Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mr. Pink]

[Gord]

[wylde]

is your boss a good man/woman?
are you being paid on time?
are you?
do you?
have you?
... are things other than hours and prep work good?

blow it dude..throw in 2 free hours a day, throw in 6.. i do sometimes and it doesn't kill me..
i take work home. in my last school i had 170 evaluations to write every month (which took about 15 hours). now i have 750 diaries to check and correct, i don't want to but my job is to teach... i don't complain about hours or money. all these things were not in the contract but.... when i hear about some of the sorry ass stories on here, i am greatful it only cost me a bit of my time and nothing more

[prairieboy]

I have to agree with Gord. You signed the contract for 6 classes a day. Regardless of what was said about only being required to do one hour of prep a day for the classes you have to prep for the classes. Prep time is included in your monthly salary.

If you have to do 6 classes a day then you have to prep those classes. If it only takes more than an hour for you to prep then that's what it takes. Also, all adminstrative duties required for my classes is included in my pay. I don't get anything extra.

I'm only paid by the class. If I work more than x classes in a month then I get overtime pay above my base salary. Prep time is not paid separately, so even though I'm on site, either in class or prepping for my class or marking assignments, I'm only paid for the time I'm in class.

If you don't like your situation then quit. You can always find a better contract that is not vaguely worded.

Cheers and goodluck.

[Derrek]

I think her complaint is more about having to take work home in addition to doing the hour of prep work AND being at the school the required hours.

Can't say that I blame her for not liking it, and I'd be against it too -- the daily "take home at night" stuff for sure. Once and a while is just a job, but every night? Not for me. I wouldn't let the boss do that to me. Not in a hagwon situation.

I'm not a Korean lemming.

[ulsanchris]

here are a couple of ideas for you to suggest to your boss.
1. if you are getting enough new students suggest getting a new teacher. this will spread out the work and also allow for the boss to try and get more students.
2. schedule a half hour or hour break in the middle of the teaching schedule in order for everyone to do some paper work and have some dinner.

[schwa]

I side with the 'just buckle down & do it' voices. Its natural to grumble but extra pay isnt on & when its done you can party. If more people on this forum understood that their job is the means to a pretty decent lifestyle & savings but also needs to come first in their considerations, there'd be a lot less whining.

[SweetBear]

The taking home after school paperwork is taking advantage IMO. for a prof. at a Uni, yeah, for a hagwon, no. Unpaid lesson prep goes with the territory, all the extra paperwork? No. How much time are you actually spending doing this stuff?

As an aside, we have two new teachers, fresh off the boat, never taught before, they come in 20 mins. before their classes start and give the textbooks a cursory glance. Our director is in serious financial difficulty plus " they are so cute" to quote him. They don't seem to know that this is not okay.

[Mr. Pink]

[schwa]

Once a month, in the course of an otherwise decent hagwon job, I'd say yah, thats not outrageous.

[Paji eh Wong]

My question is, who do you really work for?

I like to think I work for my students, not my boss. I try to do what I think is best for my students. That means I tend to spend some extra prep time during the week. IMO opinion, the evaluations and extra paper work I did were just an atempt by my boss to feel like he was in control of my classroom. They added nothing to my classes, and actively pissed me off.

What do you think is the best for your students?

ps. I think Hagwons where the bosses listen to you and are growing are a rare commodity. You may not want to walk out on this one.

[dulcineadeltoboso]

OK, first to address the people that I apparently "drive crazy" or anyone who suggested that what they're asking is par for the course and part of my responsibilities as a teacher:

The thing the director wants me to do this time is to re-write all my reports in sentence format (the way I used to do) because she said the mothers liked it better that way. She said it's more personal and more time-consuming, so the mothers think their kids are getting doted on more. She didn't use those words, of course, but that was the general idea. Nevermind that most mothers can't read sentence-format reports in English, though some could read the list-and-checkbox format. The mothers can, however, ask the kids what I do for them and whether or not I care about them. Then they can look on the report to see whether the kid's R sounds like R, L or W and what percentage of the time they use single words as opposed to sentences. This is the kind of stuff I was writing in the reports, and both the long and short form contain the same exact information.


And for those who said I'm slacking:

I've done extra stuff outside of the scheduled hours before, but it was always because I wanted to do it, not because I had to. I'm wondering if the director thinks that because I did it before, I should do it anytime she asks. I don't know if it would be rude to explain that the after-hours things I did before were things like reading books about education, shopping for treats and candy, hanging out with the kids at the end of the day (giving extra help or just talking), planning and buying stuff for parties, and putting together new and complicated activities for class. I want to do that stuff, but since our agreement was for one hour of non-teaching work per day, I don't have to do it if I choose not to.

I always make sure all my prep is done ahead of time, and the director knows it because she's seen my lesson plans. A few times she's even asked me to type out my plans (I handwrite them in a notebook) so that they can be sent to all the branches and used as models for the other teachers. In other words, she likes what I do and has a notion of how long it takes to do it. I didn't completely go along with her idea of making a model and we ended up compromising, but that's another story. Also know that I go above and beyond outside of the working working hours they promised me, but it has to be my choice, and obviously I'm not going to choose to do such a large quantity of it because mothers like lots of writing. I told my director I'd do it during my free periods because I agreed to work for 7 hours a day, but I'm not taking it home. The problem is that I wouldn't have it done fast enough, and if I have to attend all the useless meetings and other stuff during my free periods, it will take even longer.

But I suspect that in the end we weren't able to come to a conclusion with the director because she may not have the authority to take any action. I don't think she's authorized to grant us overtime pay without asking her boss, and I think she may have been willing to let us re-do the reports at school and hand them in whenever we finished them (knowing that we would work hard at the office to get it done asap), but the office workers who take the reports to the parents complained that the parents wouldn't like having them late. I doubt the office workers care that much about whether or not the foreign teachers make the mothers happy, but they don't want to see us get away with anything. So when the director had to choose between displeasing us, the mothers, or her boss, she quite reasonably chose us. When she realized that both foreign teachers together would be tough to beat down, she gave up on the white man, gathered all her English-speaking assistants to stand around my chair, and zeroed in on me. Unfortunately for her, the other foreign teacher is my boyfriend and now we going to make even more of an effort to band together in disagreements. I wonder if they realize that if they fire, then he would quit and they'd be fresh out of foreign teachers?

But combat tactics nothwithstanding, I'm really disappointed that this happened, not only because it wastes time and causes inconvenience for everyone, but because the arguing brought to the surface the ugly side of our office relationships and office politics : the sexism, the status-mongering, the long-building resentments, the capacity to use unfair debating tactics to get the desired result, and the other stuff that we tried to keep under the surface because we all believed (or so I thought) that it's better to tolerate our differences and get along. Whenever someone let the nice mask slip a little in the past (and I'm just as guilty as anyone, maybe more so), others were usually forgiving and understanding, and things continued as usual. As far as I knew, that was the Korean way to keep things running smoothly.

We (the foreign teachers) accepted the fact that we weren't going to be best friends with everyone, but since we genuinely liked our Korean partner teachers and liked our branch director despite some differences, we didn't mind having tense but civil relationships with other employees.

That means that at this point, we don't just want to simply reach an agreement with our director over mandatory hours, we want to be able to have a professional relationship with her and all the other people we have to deal with on a daily basis. When arguments get personal, it's trouble for all of us.

So the next time I tell the director what I think about this problem (assuming she doesn't have a new idea of her own), I'll restate the same position (though perhaps with some helpful suggestions from ulsanchris), but I'll be sure to show that I'm sorry that we're in this situation, I'm going to work hard and try to get stuff done as soon as possible, I'm going to keep everyone updated on my progress, and then I'll perhaps make a gesture of friendship like bringing in a snack or something. I think I have about a 50% chance of success. If I fail, the result will be a repeat of what happened last time: everyone will start out polite, but as soon as it's apparent that no one is going to change his mind, it'll degenerate into an argument. At that point, I guess I'll quit. Changing jobs is a pain, but it's better than more useless arguing. I pass 6 hogwans on the walk to work alone, and I'm still getting job offers emailed to me from ads I put up months ago, so I can't imagine it'd take long to find another job.

OK, there it is. My plan. Please write and tell me what you think and maybe suggest anything I can add. I have one request, though. Some people who posted took some liberties when re-stating my situation, and some of what they inferred or interpreted about it are just plain wrong. Then some other people replied and seemed to base their replies on these inaccurate posts instead of basing them on what I actually wrote. So please, if you're going to reply, try to remember what I posted about myself and what others said about me, and remember that there's a difference. Thanks.

[dominic]

when my boss treats me like a human being then maybe I'll think about teaching well for him. Since he's korean and will never change his attitude, mine's not going to change either. Unhappy employees = teachers who dont care

[prairieboy]

Now your situation makes more sense to me. As you've illustrated, you've gone above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak. Thanks for clearing up the issue.

My advice is to be careful where and when any argument takes place, if it does come to that. Stand your ground and state your case firmly, with examples such as you've just posted. Remind them of everything you have done beyond what was required.

If you do have an argument then watch out for the Korean face saving maneuvers. They will turn to personal insults and threats (as I have experienced first hand on several occasions). This may not seem like much to you, but in front of the other Koreans it seems to be intended to make you look bad in front of the other teachers/Korean employees, regardless of who starts the argument.

Cheers and goodluck.

[TheUrbanMyth]