Korean Job Discussion Forums

creeper1 · Joined: 30 Jan 2007

It appears that ESL teachers in Korea are indeed memorable for being stingy. Here is a quote from an General Discussion Irish forum.

"A guy from New Zealand who I worked with in Korea as an English teacher, Now he got his flights paid to and from Korea, a months bonus upon completion, his apartment fully paid and he got a pretty good wage, but he did the following:

Bought his girlfriend what was essentially a bit of a rock on a string when he proposed to her cos rings are so clich�.

Refused to take her out for dinner on valentines day in 2008. She got a voucher for money off and then she had to pay half.

Bought her a crappy backpack for christmas.

When our boss would take us out for dinner we would go to a place that allowed you to order a mains and then eat away at the salad bar as much as you want. He would order ribs, stuff himself on the salad bar all night then take the ribs home to have for dinner the next day.

If a group of us went for dinner and agreed to split the bill by dividing the bill by the number of people, he would order lots of beer because he knew five or six of us wouldn't be drinking and another 5 or 6 would only have one drink so he knew he would be paying very little for his drink.

One time we went out for dinner and told him we would split the bill as usual so he ordered extra starters for himself and loads of drink then the girls got pi$$ed off with him doing this so when the bill came we decided to divide it up by what we each had to eat and drink, the poor lad nearly died cos he had to pay and extra �15 or so.

When his girlfriend wanted to go to Tkyo before flying back home he said he would only go on the trip providing he could get flights and accomodation for the 5 nights for 200,000 won (�120) When she said he wouldn't even get accomodation for that and she really wanted to visit it because she would never be back in the area again, he just replied "ah I don't care, I have been there before when I was 10"

Got angry and jealous with his girlfriend because everyone over there must pay 4.5%of their wages towards a pension and their employer matches your contribution. However americans (which she is) get both contributions back upon leaving korea, however new zealanders don't.

You must also pay for insurance over there which is 1.5% of your wages or something like that, so when he got a pay rise for working saturdays (something we declined to do) he had to pay extra pension and insurance as they were a % of his wages. He complained that he was being ripped off and wasn't informed that he would have to pay more outgoings upon getting more money.

Demanded he got a class off three times per week because 3 other teachers had one therefore we were getting more money per class than he was even though he was getting 320,000won more than us per month for doing the saturday class.

There are many more, I will post them later"

furtakk · Joined: 02 Jun 2009

nero · Joined: 11 Mar 2009

Yup, stinginess is a deal breaker for me too.
Luckily my gf is generous (to a fault!)
The cheapest people I have encountered tend to be Canadians, for some reason.
I had one girl calculate how many sips of beer she had drunk from a pitcher of beer. She tried to put in 30won or something ridiculous. I ended up paying for her and I wasn't even drinking, I was just so embarrassed for her in front of Koreans.

The Floating World · Joined: 01 Oct 2011 Location: Here

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

I know someone even cheaper than EFLers.

She worked at a certain university teaching French, as she was from France.

I knew her through friends in my Korean class. One afternoon, after class several of us went out for dinner. After hearing her whine on and on about how horrible Korean food was, I suggested we go to a Thai restaurant.

Everyone was looking forward to something different, except her...

we were ordering as a group and going to share. She immediately complained about the prices and said she would be no part of anything but the cheapest thing on the menu. Rolling Eyes

So we ordered that.

Then she whined and complained about it the rest of the evening.

Our friendship took an abrupt halt after that night.

nero · Joined: 11 Mar 2009

joelove · Joined: 12 May 2011

I dunno nero, that's something I'd be proud of if I was brave enough to try it. I suppose if you get busted you can lie or just pay.

nero · Joined: 11 Mar 2009

I still feel like a cheapass, though.
The manager is huge, so if he catches me, I will definitely be paying!

chrisinkorea2011 · Joined: 16 Jan 2011

chrisinkorea2011 · Joined: 16 Jan 2011

i loved reading this thread. entertained me quit a bit so im going to place my story of a cheapo on here AND tell why i may possibly be cheap lol

A girl i used to hang out with when a bunch of my foreign friends lived near me was pretty damn cheap. She would always count how much she ate just loud enough that you could hear and then calculate based off of what the total cost was for her part. (guess she could guess the price per oz?) and would drink only water UNLESS we got a big pitcher and said we would split it at which case she down enough for 2 people everytime but always BARELY paid the amount she was supposed to. I feel sad for that person really.

Now as for me, i read about a couple people complaining about water on here. Well il be honest i do fill up a 2 liter bottle almost every day multiple times. I drink about 1 1/2 bottles at school and take a full bottle home every night. Thats because i exercise a lot and sweat just as much. If that is considered stealing well take into consideration that the kids RARELY drink from the water purifier, not even teachers drink water. But they love them some coffee and hot tea which they SLURP loudly lol

I also am an environmentalist but thats another story altogether! ^_^

Feloria · Joined: 02 Sep 2006

At my last job one of my co-workers, Dave, woke up late and was about 10 min late for a 50 min conversation class.
One of the other teachers who was teaching the same level, combined her class with his class. So she had about 9 students instead of 5 for 10 minutes.
He took his students back as soon as he arrived.
In the teachers room during the break she said to him: "Well, I figure you owe me about 5 thousand, 300 won for the time that you were late.Do you have it on you now?"
She was dead serious! Rolling Eyes

The Floating World · Joined: 01 Oct 2011 Location: Here

This is THE FUNNIEST thread on dave's. Better than the freaky waygook one even - and you don't say that lightly.

Oh man, So funny, reading through it my belly hurts. Some of them must be made up. Oh boy... oh man.... But at the same time, we've all met people like them.

Bless these people for existing, really; for there is a certain peculiar art in what they do.

Lonewolf · Joined: 02 Feb 2003

I subleased an apartment in the Philippines from my girlfriends cousin's Korean boyfriend, Not saying he was cheap but the shower curtain was so rotted I was wondering how they took a shower, I replaced it. And the chairs were very old plastic that had been sitting outside so long they fell apart when you picked them up. I bought new ones didn't want to take the chance of sitting on one an breaking my butt. Now that is cheap. Shower curtain only cost 2 dollars and the chairs were 2 for 10 dollars. I still get a kick out of how cheap he was. But he was smart he didn't have to replace them I guess he figured I would I'm not that frugal. But like most people I love a good bargain.