Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I used to be pretty holier than thou about the ESLers who would come in to work drunk in the morning. After all, my first teaching job was in a high school where we were told if we wanted to drink that we should drive the 20 miles in to Omaha, where kids or their parents were not likely to see us. Obviously a teacher or 3 getting busted for DWI was not a real concern of the administration. (Years later when the soop ran off with his teenage boyfriend we learned why secrecy was so highly valued at that school, but that is another story.)

Anyway, I've become much more tolerant about DWT (drinking while teaching) since I came to this school last fall. Our principal is a member of some sort of sports association (club?) and the president of it is also the CEO of Hite Beer...so our refrigerator is always well-stocked. In addition, all the teachers contribute money to some kind of association here and the space in the lounge fridge that is not taken up with beer is filled with soju.

I've mentioned on a post or two before about this kind of thing. It came up today because the Maintainance Man and the Korean Lit teacher took me out for lunch in my 50 minutes between classes. I caved to the arm twisting and downed a couple of shots of soju. I drink like a guppy compared to those two.

Wednesday is sports day for the teachers here. Last semester I always missed out on it because I was scheduled to teach, but this semester I miss the volleyball, but am free for the fried chicken/beer/soju bash at 4:15. Actually it's kind of a downer because there isn't enough food to get full on, but plenty to spoil my appetite for supper.

So after getting my engines revved up at lunch I was able to re-start on beer this afternoon. Today was a little different than usual. No soju. Whiskey instead. Lancelot. It sat unopenned for a while, but then the heavy drinkers got started on it.

My question: What are the ethics involved in heisting the 1/3 full bottle of whiskey from the teachers' lounge? I mean, since everyone 'bought' it, it doesn't really belong to anyone, does it? Alternatively, I'm part of everybody, so I should have a right to it, right?

Please advise.

[JongnoGuru]

[inspector gadget]

I too work at a school that has not one but two fridges jammed full of soju and beer. Last week I was in the teachers lounge reading a book and the math teacher came in and mumbled something in korean and headed straight for the fridge.

He grabbed two bottles of soju and a bottle of beer and sat down across from me. He reached for two cups and filled them up with soju and handed one to me, then it was beer. He continued to do this until all three bottles were empty, he had a horrible class and just needed an outlet and booze and I were just the ticket.

We were only there for maybe 40 minutes as he had a class to teach, I on the other hand did not.

It seems that drinking at work is an acceptable practice here on occasion.

I was tempted to continue drinking but decided not too.

Ya ta boy, your not serious about lifting the whiskey, don't do it, no need to, leave it there and have a session with a teacher instead.

[JongnoGuru]

I've never had a completely liquid lunch or liquid snack during working hours, but there were many times when the drinking would continue long after the lunch was over, sometimes deep into the afternoon. Always with a group of Koreans from the office, often after a gruelling project was finally put to bed (but sometimes right in the middle of one! ) It would always be unplanned, we'd just continue on bottle after bottle.

The first bottles would be empty, but someone on their way to the loo would slip an order in, and here comes the agashi with another three bottles, a couple dishes of free anju, and we'd all just pretend that it was natural, and we're in no hurry to get back.

The conversation continues, everyone's relaxed & comfortable. What would frequently prompt these unschedule sessions was, in addition to all of us being stressed out and under the gun of a particular project, the most senior staff among our party (invariably the ones footing the bill, as well as taking the rap for our late & drunken return to the office) would have had some nasty run-in with their immediate bosses, and they needed a few hours and bottles to shake off those grim episodes. Us kids were just there for entertainment!

The rest of the lunchtime crowd had gone, so we had the whole place (and the female serving staff) to ourselves. You got a chance to talk with people from other sections who you didn't know well, hear about their projects that didn't directly concern your work, but it was fun. Enjoyable. You talked about things unrelated to work, personal lives, families... Oh how the minutes grew into hours, and there'd be this wonderful unspoken rule that no-one dared be such a rotter as to spoil the mood by saying it was time we all got back to the office. The dreadful office.

Eventually, we stand up... wobbly... grab our jackets, fall into our shoes... and out into the bright sunshine. A world away back at the office, it's 3 or half past 3. We'd slither back to our desks in small groups or individually, so it didn't look like we were all out getting polluted together. Why there wasn't a "strength in numbers" approach I'm not sure, but that's the way we did it. Sometimes we were found out and punished with extra work, and I have painful memories of struggling to focus my blurry eyes and addled brain on the text on the screen (monochrome monitors, too). Uggghhh

[Ya-ta Boy]

Mr. G,

By heisting, I meant squirrel the bottle away in my jacket on the way out the door and using it at home in my next batch of BBQ sauce. The recipe I made the other night called for whiskey and I never buy the stuff because I believe in practicing frugality in my frivolity-so I buy soju. My tongue goes numb after a small amount of liquor, so I see no sense in buying expensive liquor. Alcohol at W1,000 a bottle and W150,000 a bottle does exactly the same thing to me. I am not Madison Avenue's favorite son. The recipe says either whiskey or rum adds a lot to the flavor of the BBQ sauce. I'm game, but I'm not going to waste money buying whiskey just to make another pork sandwich. I think you see my drift here.

I did appreciate the idea of blaming it on someone I don't like. Luckily, so far, there isn't anyone on the faculty I don't like, although the VeeP is skating on the edge of it. My best bet of blaming it on someone is the past principal. He was twice spotted stealing arm-fulls of veggies from the school veggie patch out back. But he was in the building today. Maybe, if I get to school early enough in the morning, I can slip the bottle out before everyone gets there and mention I saw a bulge in the ex-principal's coat on Wednesday. Hmmm. That might work. Thanks a snootful!

Mr. gadget (and fellow country boy),

I'm envious of your TWO fridges. We only have one. But there is a stockpile of warm beer in the supply room. My eyebrows are raised at the idea of someone just sitting down and imbibing between classes. As far as I know, no one here does that. Drinking on the job is restricted to a) going out to lunch; b) taking off for a couple of hours to grill some twey-ji gogi at Young-Duck's farm up on the mountain; c) these Wednesday afternoon beer bashes after classes are over and d) picnics in the manager's office between classes when the Maintainance Man bbq's pork in tin foil in a bonfire in front of the school. (There is drinking in the office at night, but I don't know who does it.)

To actually sit down and scarf back a couple of bottles of soju in the middle of the afternoon and then go teach....I don't know about that. I've had enough to drink at the various opportunities I mentioned above that I was in a condition of 'happy' when I went back to class, but to be out-right drunk, no. (However, I can advise you not to drop acid and go to your French Rev class. It doesn't matter that the person who suggested it was a 6-foot blond who liked to walk the streets of Greeley at 2 in the morning cracking her whip while practicing for her role in "The Maids". It just isn't worth it.)

I appreciate your advice about having a session with the whiskey and another teacher. However, it is only 1/3 of a bottle. How about this as a compromise solution?

How about if I lift the bottle and take it home for BBQ sauce and then take along a bottle of genuine home-made Lancelot Whiskey BBQ sauce to Young-Duck's next afternoon on the mountainside? Would sharing SOME of the whiskey absolve me of any guilt in this situation?

Please advise.

[kangnam mafioso]

the general rule is to not have more than 2 bottles of soju if you're gonna have to teach.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

There's not a huge amount of DWT at my school but I did it once before an evening class and it was quite a bit of fun. We had had a volleyball game with the staff of a nearby school which was, of course, just a pretense for a piss-up. The students seemed to find it perfectly normal that a teacher who had just come from a staff event would be a bit tipsy and reak of soju and makju. We were doing an EBS-based lesson featuring a report about annorexia and some of the medical terms would have been hard enough to pronunce for a sober person.

[SPINOZA]

I confess I once did hair-of-the-dog in the morning before school because I felt rotten from the night before.

There's no drinking at my school however.

IMO drinking (or, worse, soju hangovers) seriously don't mix with public schools and early morning starts. I don't touch the stuff during the week generally, unless it's some kind of special occasion. I certainly wouldn't drink at school because - after the initial high - alcohol makes me feel lazy, tired and grouchy afterwards. I'd suck as a teacher when I'm in that braindead mood.