Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Boodleheimer]

hagwon wants your passports because of H1N1

from Smee's great blog:

http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2009/05/avalon-hagwon-franchise-to-take-away.html

(sorry if it's been posted/mentioned before)

[dporter]

From my cold, dead, fingers....

[VanIslander]

Never.

I am free to leave the country at any point I choose to, by law, and no one is taking that right away from me.

If an employer wants to fire me for not handing it over then so be it.

As I've often said around here: one has to choose for oneself where to draw the line.

[cruisemonkey]

No, no, no.

Repeat after me - No, no, no.

Very good class. Again...

[Tobias]

For about two weeks there, the swine flu 'pandemic' was big news in the USA. This was back when there were about 50 cases w/2 deaths. Now we hear nary a peep on this story. Not many are dying from it, so it's become back-burner news.

[chachee99]

The answer is plain and simply NO!

Don't ever give anything to your hogwon, especially your passport. To be technical a passport isn't even your property, it belongs to the government of your home country. No employer has the right to keep your passport for any reason.

Tell the hogwan the best they will get is a photocopy. Nothing more!

[lifeinkorea]

I gave the last hagwon I worked with my diploma to copy, along with my passport and ARC card. They proceeded to copy the passport and ARC card while using the diploma as a mouse pad

So, maybe they just need the OP's passport for a coaster.

[joshuahirtle27]

I fail to see what your passport has to do with Swine Flu. As was stated before, only allow a photocopy to be made for their records.

[losing_touch]

This is freaking madness. If my boss wanted to take my temperature everyday, I would think she was insane. Washing your hands before and after every class is a bit excessive. How the heck does one sanitize an entire room?

[Bemused]

Back in the early days of EPIK, I was talking with the U.S. Embassy's First Consul and she was astounded that any U.S. citizen would hand over their passport to a foreign national, govt. etc. I laughed and told her that to get an ARC we had to part with them for sometimes up to two weeks. She registered a formal complaint and for awhile some EPIK teachers were able to get their ARCs without handing over the passports but it didn't last long. Now, if you hand over your passport to a Korean and run into trouble, there's a lot of eye rolling and "you asked for its" at the U.S. Embassy.

[billietea]

No. I agree with every post here. Do not give your passport, a document belonging to your home country, to anyone, regardless of who they are, say they are or what their intent "originally" might be...just say, "No".

[Ilsanman]

I would answer them without the world no.

Kiss my Mod Edit.

[cruisemonkey]

[Rory_Calhoun27]

Back in da day, my first month here, and after the other English teacher at my school pulled the midnight run, the owner demanded my passport. like a tool, I gave it to him!


but after a month I got a pair, and on payday, when a minor issue with my taxes came up (got the wrong overtime hours calculated), I made a big stink, they told the recruiter, and I told them "I'd forget about it if I had my passport back."

so all's well that ends well. My crummy teacher who did the run made the mistake of using my laptop, and I used the google indexing service to read all her emails she had read on my machine- where she is knocking both the school and me. So I signed her up for some port websites. hey... nothing but classy for her!

[bassexpander]

Here is their ad, with contact information:

http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=37641