Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mog]

I had a slight confrontation with my director on Wednesday. Nothing big. I believe both sides could have received blame. The rest of the day and today, I've felt a good deal of anxiety toward many things that I'm doing, at work and away.

Is this a normal feeling. I've had anxiety in the past, but it's almost at a constant right now, and I fear an ulcer or just a bad stomach in the future if it continues.

I'm trying not to dwell on the situation and just learn from it, but this anxiety (maybe stress?) is frustrating.

[tomato]

Hello, Mog!

Some English school directors have a knack for making you think the whole world is against you, when really the director him/herself is the only person disagreeing with you. This has happened to me several times.

It sounds like your director is a practitioner of this art.

[mog]

It's not like that. We had fine conversations today. It was a one time thing, hopefully. Am I fearing that the "hopefully" is mere wishful thinking?

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Sounds like your mind playing tricks on you. Just be letter perfect at work in the next few weeks, that should help to put your mind at ease.

[royjones]

clonazepam... will fix you right up.

[captain kirk]

I find directors trippy. If I disagree with them and make a scene or whatever, they're all ballistic as well and finish the 'dual' by saying something to put me down a peg for the audience. They are at the top and have to keep it that way to look good. Understanding that, I take a hit at the end.
Hey, they have the option to give one the boot and one's living in the apartment they provide. That's one's balls in their clutches pretty much if it should turn nasty. Being oversensitive to their moods like a pet dog must be to its master. Rex knows not to bite the hand that feeds him. But when he messes up he gets nervous. He'd rather be ripping the throats out of deer, but hey, it's the 21st century.
When the boss wants to talk to me she calls me out in front of the other teachers looking like what she has to say to me in private is about dismissal. She summoned me like this yesterday and it turned out she wanted me to do English-ee with her for an hour before the block. Ha, I got a temporary reprieve from 'imminent dismissal'.
Because I think about being let go, and what would I do if. But apparently 'everybody likes me', says the head Korean teacher. Maybe it's because in Korea one needs their guard up. Lots of mockery and put-downs by quite a few folks openly, in Korean, without any misgivings or attempts at hiding it. Hey, I'm not whining about it, but it adds up to something. Maybe what you're talking about, a heebeejeebieshness, if that's the correct medical term.

[quadra87]

edit

[rapier]

Anxiety and stress dominates life here.
I find trying to keep clear communication with your management very important. If you express your problems and concerns, it cuts the stress out to a huge degree.
Rows and confrontations I've found simply make them want to get back at you and sc**ew you over for the loss of face involved.
It took me a while to learn to make my points calmly and clearly to them, in a direct and focussed way. It works well, because usually they rely on you getting flustered or emnotional, or being deflected by something else.

Koreans seem to be so used to winning arguments by who can shout the loudest and who is of higher/lower status, that it derails them to find a cool, controlled westerner who presents a well -prepared argument, and sticks to his guns in a non-agressive way.

[captain kirk]

'Anxiety and stress dominate life here'.
I wonder if that reality sheds light on the type of person who stays teaching the English-ee. Even so I've grown lighter being here. I rather like the morbid structure and pressure to life here. Hojucandy's sig these days quotes Zappa, 'without deviation no progress is possible'. Kicking loose in a what the hell manner just isn't done; social responsibilities and presentation/the appearance of dignity/conservatism. The importance of surface. Maybe people become the surface. Superficial.
Then there's explosive drinking, emotional blowouts to balance things out. Volatility, cataclysmic eruptions.
It's safe here in Korea, still, in that its mood reminds me of how my Grandparents think. When I go to Thailand and return I'm happy to be back because Korea is so still, locked, locked into itself. Maybe it takes a reclusive person to enjoy the hermit kingdom. And a bit of a stress/panic junky, not into change.
Something to think about.
I don't think a foreigner is in any danger of becoming a compliant droid here, taking on the hierarchical kowtowing. Or a slave one minute and a tyrant the next, depending on who's around. Being a foreigner gives us slack, different category. Not in the running, not a player.
Blowouts with the boss are bad news. They retaliate with a steady, insistant Chinese water torture. Drip, drip, drip. Until one remembers their place before being let go early, or quitting. When you think about it, their perspective, they spend a lot of time making exuses for the teacher answering complaints and reassuring parents. If one has just bit the hand that feeds one then it might be the last straw.
But hey, the bosses are under enormous stress. I've been in jobs where they wanted me to teach them English before the block and I said I'd think about it or refused. Now I said yes, it eases the distance.
I heard a Korean teacher refer to 'shit pride'. I think he meant a useless stuck-uppedness and reserve based on the hierarchy. That can easily be offended. And that offense taken being essentially ridiculous, because it's all relative, based on who one thinks they are in the ratings.
Is Korea going to change and become a 'let it all hang out' kind of place? Laid back and chilled? 'Everyone is equal'?

[batman]

Don't sweat too much. Like other posters have noted, stress and anxiety are part of life here.
Just remember that, while your director holds a lot (some might say too much) power over you - visa, housing, pay - you still have options even if you do get fired (another Korean job, Japan, the beaches of Thailand until your current work visa expires).

My previous director was always trying stunts (had something to do with his alcohol-induced bi-polar abusive personality). Whenever he tried something with me I would just give it back as good as he gave.
(Though I think the time I went on for 15 minutes in a "bleep this country, bleep Korea, bleep South Koreans, I hope North Korean blows the bleep out of this bleeping bleephole" vein might have been a bit over the top.)
Once we had both calmed down things were usually fine (of course the fact that I had had my then-former director hauled onto the red carpet at immigration might have had something to do with it too. the boss, though a maniac, was no fool. he knew what i was capable of).