Korean Job Discussion Forums

[West Coast Tatterdemalion]

You just had to resurrect this one didn't you?

[zig1234]

Here is my experience with Stephen Cho from Eduorange: he brought me to a school that didn�t pay me regularly. The foreign teachers were getting approximately half of their salaries each month, enough to live off of but not even close to what we were supposed to have received. Not only was Stephen the recruiter for that school, he worked there daily, had his own office and I was told that he was there to �help� the foreign teachers. I asked him why we weren�t getting paid and he said that it was because of low enrollment (not my fault), a bad economy (not my fault) and then he actually said, �When working for a business, you should not expect to be paid� (that is an exact quote). Just in case anyone who read that just glanced past it, let me write it again. Stephen said, �WHEN WORKING FOR A BUSINESS, YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO BE PAID�. He actually said that to me! He then told me that if I stayed, I would be �rewarded�. How the hell is a school going to reward me for staying if they weren�t even paying me my contractual monthly salary??? If I should not expect to be paid, why should I expect to be rewarded??? That was literally the most absurd thing that I have ever heard in my life! Needless to say, I quit (as did most everyone else). Wait, it gets worse! When I quit, I gave the boss a 30 day notice, although that was just to get my release letter and not because I wanted to be nice. After I quit, Stephen told me that I was being �impatient� and that I should give the school �more time� to overcome its financial difficulties. He actually called me impatient for quitting a school that was paying me half of my salary. I never swore at someone so much in my life. He brought me to a school that didn�t pay me regularly and he acted like I was the one with the problem. He said similar things to the other teachers when they quit. Even the boss (who is the one who didn�t pay us) at least understood why people were quitting. It was almost like Stephen could not fathom why people would quit such a school. It was weird.

Soon after quitting, some of my former coworkers and I ended up going to the labor board. I emailed my former boss as well as Stephen and asked for the money. Only Stephen responded and told me that both he and my former boss were �annoyed� with me and my former coworkers for pursuing further litigation against our former school since the labor board�s ruling was ignored by our former employer. It was his fault for bringing me to that crappy school that owed me money, and HE was annoyed with ME???!!! Ridiculous.

To be fair, Stephen recruits for many schools and I�m sure that some of those schools are good ones. I�m sure that some teachers have been pleased with his placements in the past. However, dozens upon dozens of other recruiters have those same schools or similar schools in their hagwon lists and I highly doubt that any of them have told someone that they should not expect to be paid and then called them impatient for not staying at a crappy school. At first, I had no problem with Stephen. He seemed helpful, professional, and polite. But once I got to know him better, I realized he�s completely fucking crazy! I mean, who tells someone the aforementioned things that he told me? Really, who says that to people?! If I were in his position, and I brought someone to work at a school that didn�t pay them their full salaries, I would feel bad and try to do something to help them. I wouldn�t essentially tell them to stay there and deal with it and get mad when they quit. That�s blaming the victim.

If he could do this to me, he could do this to you also. To top it all off, I consider myself to be a great teacher. I think any school would be lucky to have me work for them. If he could scam me, he would not hesitate to do the same to you or anyone else. I (obviously) would not recommend Stephen Cho from Eduorange to anyone, except to people that I hated. I also would not recommend working for Topia or Canada International School in Ansan, my former employer. I�ve heard many bad things about schools in Korea but none of them � absolutely none of them are as bad as those ones. If you are a prospective teacher who is offered a job at those schools, do not accept it. Likewise, I�ve heard bad things about recruiters but absolutely none of it was anywhere even close to as bad as what happened to my former coworkers and me at our former school. I�ve heard people complain because a recruiter told them that their school was 20 minutes away from Seoul and it ended up being three times that. While that is a legitimate complaint, it�s not nearly as bad as a recruiter saying, �When working for a business, you should not expect to be paid.� Avoid Stephen Cho like the plague!

[Openfire]

Did you speak to one of the other teachers at the school before you started working there? If so this is when you should have asked if they got paid on time....its one of the things you must do. If the school doesnt allow you to speak to one of their teachers then dont take the school.

[zig1234]