Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hotwire]

After 3 years in the public school system I'm moving back into the private sector and working 2 - 8 at a hakwan in a couple of weeks.

It's odd as I usually prescribe to the public school being way better than hakwan viewpoint and advise people to avoid hakwans like the plague.

Actually another ps job WOULD have been my first choice, but it just wasn't happening this year.

But the queerest thing has happened. I've started to actually become quite excited about my new job despite my previous missgivings.

You see - working in a public school is so damned easy and cushy it atrophies the spirit. Or at least it has mine. Due to class cancelations yesterday and today all I do is sit at my desk with no other foriegners to engage in stimulatiing or funny conversation with, posting on daves and reading wikipedia and emailing. By the time I get home at 5pm - I AM LITERALLY BURNED OUT AND BRAIN DEAD. I feel like an uninspired zombie. Even on full days I have 4 forty min classes and about 5 hours of desk time!

I think it's a form of institutionalism, and the routine of it smothers the animal spirit. You become one of those defeated looking lions at the Zoo in Koh Samui....

I have an intuition / premonition that I will feel more independent working for a private company again. I think it's going to shake me up and wake me up. Also I'm feeling that the late starts and shorter shifts wont harm either as I can feel like my own man from awaking up until around 1.30pm. There's something about life being too easy that can dull the inner flame, don't you find? Same happened to me back home when I got a cushy public sector position. Life was easier and the benefits killed but I became to feel 20 years older...

I felt the same in my final year of uni. Year 1 and 2 I loved the lie ins, the boozing, the student life. But come final year, it was too easy, too much of the same and I wanted to feel challenged and engaged with the world again.

I'm leaving the cushiest, easiest ps job you can imagine and a 5 room apt and lots of vacation to work in a chain hakwan from 2 - 8 and live in a one room and have 10 days vacaton a year.

And the crazy thing is - I honestly feel like I'm about to be set free from underneath a burial mound of stullifying comfort.

He heh, I can just imagine some of you guys thinking - 'tee hee he'll be on here in 5 weeks complaining about his a'hole hakwan director scamming him!!!!'

Danged if you do, danged if you don't!!!

Ah well, the feeling is good right now and I'm gonna ride it and make a big effort at the hakwan. And experience has taught me that a hakwan is a business. So I am going to look at myself as a business partner first whose primary and main objective is student retention and as an oportunist educator second - when I am able to do so without jeapordizing the main objective.

[kardisa]

For all of the negative discussion about hagwons, I have to say: I genuinely enjoy my job. The students are not perfect, but I leave at every night thinking that I've actually accomplished something in my 5 or 6 hours at work. Yes, the vacation days sort of suck (though 10 days plus holidays is only slightly less than I was getting at my big corporate job in the States), but hell, I'm only at school for 30 hours during the week anyway. Also, the smaller class size is a huge plus.

I know what you're saying about feeling brain dead. I had a job with lots of paid free time a few years back , and it slowly drained my soul. All of those people who think that being paid to desk warm would be the greatest job ever have either never done it or are very special individuals.

I hope you enjoy your new job. From what you wrote, it sounds like it'll definitely provided you with a much needed change of scenery.

[whiteshoes]

I'm with you. If I'm not able to get a uni job (I'll be half finished with my MATESOL in March) I plan on leaving my public job for a hagwon. There is a lot more freedom to teach what you want to, and to leave when you're not teaching. Being here in Korea also give us an advantage because we can go directly to hagwons and talk to the teachers there to know if we'll be ripped off in advance. Plus, we can get references from our friends to find good hagwons, which isn't something most newbie can do.

The main downside is vacation time. But, after I finish my next contract I'll have that elusive MATESOL, and I'll get plenty of vacation when I work at a uni, so I'm willing to deal with only two weeks vacation next contract.