Korean Job Discussion Forums

[aliciarc416]

I have been at my school for 8 months. I was told on several occasions to just leave early during finales and mid terms. At first i protested because i thought it was weird and maybe something was wrong but then they said "no its normal, even the Koreans leave early" and then yesterday they started to ask me "if" i wanted to leave early. Apparently the new contract has a early leave policy were all the time you leave early adds up and each 8 hours is deducted from your vacation time. I am working under the 2009 contract. The contract they showed me was the 2010 contract. I told them its not mine contract, mine doesn't have that clause. Apparently they can't find my contract.
Thus far i have 9 hours of which are banks visits and work at home. Then several hours are doctor and dentist visits. I called a friend and they said only personal leave added up to be taken from vacation. The hospital visit would be taken from my sick leave (thats fine.)
So, my question are as followed.

1. Is my school allowed to to just one day say they will count all my early leave up and take away from my vacation?
2. Are only the personal days added up to take from vacation?
3. What constitutes a personal day?
4. Has anyone else had this happen to them.

This wouldn't be an issue if the school was upfront about their policy instead of being tricky and waiting until vacation time to to tell me.
all the gepik coordinators are away at an orientation. So they arent any help at the moment.
thanks in advance

[NYC_Gal]

Contact someone (your recruiter or GEPIK directly) and get them to email you a PDF of your 2009 contract. Highlight both the Korean and English section pertaining to your situation. Keep this copy for future contract discrepancies.

[young_clinton]

Unless the school principal specifically tells you through your English co-teacher that you can leave early from school, I would not advice leaving early. I don't think most principals allow teachers to leave early period, except on days say where they spend the afternoon playing sports or something like that. Will they deduct from your pay, if you are not given direct permission from the principal? Probably not, more likely they will give you a written warning and the second time they catch you they might fire you. They could fire you outright.

Unless the principal says its ok its not ok, it doesn't matter what somebody else in the school says.

[aliciarc416]

NYC_Gal - I have a copy, its just at my house. I will be taking it to them tomorrow.

Young_clinton - I am not in trouble. It was my coteachers telling me this and with principal approval and signature. Its just now after all the days i left early with consent, they are telling me that they will add up all the days and take away time from my vacation.

[moosehead]

actually they do this w/the K teachers also - you aren't being singled out, don't worry about that. this is more a school policy than anything else.

IMO they actually thought they were doing you a favor, albeit one you really didn't understand completely.

yes, certain "leave early" explanations you write in will add up but it takes a LOT to effect your time - how early were you leaving? hours and hours? just hang out as long as you can and try not to sign out more than 1 hour at a time, even less. and if you don't use sick time anyway, you get tons of it, so just put dr's visit for longer periods of sign-out time.

[oldfatfarang]

[aliciarc416]

My school was writing the reasons in Korean so i didnt know what they wrote. It didnt matter what i said. So a few days say bank when really i went to the hospital. So now i have to go back and look for the bills if i have them.
Yeah they thought they were doing me a favor and of course i'm the liar because my old school must have done this and therefor i knew. I was told to leave after lunch which adds up to a lot of time. Most days have doctor visits but two days have bank and one has work from home.
Do you what the certain days are?

[Senior]

Yesterday I left an hour early . Most of the teachers were playing volleyball, and the ones that weren't don't notice me anyway.

I didn't tell anyone or ask permission, I just left. It's nearly lunch time and I haven't been fired, no one has even mentioned it.

I think, sometimes people make a big deal of stuff, and it becomes a big deal. In Korea, grey areas are your friend.

[aliciarc416]

just to reiterate I have never left my school without prior permission or being told to leave and having principle sign paper giving me permission.
The problem is they are only just now telling me about a policy that would take away from vacation time which would include all days prior to notification.

[Senior]

[ticktocktocktick]

It's a new thing this year. Tell them you're staying at school, you're just 'popping out' for lunch. You're within your rights to go out for lunch on a test day, since they don't serve lunch. Problem solved.

[NYC_Gal]

You're also within your rights to pop out for lunch if you've got a special diet. I run out for naengmyeon or konguksu all the time, if I was too lazy to pack lunch that day.

[aliciarc416]

Ticktock- they serve lunch on test days in my school. after lunch they would tell me to just leave.
senior - it is not in my contract only in the 2010 contract. apparently its always been the case but few school enforced it and if they did they told the teacher upfront unlike my b**** a** school.
Just to update. The coordinator has told me that going to a hospital will be taking from paid leave as well. So it isnt taken from sick leave as some have said. This really sucks. I should have taken the rural job.

[creeper1]

Well you will know in future that you should refuse any offers to go home early. How much time are you going to lose? If it's in the contract then it's in the contract and there is nothing you can do.

I am with GEPIK my second year and I have 6 weeks vacation total. I know one SOB that has vacation 8 weeks and yet only in his first year.

Someone really needs to get on this discrepency. We need to be contacting someone about these SOBs getting 4 weeks vacation.

[Senior]