Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ryleeys]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it might need its own thread...


Question:

Why is it, that in America, everyone asks what you do and you tell them the job and the company...

example:
"What do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a teacher at Hollywood Elementary School."
or
"I'm an architect with PAS Architecture."

But if you ask in Korea, I have never met a single westerner that volunteers the information if they are working for a public school or a company (very odd, since Koreans usually not only volunteer the information, but give you business cards too). I've found that you can usually coax the school name out of someone, but never the company name.

Is there some big secret I don't know about?

[oneiros]

Three possible reasons:
1. They're paranoid that if they tell you their company name, you'll somehow steal their job.

2. They're ashamed of the place that they work at.

3. They don't really want to talk to you, and are supplying as little information as possible in order to make you go away.

It's fun to tell people where I work, because my school has one of those cool, goofy names.

[peppermint]

I now teach for a public elementary school, and I don't volunteer the school's name to anyone who's not familiar with the area. Why would I, it's not as though I work for the most prestigious one in Korea or anything.

If you ask, I'll tell, and you'll wind up saying "oh, that's nice".

[djsmnc]

Really?

I'm with Peppermint...Unless I'm working for a prestigious company that I'm only a part of solely for the fact that my father knows Kim so-and-so because they used to race their Rolls-Royces to the golf course during company holidays...who really cares?

[lush72]

Hmmm- I wont post where I work for fear that some of the wingnuts here would try to make problems for me, oh wait, that HAS already happened!

EDIT: When I meet people face to face I always give them my card, its become 2nd nature to do so.

[Zed]

If I tell people the name of the company I work for now, they invariably haven't heard of it and I end up in some silly conversation about how it's spelled or something. When I worked at Wonderland I told people because they recognised it even though I got a lot of negative reactions to that. (Oh, poor you, type thing.)

[shawner88]

I don't think most Americans are running around saying "Yeah I work at McD's on Washington Street."


or

"I'm the janitor (custodial extrodinaire) at Baker High School."

[ryleeys]

They don't just tell random people on the street, but if you ask them, they do say what they do and where they work. It just seems odd that absolutely no one ever mentions it on the board. And I know some foreigners in person that won't say where they're from.

The only people that volunteer the information without a significant amount of prodding are soldiers and hagwoners (that's a actually a kind of cool word).

Is there really a threat of some cracker random person having enough influence at your company that they can cause problems?

[Zed]

I would think that the same people who don't mention their names on the board also would not mention the name of their workplaces, Ryan.

[inkoreaforgood]

I think the reason they won't normally say (especially if they work at a non-hagwon type job, but may have heard of the experiences of others, or have just worked it themselves) is that they feel embarrassed about telling a hagwoner about their position. If a person is working at a public school, or college, or university, often their position is better. And when they tell a hagwoner about their job, their schedule and work load, vacation time, well, they just feel bad for that person. A hagwon is usually a more difficult place to work, with energy sucking hours to put in, and students high on sugar to deal with. Would you want to stand there and tell a person about your 'good job', and watch while their face falls? Then deals with their near disbelief that such a job exists in Korea?

[lush72]

This is a good reason for the people who work at company jobs never to mention which company:

[ryleeys]

Wow, if that's actually an issue, then there's absolutely no hope for the ESL community in Korea...


As far as the wanting to spare other people potential bragging, I guess it would seem like you just say, "Yeah, I like my job. It's pretty good to me." If the other person asks specifics, then they bring it on themselves.


I dunno, it just seems a silly thing to me for people to be secretive about... but to each his (or her) own.

[Zed]

I'm sure that there are some here who prefer to remain anonymous so that they can talk about certain issues without the fear that their supervisor/boss/immigration are following their conversations. When I was talking about being screwed around by my boss last year I certainly wouldn't want him to know who I was on here especially since he knew I used the site.