Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xingyiman]

I've read countless stories about hogwan/public school abuse in Korea over the years (haven't we all?). But I thought it would be interesting to start a thread where people can recount he ways they've been screwed over at work back in the West. To be honest my Western employers have been little better and in many cases worse jackasses than any non-western boss I've ever had.

Here are a few of mine.

1. Been fired from a large corporation because my supervisor pissed off some local government dude and the tosser demaded that he and everyone working with him be terminated.

2. Had a boss shake my(and several other employees) hand at a Christmas party, give us gifts and then can us the next day.

3. Was pulled into to office and scolded threaatened for 10 minutes until my supervisor found out that she was, in fact disciplining the wrong employee.

4. Had a large commision witheld for over 8 months over a stupid office girl's error. She kept her job because she was a favorite and I lost my apartment due to not having enough money for rent.

5. This one didn't really happen to me but several other employees I worked with: An attractive lady used her feminie wiles over a period of six months to advance herself and then when it didn't work out like she planned she screamed sexual harassment and several people who were implicated had to resign just due to the bad mojo.

6. I had one boss cooking the books and not paying overtime. The way it was staged would have made it difficult to prove if anyone wanted to do something about it.

7. One boss fired a whole line of employees and then offered them their jobs back at less salary.

8. I once put in my two weeks at a company I worked for and quite honestly had a good repor with. I was terminated a week later.

9. One boss threatened to fire me if I requested my vacation at any other time than was convenient for him.

10. One place hired me and then when I showed up for work the next day told me that there had been a mistake and they weren't hiring for that position.

There are more but to be fair these occured over a period of 25 years

[Underwaterbob]

I worked in a crappy, 24hr self-serve gas station that had a bad turnover rate. I got shafted into a few double shifts because the employee replacing me would either quit five minutes before their shift or just not show up. My boss would insist that I had to stay there and that they couldn't come in.

The job before that was for a cleaning crew for an 18 story building. The mid-manager was responsible for the wet-floor signs, which were nowhere to be found, and the upper-manager would get on my case for not using them, even though I couldn't find them and had told them so more than once. This went on for two weeks or so. I got sick of being badgered about it one bad day (How many times can I tell them I can't use the signs if I can't find them?) , smashed the one sign that I had on the nearest wall in a tirade of cursing and they fired me.

[xingyiman]

I actually interviewed at one job where the guy interviewing me stated that he was the office snitch and in goody goody with the boss and if hired I would be under constant scrutiny and reported if he thought I was bad mouthing him or the company.

[xingyiman]

[Tundra_Creature]

I used to work as a cashier in my highschool days. There used to be this one girl who, during rush hour, would take her 15 minute break and then come back three hours later. Boss didn't fire her, or every give her a talking to about it once. Eventually she just quit becuase she had 'better things to do'.

[xingyiman]

I once worked at a restaurant where this chick kept taking smoke breaks and then complaining that when she came back 20 minutes later, everyone was hogging her section because we had to take her tables because no one wold find her. I was threatened with termination because I was accused of "hogging" her tables while she was on a 20 minute smoke break. Come to find out she was sleeping with the boss.

About 4 years ago I also worked for this jackass who said that if he found out any of his employees owned a cell phone he'd fire them.

[Fishead soup]

I worked as a dishwasher. One of managers used me as an experiment to see if it was possible for one person to do both the bussing and dishwashing at the same time. The experiment failed. I trained the person to replace me.

I worked as rent a cop guard at a diesel garage. I had to take information from truck drivers getting maintainence on their trucks. They would often get impatient and take it out on me. I quit shortly after I was assaulted.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

I've been lucky. I've had a few idiot bosses but have never been fired unfairly. My worst boss only valued punctuality. I mean, only. Three girls who worked summer maintenence with me did nothing all day, but were always there at 7:00:00. I was usually there by 7:02 but did my work, and was almost fired. Yes, I know. I should have been on time, if only to keep the peace.

One of my jobs at the university was to vacuum lecture halls. The boss ordered me to clean room 301 every morning, which took two hours -- a big room. After June the summer session ended, and the room would not be used until September. The boss waved aside my telling him this, saying, you'll do as you're told. Vacuum the floor. Which I did for two months, two hours a day vacuuming nothing. Oh well. Do your job.

The only complaint I really have about employers in the west is the hiring process. I've been treated much better (so far) as a potential employee in Korea. I am always amazed that customer service experts never look at how companies treat prospective employees. Years and years of applying at stores in the mall, restaurants, supermarkets, offices, and being treated like a nuisance. "Yeah, go through those doors and find someone." Having receptionists visibly chuck my resume on a pile and ignore me. Interviewers who are obviously going through the motions and make no effort to hide it. Not all the horror stories are about bad interviewees!

Ken:>

[Fishead soup]

I remember there used to be lots of come here and work for free for two hours and if we like you we'll hire you. I'm not sure how legal this was. Happened a lot.

[Faunaki]

I worked at a gas station run by Koreans in Canada and some of the crazy things that happened were:

1. Boss threw gas over himself and threatened to burn himself up over some sort of fight with his wife. We couldn't figure out what was going on because it was all in Korean. Very amusing.

2. Big boss would go through employees' jackets, etc. One time the big boss found a joint in someone's cig pack and was asking everyone, what's this? what's this?

3. Boss's wife would use her bare hands to serve customers beef jerkey, etc.

4. Boss would always make sexual comments, like u so beautiful, u look like sexy girl, etc.

And I still ended up in Korea, go figure.

[Sleepy in Seoul]

A bloke I worked with in the Police was nicknamed 'Electric' because he wasn't the brightest spark. He was on court duty one day and escorted a prisoner back to the watchhouse after being sentenced to one year in gaol. When the two arrived at the watchhouse, the doors were locked and the watchhouse keeper was nowhere to be seen, so Electric told the prisoner to wait outside the watchhouse while Electric went to find someone with keys. So Electric went away for a few minutes leaving the prisoner standing alone outside the watchhouse, situated right in the heart of the city, with five footpaths or driveways leading away in various directions into the city. He could have disappeared very quickly and not been found for some time, if ever, but he waited there patiently until a sergeant approached him. When the sergeant found out what Electric had done, even though nothing bad had happened, he had Electric demoted with two years left before retiring, causing Electric to lose tens of thousands in pension. That sergeant was not a popular man, especially after that.

[crescent]

In the late 90's, I worked as a bartender at the Mercury Lounge in Ottawa while in Uni. One of the most beautiful clubs I've ever seen, with a ton a famous acts playing there including Gil Scott Heron, and Brand New Heavies.

That was the good part.

The horrible part was that the owner was a hard core coke head. He would steal people's drinks off the bar and dump them, so they'd have to buy more. I would get blamed, so I always tried to keep my distance. That was obviously impossible. It led to the brink of a few fights.

Every so often money would be missing from the till, or he'd blame us for being short. Bottles we opened were never from a fresh seal. He was watering down the alcohol. We had quotas we had to make as well. it wasn't that hard unless you worked a weeknight.

One night I caught him sniffing in the bathroom stall, and looking through the crack of the door, I saw it was one of his crackhead girlfriends sniffing coke off of his pecker.
The next day, there were new, full length doors on the bathroom stalls.

He screwed all the female bartenders and if they wouldn't, he just fired them in favor of new ones.
He always had a 'bodyguard' next to him in the club who was instructed not to let certain people close to him.

He hired some high school kid as an intern for "entrepreneurial study" to do manual labor like varnishing the hardwood, washing and painting. The kid got sick inhaling fumes and was never paid, since he was an 'intern'.

I came in one day to demand money that was short from my pay, and when I saw the kid there, wheezing, I got angry and accusatory.
He swatted a cup of hot coffee at me and chased me out of the bar with a hammer that was on the bar counter.

Then, he called me to fire me, and to tell me he screwed some girl I was casually dating.

[djsmnc]

Was told by (her) friend/coworker that she likes to blaze the green leaf. Casually brought it up with her during a break, but she played it off as if I might be trying to rat her out. She got canned for stealing money very soon after. Manager called me in immediately after giving her the news saying there had been a sexual harassment claim made about me. I argued that I don't even try to hit on people I work with. Was given the "We have to take every claim seriously. There is a zero tolerance policy about harassment, yadda yadda yadda"

Hated that girl ever since and hated the boss for even considering that a hardworking and honest employee as I was would do that. Have hated American feminist policy for accepting questionable termination-worthy claims at face value ever since. Kept the job, but quit not long after.

[AgentM]

I've done a few crappy jobs (one of the things that helped motivate me through university). The worst though, was when I was working at this car rental company. They had a really high turnover rate, I worked as a hiker, and the boss was a jerk. I mean, a nice guy personally, but a jerk as a boss. In that job you were either damned if you did or damned if you didn't. People in different departments didn't communicate well either, I once took **** from said boss because someone in a different department had told me to park a car in a certain place which my boss didn't like. As if it's my problem that people didn't talk to each other. Idiots!

I got so stressed out over that job that I started having ****ed up sleep walking episodes (don't even get me started on that). Needless to say it was a relief when I eventually quit that place!

[gsantrim]

So, I worked for McDonalds when I was in high school. I got mad at one of the coworkers one day (we knew each other) and when we were on break, I opened my mouth and said to her... shut up you fat b**ch. Of course, she came back with... eat me little d**k. So, the next day I was called into the bosses office and I was told that I was fired for sexual harassment for my comments. The boss had heard our conversation (the boss was a woman). Of course, the other girl wasn't even reprimanded. She laughed about it and we are still friends to this day. I can't believe I was fired for sexual harassment for telling someone to shut up!!