Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Unreal]

My job was close to perfect (in the hagwon universe) for the first 4 months. Suddenly this week the boss holds a meeting and lays down several rules:

1) No speaking loudly in the office
2) No laughing in the office
3) No talking about anything except school in the office
4) All free time must be spent preparing for classes

No reason was given for why the new rules were being implemented.
Add these to an already established rule: "No leaving the hagwon without permission".
That means that about 3 hours of every day are spent "preparing". It takes me less than an hour to prepare for all of my classes. I could prepare more fun activities for them to do...but then I have already been told that my classes should be more serious and that my students are too loud.

Almost all of the teachers (all Korean except me) were so upset with the new situation that they went out drinking a couple nights ago to let off some steam. Unfortunately the teachers who are higher up the food chain are also the most afraid to say anything to the boss for fear of losing their jobs.

From what I understand, the boss wants a more "professional" atmosphere for parents to witness when they visit. This is understandable, however parents visits are occasional for short periods of time, while we must spend 8 hours every week day in this new tomb-like atmosphere. In the end I don't think anyone is going to win when 90% of the teachers are unhappy.

I guess what I want to know is:
1) How does my boss think this is good for the school? (I still don't understand)
2) How can we convince him otherwise? (hopefully in a not too confrontational manner)

[Son Deureo!]

It sounds to me like a classic Hogwon Boss Temper Tantrum (TM). I doubt there's any point in trying to convince him.

Instead, go along with the new rules, or at least pretend to for maybe a week or so. I suspect that things will gradually revert to a slightly more reserved version of normality by then.

One question for you, though. Does your contract say that you have to remain on-site when you aren't teaching? If not, remind your boss of that fact and start leaving when you're not teaching. It won't help your co-workers, but unfortunately every attempt I've ever made to fight alongside the K-teachers against the boss has proven to be an exercise in futility.

[phaedrus]

[hellofaniceguy]

No one can use you unless YOU let them. You have a few choices as I see it....me...I'd tell the boss..."no...I don't agree...laughing is good, talking about other then work related is also good. Don't control me...this is not north korea and I am not your slave."
Or suck it up and hate the boss and the job and be miserable. Your choice.
You stand up to the dictator...you'll get more respect instead of taking it up the backside like the majority of koreans do and complain about it but do nothing. Koreans are long on retoric and short on specifics. Always whining, complaining but won't make a stand for a positive change.

[McNasty]

Unreal wrote:

[JongnoGuru]

[McNasty]

Jongnoguru wrote:

[Yu_Bum_suk]

'No speaking loudly in the classroom'??? I'd gladly go along with all the other rules if that one was observed by the kids as well.

It's too bad there aren't other foreign teachers at your hogwan. How important are you to your boss? At mine the four of us would just refuse, because it would be too much grief for him to replace us all. Only the KTs get treated like that, but then they're so obsequious sometimes that it's hard to feel sorry for them.

[HamuHamu]

Hmmm our director went off on a tirade about two months ago that included a lot of those things. He went so far as to draft up an "addendum" to our contracts and "forced" everyone to sign it. We were given the new papers and told we had to hand them in by a certain day. Most teachers freaked, said they wouldn't sign it, but then they did and just grumbled and complained. I just filed mine amongst the other pile of useless recyclable paper on my desk and never thought of it again.

I didn't sign it, they never asked for it. I HAD prepared a little scribble of things to come back at them with, if they actually approached me and requested the paper -- things like, "Clause 10 is in direct violation of my contract," etc. (One of the clauses was actually in violation of UN basic human rights and freedoms for all people ... !) I thought it would get testy when they approached me for the signed paper, as we were told that anyone who did not return the paper would be fired. But, they never came to me for it, although I did see a sticky note on the supervisor's desk from the director that said she was to chase me up for it.

All in all, teachers grumbled for a few days and held to the new rules. One teacher was fired for violating the new policies and the general concensus was that she was the sacrificial lamb...the big warning that the director meant business. BUT.....about 3 or 4 days later, it all cooled down and went back to normal. Now on any given day I would say 99% of us are breaking 80% of these new rules, and nothing has been said to anyone about it.

Now we are thinking that these rules were possibly drafted up in order to purposely catch that one teacher having broken them so that she could be fired. Once she was gone, the director didn't care so much anymore??

I think that because most hagwan directors have no people mangement or human resources skills, don't know how to motivate, manage, work with, and supervise a team of 15 -20 staff members. All they know how to do is come in screaming and yelling, drop a big bomb and stomp off furiously. They seem to feel that doing this once every 6 weeks when the team gets a bit "lazy" will solve all of the problems.

[itaewonguy]

maybe its due to the NEWS special last sunday night..
about the foreign ESL teachers in Korea. are they worth their money etc..
anyone else see that? guess your boss did..

seems to be some conspiracy going on here.. Koreans trying to ruin this business and take it over themselves.. becuase now they think they can do better than natives!

[jajdude]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Thankfully my boss seems to be smart enough to be very polite to the foreigners and rag on the KTs if there's a problem. Things clearly work quite a bit better this way.

[Unreal]

I agree with Son Deureo!...I'll just go with the flow for a bit and see how the sediment settles...as it usually does in cases like this. I didn't think about the effect of the MBC program though...Monday was the first day we could sense the tension so it seems a likely connection.

[-666-]

Hogwan owners are often crazy.

My last slave driver made several rules during the course of a year.
My personal favorites were no eating or drinking while at the school.
Another was teachers will arrive one hour before classes start and stay at the hogwan for one hour after the classes end.

I didnt follow a damn one of them and he never said anything to me.

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

My first job was insane: 8 classes a day, including kindie and we had to do stupid crap like clean the walls or reorganzize the books during our break time. To make it worse, I worked with all "yes" men (the foreign dudes) thus the boss was always throwing extra crap at us. And these were the guys that the boss constantly went after because they said "yes" to everything. Me, I said no and it worked in my favor. When the boss said I had to come in on a Saturday for a da*n picnic on the Friday before, i would say "sorry, got plans" The "yes" men would look pained and b*tched about it all but they still went. So was I the Teacher of The Year?...certainly not, and I could care less. My life was definitely less stressful because I didn't think of some crap, worthless hagwon as my life's existence. The "yes" men just couldn't say no, and after seeing how easy my life was compared to theirs they would sometimes get frustrated at me and say "must be nice to have your life, your job" ...of course they were being bitter about it. I wasn't a lazy teacher...I did my job..but in the end, the hagwon was just a part of my day I was greatly looking forward to ending and getting on with my enjoyable life after work. But the 'yes" men spent their whole free time at home making lesson plans and coming up with extra material and work for us What's worse is during drinking hours they would only talk about some"Micky" and "Tommy" student in their classes.
Just go about as usual....if you are the only foreign teacher, your ooss needs you more and will not just fire you. Be professional of course and know your limits but i don't think you need to worry about acting like a monk to keep your job. And if he fires you, then he nulled your contract and I believe you are free to get another job....somewhere less psycho.