Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Michelle]

I do not want to be a top whiner on the cafe....but does anyone else have this phenomenon?

Both I and my Korean co-workers get told nothing at all at work.

But for both of us ANY questions we ask the boss are now automatically responded to by starting with "As I told you.."

Fortunately we talked to each other and discovered both of our two brains are not dysfunctional.

So we both agree he repeats things in his mind until he is convinced he has told us.

We have a summer program starting next week. Do you think a Korean hagwon is organised enough to give us all of the information and in advance?

Not likely.

Everything will go according to plan as long as it was in his head at some stage.

Perhaps what we workers and bosses need is a court reporter around the office, reiterating what was said.

Don't worry I am a mind reader..

[hojucandy]

common phenomenon...

i had a boss who would drastically change timetables without telling us. but of course it was always... "but i TOLD yu"

i made a point of getting off the premises whenever was not actually teaching. i also made sure my boss did not know my mobile phone number. well - i gave her the wrong number anyway.

i would often come back from a pleasant sit in the park to be told i had missed a class which she had "told" me about.

it's par for the course.

606

[oneiros]

Summer vacation started today at my hogwan, so there are no classes.

We found this out last night at 9:00, only because some of the students mentioned it.

We have this huge 6-month evaluations due today for all the students. I also found out about this yesterday.

Guess what I'm doing today?

(Of course, the silly people gave me a work computer with internet access. My productivity is plummeting. )

[hojucandy]

i told this old boss of mine that i needed 15 minutes to prepare each class....

sooo.... when she would suddenly spring a class on me -

"yu have to teach a class at 3"
"but i'm on a break at 3"
"no - this is a new class"

- i would wait til the time the class started, then spend 15 minutes in the teachers room "preparing" for the class.

i have always found that i can faq them around just as well as they can faq me around.

nil illegitimus carborunda (don;t let the bastards gring yu down)



607

[Skarp]

Sounds soooo familiar.

I tried to do the same thing. Play the 'ninja teacher'. Sneak in - teach, sneak out. I was gutted when they found out my new phone number!

This is not how I want to work - but otherwise they keep finding you stuff to do. Asking you questions...etc.

I'm yet to work in a place I would spend extra time, however much I enjoyed the teaching. I hang around in the classroom before lessons. I go out with students. I answer students questions when on break and so on...

[oneiros]

Just as an update to my story, apparently my director has now decided that summer vacation has only started for the elementary school students, and that the middle school students will still have class today.

Too bad I already mailed all my teaching materials to Seoul.

[Corporal]

My boss and co-teachers like to do this too. "Oh, you know the class you have now? Would you mind teaching it on Friday at this time?" Um well I guess not, since that's what you have planned. To his credit my boss did ask me a month in advance if I would come to the overnight summer camp thing they are having next weekend...but not until AFTER he had already written down on the papers for the kids to take home to mom, that yes, the beloved foreign teacher would be in attendance.

[Paula May]

Ahh, the old "but I told you"

This never ceased to be a constant source of frustration for me when I heard those words. My first inclination had always been to argue back, but that would never get me anywhere but angrier as they would continue to say that this information was already given to me.

I chalk it up to miscommunication.

[hojucandy]

too many sins are laid at the feet of miscommunication. my current boss has very good english until some "misunderstanding" crops up... then suddenly he is struggling to understand.....

selective english comprehension i call it.

like my grandmother who was selectively deaf....

616

[johnriley007]

last christmas, we had our vacation changed the day before christmas eve. originally, we were suppose to have the whole off. everybody made plans, then two days before the break, they said we had to work on monday and tuesday with no explaination. when we told them that we had plans (ie: ticket and hotel reservations) they didn't seem to give a flying *beep*.

fortunately, i quit a couple of weeks later and never went back to that wonderhell!!!!

[Michelle]

These stories would be more funny if they weren't true, I'm enjoying them.

The joys of hagwon work!

I apparently have morning and afternoon classes from next week, but all of my students seem to think they have a vacation from next week.

I'll find out at the last minute, I should just be here, naturally. having already been told.

[ajuma]

Possible solution...probably won't work, but worth a try!!! Ask for ALL schedule changes IN WRITING!!! At least you'll have SOME proof...but...like I said...probably impossible!!

[captain kirk]

Common phenomena. Indeed. Said in a 'weren't you listening?', smacky kind of way. Shocks me. Comes 'out of nowhere'. Like they're in a pissy mood or something. I wonder if it's the nailed down steel trap mind, the 'gotta compete' in the mental races of Korean education. Nail it down and remember it. When I hear it I wonder, "what makes you think I carve what you say down in stone and put it under my pillow?" . Because it's been in the context of a casual conversation where I'm expressing interest in their life, say a pissy Korean teacher who's moody, anyway, at the end of the day -both of us tired. "I tolllld you". The last time anyone talked to me like that was my mother in a spit, working on rewiring me for 'self sabotage' . Like going to Korea .
I don't know where it comes from or why 'they' do it. I now carry a voice recorder and review it to keep on top of things and avoid these stinging jabs. Really.

[Hyalucent]

As someone said above, ask your students. They always know a week or more ahead of time.

[wylde]