltoboso]

Derrek:
I agree that we should try to make our suggestion seem like a collaborative effort where everyone is trying to do what's best all-around, and your suggestion is pretty much how the meeting started. I think that's why we spent so many hours and not getting anywhere, though. Neither side wanted to give in, but neither side wanted to be blunt about it, so we spent a lot of time trying to be diplomatic before we all got tired of it and started directly speaking our minds, which soon degenerated into an argument. When things got confrontational, it pretty much went down the way you guessed. They accused me of being lazy and a bad teacher (though they've observed enough of my classes to know better).

Still, I won't let them set the precedents that 1. Insulting and intimidating me will get me to cooperate and 2. They can give me as much work as they want and I have to do it, no matter how long it takes. I'd rather quit than work under those conditions. I don't know if they'd rather fire me than pay me overtime.

The situation is more complicated than what I've talked about, but it would take another really long post to explain it all. Briefly, I can say that this was partially due to the fact that I took a shortcut on some reports I had to write to save time. I was supposed to write them in sentence format, but instead I did them in checkbox format, which was faster, easier, and required less writing, though all the information in the report was the same. It took about 4 hours, and I was barely finished in time.

Well they decided they didn't like it and they want me to do the whole thing over again using the long format, but to do so would take me about 8 hours. I can't finish them in time while I'm at work, so they want me to take them home. Their excuse was that it was my mistake to try get out of my responsibility by taking the shortcut (though before now no one ever told me this would be a problem), so I should have to do what's necessary to correct it on my own time.

This is just one in a long line of excuses they've used to make teachers work outside their 7 hours a day, including saying they'll pay overtime and then not paying (it in addition to the tricks that I mentioned in my first post).

And to top it off, some of the other Korean office workers are jealous of the foreign teachers' short workday and made it their business to get involved in this dispute, which makes the "meetings" even more unpleasant, especially when the whole group of them gang up on one foreign teacher at a time, though they're somewhat more submissive with the male teacher than with me.

So I guess I've already done what you've asked, Derrek, and the boss didn't go for it, so now it's my decision to take it or be a hardass. I think I'll be a hardass. I hope I'm not making a terrible mistake. Please let me know what you think.

[dulcineadeltoboso]

Oh, I forgot to mention. I have my own housing and and an F4 visa, so if I quit, I don't have to move and I can get a new job with no problem.

I also have a return ticket home, should I decide to leave Korea altogether. Don't know if this affects any advice people want to give.

[VanIslander]

Threads like this drive me crazy because I see this as a salary position not a wage job. Wage jobs are punch clocks where you count every hour. Salary jobs have fluxuating hours of work according to work demands, usually between 40 and 50 hours a week, sometimes a bit less or more. So, my solution would be to simply go into work half an hour earlier, and the work week would still be less than 40 hours.

I know this option won't appeal to the wage job mentality. So, consider it on a per/hour basis. The standard work day in America and Canada for a wage position is 7.5 hours a day. Can't you work at least that? Nothing in your contract specifies a per-hour rate of pay, thus you can calculate your wage rate over a 7.5 hours work day. Is the per-hour rate then that unreasonable?

[TheUrbanMyth]

Teachers back home take work back home and do it. This is not a wage job people. It is a salary job. That said you have two options.
1) If you don't want to do the work, simply refuse. If they fire you, then find a new job. There are plenty out there. 2) If you don't want to leave, you may have to do what Van Islander suggests. In this case I think BOTH sides will have to do some compromising. You(the foreign teachers come in a extra half-hour early, and they(management) pay some overtime or give you a free lunch or something that allows both sides to save "face" and feel they received an OK deal.

[Gord]

[Derrek]

You have every advantage... be a hard-ass. Perhaps hint around to others who you know will talk that you are angry and feel shamed that you were called lazy, etc. Make it seem like something that you are considering leaving over, because obviously your classes are going well and you like it there (choke), but you are treated with utter disrespect.

In the meantime, look for other jobs. Something better will eventually come up, I'd say.

I don't think your situation could make you happy in any case... one way or another, something will get you down about working there. Even if you got your money, they'd just expect more, and the Korean teachers would always get on your case.

Be a hard-ass and start looking around or give in to your boss. If they start to backpedal when they realize you are going to leave, then you're winning. If not, you're leaving a bad situation.

[dominic]

One hour a day to prep for classes in a hogwan is too much

[syclick]

My contract states that I am to be at the hogwon for six hours a day - one hour prep and the rest teaching. It quickly degenerated into huge split shifts and being at the hogwon for 12 hours a day a few times a week.

They argued that since they couldn't get me five hours of teaching each day in my contracted hours that they have me come in whenever they need me to teach a class. No overtime pay.

[Derrek]

[syclick]

[Derrek]

[ryleeys]

I don't think hagwan jobs are as easily classified into "salary" or "wage" positions. They seem to skirt the middle ground on this issue as they do with many issues. So, if you had an agreed upon set of hours and now you are expected to increase, you should get more money. This wasn't uncommon last I heard in the United States. If a job becomes more demanding in any way, you are compensated. I also feel that while people say the standard work week in America is 40 hours, 40 hours in a hagwan with children can be physically and mentally draining. Last week, I worked damn near 50 hours (we worked on Saturday instead of this Tuesday), and I was so drained I could barely move.

I think that you should stick with your position that you will do the work, but you expect to be compensated for it. The first thing my parents taught me was that nothing in life is free. And so if your pay is for a certain number of hours and then that number increases, your pay should increase too.

[kangnamdragon]