Korean Job Discussion Forums

[highdials5]

Hi,

Has anybody successfully negotiated with YBM ECC? There's no way I'm accepting their ridiculous 2.0 million won.

I know about the slave labor stories and such, but I'm keeping my options open, especially if I can bump them up a bit.

Thanks.

[DeLaRed]

I heard Danny Kim is really anal about negotiating contracts. I agree, 2.0 is quite ridiculous even for a newbie in the current climate. 2.2 minimum

[loose_ends]

[Toon Army]

[Xanadu123]

[yingwenlaoshi]

I don't know which YBM it was, but they made me laugh when they offered me 2.4 and a lousy 400,000 housing deposit. For that split-shift adult deal. Give me a break.

What is it with these adult hagwons and their crummy offers? Bunch of putzes.

[dean_burrito]

I interviewed with an ECC. When I asked about vacation days they explained to me that they do things a little differently. Instead of getting a week or two off once or twice a year they give 2 days off for every five days of work. They were so excited to tell me this. Of course the two days off were Friday and Saturday they also didn't pay for national holidays.

[daveweave2]

Although I can't say every YBM office sucks. In general they are a greedy dishonest organization who will do or say anything to get you through the door. Big deposits taken out of your check, pay your own rent, lower pay and worse treatment. This is a business first, school second or third. When I quit about four people quit in the space of a couple of weeks, you can do better, YBM Your Blood Money, watch your back

[Xanadu123]

[Tigerstyleone]

I WORKED FOR YBM ECC. It was a near death experience.

teach 8 classes a day without any break time or food.

Oh some teachers did it six days a week, one teacher worked seven days a week..... We had many pull a midnight run.

Oh and what about the apartment searches and deposits.

Oh what about the time I had a throat infection and the flu and the doctor insist that I stay in the infermary for the day to recover and keep an eye on my dangerous fever, oh, but the director came to the hospital and told the doctor I must work and need to be out of there in 1 hour or I'll be fired.

Oh what about the time I lined the students up at the door 30 seconds before the bell rang and was scolded for 5 minutes for wasting class time.

Oh what about the stupid model lessons every Wednesday

Oh what about the 3 hours of daily paperwork, jounals, tests, evaluations......

Why didn't I quit, the visa laws changed one month after I started. No one knew what to do......

Oh you want to work for YBM ECC... Not even if they paid me 3MM.

[Mr. Pink]

I love reading all these hard luck and hard done by stories.

Fact is, if there were no public school jobs out there (and there weren't when I came here in 97) a lot of you would be working with places like ECC.

I did 3 years with them and I guess I lucked out, because I didn't think they were THAT bad. As I said, public schools have started to spoil people in Korea. It used to be that one had to do the bad shifts at the hawgwon.

My first two years were at the same ECC and it was privately owned. The thing that made that experience great were all the foreign teachers there. Everyone was a class act and very professional. The supervisor was a saint, and I am still in contact with her after all these years. How many people can say that about a hawgwon job?

I left there and went to a corporately owned one. Better living quarters with that, but way too much bureaucracy for me. The kids were awesome, but yeah I did my share of 8 classes in a row without a break shifts. My roommate had 9 classes in a row without a break. We were short a teacher for a month (happens all the time) and so it was all overtime. Back then I was making almost 3mil a month because of the overtime. That was a hell of a lot of money back then.

Anyways, just research the particular branch you are going to work at. If it is Sung Dong ECC sign up, they'll treat you good.

[Xanadu123]

[Karea]

Tick, tick, tick, tick, ticky box!

I decided not to go with YBM ECC after speaking with a former teacher.

[seonsengnimble]

8 classes is way too many classes to be teaching in one day, even if they're only 30-40 minutes. Teaching takes a lot out of you. Unless you remain emotionally detached from all of your classes, there are only so many classes you can teach in a day before you go insane.

A decent hagwon will have you work a maximum of 6 classes of 50 minutes or less per day and give you at least 30 minutes break time to relax. One word of advice to any perspective teachers out there is to get your schedule before signing and/or a written summary of the schedule. If some one tells you over the phone that you'll be teaching 3 or 4 classes and then schedules you for 8, then you're out of luck.

[Xanadu123]