Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cmxc]

A thought provoking piece by a Korean American about Korea's lack of professionalism as a major cause of the tragedy.

"Koreans are, and have remained, wonderfully AMATEURISH in everything: Koreans perceive everything from the heart and emotion. Even the matter of money to Koreans is a matter of the heart, not of the calculus of profit margins. Several years ago a policeman in America ticketed an 82-year-old woman for crossing the street too slowly, thus impeding traffic, and was praised by his captain for doing his "job." Koreans were aghast at the “heartlessness” of the cop. How could he, they would ask, issue a ticket to an 82-year-old woman for crossing the street TOO SLOWLY?"

Why Sewol tragedy occurred
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2014/04/197_156330.html

[Lucas]

I'm always suspicious of Koreans with beards.

[SeoulNate]

disagree. things are done differently in places around the world, it is what it is.

However, job training does seem really lax in general in Korea and people do seem to be pretty bad at their jobs more often than not.

[le-paul]

[maximmm]

Working at a government school - all I can say is that there is a very odd tendency in Korea to assign fairly complicated tasks to people who are ill equipped to perform them (at least in the education field).

How many times have you had a co-teacher who could barely speak English, while plenty of other homeroom teachers were nearly fluent?

At my current school, there are many teachers who are skilled with computers, yet the computer maintenance task is assigned to a teacher who has little to no idea how they function.

So what you get is a bunch of stressed out teachers not doing what they are good at and/or trained for.

[Fox]

[sligo]

My coffee of choice is an americano with an extra shot of espresso and a dash of milk. 99% of baristas freeze when i ask as they have no idea how to make a coffee whose name (americano extra shot with milk) is the instruction to make it, and are terrified to make something off menu. They freeze everythime, and after a minute or 2, they ask their supervisor if they are aloowed to do it. The supervisor then comes to me to queery the order. No-one thinks for themselves here, and as such, we are all hamepered by inneficiency and the Korean fear of swallowing the blame.

[Yaya]

Yep, as advanced as Korea has gotten in certain things (e.g., IT, public transportation and high tech stuff), it's clueless in other respects (bureaucracy, politics, criminal justice, and treatment of expats).

In this case, I say Korea gets what it deserves. China and other emerging economies will seriously hamper Korea's business competitiveness, and well, the search for a new growth engine continues but I'm not sure Korea can make that big leap even if it wants to.

[Steelrails]

[Fox]

[r2b2ct]

[Okie from Muskogee]

It's also inability to make crucial decisions at the scene without the blessing of some bureaucrat sitting at his/her desk 1000s miles away. Officials at the scene are too afraid to make decisions that may lead to ending their career.

[geldedgoat]

The first time I ordered a cheeseless pizza from the neighborhood Mr. Pizza resulted in the most awkwardly hilarious argument with the owner. He kept insisting that pizza without cheese ceased to be pizza (fair enough, I suppose), but he wasn't doing so to be rude or refuse service; he was trying to convince me that my notion of pizza was flawed. I tried explaining the concept of a breadstick, but he didn't buy it. I like to imagine he spent several drunken nights trying to rationalize what trick the crazy foreigner was trying to pull. He eventually did relent and make the pizza as requested, though he stopped at every possible point in the preparation to double-check that he was getting it right, as if I had shaken his confidence in pizza construction. Sauce on the dough: "Okay?" Mushrooms next: "Okay?" Olives: "Okay?" Put it in the oven: "Okay?"

Really nice guy, though. He shook my hand and clapped me on the back every time I came after that. The pizza wasn't that great, but I figured I owed him some repeat business after the existential crisis I put him through.

[le-paul]

[Sister Ray]