Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DaeguKid]

Reading about buddies shoes in the Off Topic forum, I am curious to hear how others had been pee-d off at work. I got a story to share...

In my first year here, I was feeling in a good mood on a Friday so I decided to tell my boss to order some chicken and pizza for the staff. I figured we could all go into the weekend on a good vibe with a meal in the staffroom together. She said ok. Myself and the other wagook teacher went off to teach the last 2 classes of the day (50 minutes).

So after the class, getting ready to go back and eat with everyone, we walk in and to my surprise, they all ate. Finished. Boxes covered. Online internet browsing. Doing phone teaching. Whatever.

I was left with a couple pieces of cold pizza and there was no chicken left. Then my boss hands me a bill for W70,000. They decided to hit up PizzaHut and BBQ chicken and get all the fixens....

I didn't mind the fact that it was W70,000 (actually that is a bit of a lie seeing as they had never ordered from there when the school bought), but I was gutted that they could not wait.

Anyhow, I took the money out of my wallet, put it down on the table and said to them "I am well aware that I am in another country and that customs may be different, but where I come from, when someone buys you dinner, you wait to eat it with them. Have a good weekend." and I walked out. Though before I did I managed to see the looks on their faces before I left. All of them were jaw dropped and knew they did wrong.

What I learned from that day is never, ever, EVER again treat Korean people because when you do they will bleed you and not think twice about you or doing so....(case in point, the free onions at Costco...but dont get me going there...just go see for it yourself)

Anyone else?

Have a good weekend...
DK

[gossipgirlxoxo]

A few weeks ago I was off to get a sandwich and a coffee in my breaktime. I asked the desk teacher if she would like me to pick up the same for her, and she said yes. Her coffee was a caramel-mocha, not too sweet, with whipping cream and extra-hot. OK, no problem, princess.

I bring back her order (my treat) and the first thing she does is roll up the sandwich bag and say, "I'll feed this to my dog tonight". Then she took a sip of the coffee, said it tasted funny and proceeded to the bathroom where she tipped it down sink. HCTIB!

[prideofidaho]

It was my birthday and I was being treated to sushi and a delicious looking fruit-covered cake (well, the fruit looked good, I don't like white cake with icing.) While I cut the cake, everyone ate the sushi and the fruit of the cake, and I was left with a blob of icing. They were doing something nice for me, and I thought it was sweet, but the reversal of customs really threw me. Usually, the birthday person doesn't cut the cake (maybe the first slice if at all) and is served the best piece straight away.

Nothing like the OP. That's flat-out rude considering every meal I've shared with my colleagues. We always wait for everyone to arrive before eating anything, whether it's ddeok from the P or pizza from one of the teachers.

[fermentation]

Stuff like the OP happened to me a lot, although never as expensive. I hate it how people here (the Japanese too) have to order as a group. There will likely be something you don't want but you still have to pay equally. Reeks of communism. Now I never go out with groups of Koreans unless someone is treating or they are okay with me ordering for myself. Many don't seem to understand the concept.

My old job upset me in many ways but one thing that annoyed me was the lack of communication and when there was communication, it was rarely face to face (people sitting next to me or directly behind me IM me instead of just turning around). It wasn't that big of a company either. Once we had to travel about 40 minutes outside of Seoul for a promotional campaign, but of course, nobody told me. When I told the head of my department that nobody told me, she snapped at me and said, "I was talking about it with the other coworkers before. You should listen to the ongoings of the office better."

So I guess I should always listen to what others are saying even if they aren't talking to me. This was just one of the many confusions and misunderstandings at my job. One noticable episode at my work was on the day I quit, one of my female coworkers, who's about two decades older than me, told me that she liked me. It was through an IM of course and she knew I had a girlfriend. Not really upsetting, but weird.

[Dodgy Al]

At the end of a very long intense week involving 14 hour days, we were finally able to unwind with a party at work. The party went on into the wee hours of the morning, and the next day was scheduled to be a cleaning-up day. We all crashed at work, and were supposed to get up at 8am to start cleaning. Needless to say, my penchant for getting hideously drunk meant I missed the early morning call. No-one could find me. I finally managed to wake up at around 11am, but couldn't find my clothes anywhere. Suspecting my colleagues of having stolen them, I wrapped myself in a bed-sheet and (literally) crawled out of the room I was in. Everyone was busy cleaning up, but the work stopped when they saw my disheveled self asking who took my clothes. They were quite some distance away at this point, and my eyes were barely working. But I did notice the whole gang suddenly start racing towards me. This is not good, I thought. Before I could make my get-away, two of the guys grabbed me and dragged me onto the main stage. My boss came waltzing down the auditorium steps, casually pulled down his jeans and shoved his fat, hairy, very smelly ass in my face.

That's how my workplace upset me (though I probably deserved it).

[DaeguKid]

[Bueongi]

At my first hagwon, a lot of the students in the Kindergarten program were from somewhat wealthy families. Their parents would sometimes bring food gift sets for us teachers, to show their appreciation. A mother would present the gift basket to the homeroom teacher and all the other teachers would get excited. Then, the boss would come, take the gift set, and bring it to the cafeteria to have it distributed to the students during snack time so that he could save money on snacks that day.

[djsmnc]

[mc_jc]

I have a HUGE office, the type that senior executives have to place all their qualifications and licenses among other trophies.
In the years since I started working onbase, I didn't accumulate alot of stuff since I was hired locally (one of the last legitimate ones left who survived the local-hire layoffs to make way for the dependents). I used to hang pictures of my previous workplaces as an ESL teacher, but was "advised" that since I was not in the education field, it would be inappropriate. So I have an huge, almost bare wood-paneled office where I sit five days a week from 8am-5pm.

I sometimes would like to be in an open office like the teachers offices at some of my ESL jobs. I always like the hustle and bustle of being in those offices.

[Xuanzang]

[redaxe]

[Carla]

[tfunk]

My boss picks random days and buys food for us. She never tells us in advance, so around 2 o'clock I'd come in to find she bought lunch (I'd just eaten lunch). Also, the concept of eating a meal while it's warm seems lost on her as she sometimes tells me at 5 o'clock that there's a lunch waiting for me.

[Bryan]

[benji]

There are some weird goings on with Koreans and food. I worked at a kindy hogwon with very wealthy families. On a kids birthday, it was customary that the moms would bring lunch for the class: chicken, pizza, cake, candy, sometimes big spreads from Bennigans or TGIFs. There would be a party with the blowing out of the candles, etc.. The class helper ajjuma would fix a plate for each student and serve them. I didnt know cake could be sliced so thin. These women would give the kids the bare minimum, and I mean minumum, of food. They would take the rest home. Often quite a bit of food. It was scandalous.

At the same hogwon with the same women. We would go on picnics a few times a year. Parents provided quite a large spread. Imagine 230 kids each bringing something. Thats an immense amount of food. So they would set it up buffet style. The kids and foreign teachers would get their food and all were welcome to get seconds, thirds, fourths. But the Korean staff must have thought it was Armagedon or something because they would stack their initial plates so high with food that they had to do a balancing act. Literally stacked over a foot high with food. The foreigners just looked in shock and amazement.