Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blizzard_jdf]

I recently did a midnight run from my school which was in Incheon. Yeah it was a typical hagwon that really only cared about money. Though for the first two months I was happy overall. I had my ups and downs but it was alright.

Then we had the new semester and everything just went crazy. There were too many students and not enough teachers. I ended up doing a runner 3 weeks into the new semester. I just couldn't stick it out till we got new teachers.

For the first two months I was the smiley guy. I would joke with the kids, act really extraverte in classes and just smile a lot. When the new semester started it was just too much. I started to go crazy. It got to the point where I was really nervous going into Kindergarten classes. One of my co workers said I was like a black cloud and everyone was waiting for something bad to happen with me.

Case for me (the teacher):

The director couldn't speak english. I had to communicat through the head teacher. All he said

Quote:

he was trying his hardest to keep everyone happy

There was nothing he could do.

The boss just put me on a crazy amount of overtime. About 34 hours of overtime per month. I had been an ESL teacher for a total of 6 weeks. I was not allowed to reduce my schedule at all. In fact one of the fellow foreign teachers took one of my classes off me and the boss gave me an extra class anyway.

My schedule was insane. I came in at 10am. Mt first class was at 10:20am. I had a one hour break from 2pm till 3pm to prepare for classes. My last class was at 7:40pm. Once you throw in paper work and doing adequote prep (remember I was a newbie) I would of had to of done 9am till 9pm. A 12 hour day.

I got sick because I had an allergy and I couldn't get any time off. I still had to work 12 hour days.I lost my voice as well.

Every Friday we had to do unpaid activities such as cooking days and field trips. We also had to serve the kids lunch everyday without pay.

I would of had to have done the crazy overtime for at least 6 weeks till they found a new teacher.

The boss could watch all of the classes on closed circuit TV. One day I had 7 hours of classes. Sadly I had a bad 10 minutes and that is all the boss saw.

When I got to the school the head Kindergarten teacher was leaving. She didn't explain anything to me. Not even how I was supposed to teach the books.

Case for the school:

I didn't raise the issues with them directly. I told my recruiters. Though this was just because the head teacher said he couldn't do anything. I also spoke to one of the Korean teacher's husband, who was American. The boss found out.

I yelled at one kid beacause the stress was getting to me so badly.

I started to get paranoid about the cameras.

I'd never lived away from home before. I couldn't cook properly. I'm only 21.

I ran away after 3 weeks of everything being hell.

I should have realized that this is what Korea is like.

I just stopped caring after a while and the quality of my classes dropped drastically.

What do you think? One day I might go back and teach english. Though not this year and not in Korea. Though sometimes I think that I am just not cut out for the job. What do you think?

[Son Deureo!]

Your experience sounds like a pretty typical hellwon, where the owners don't give a rat's ass about their foreign teachers, and squeeze every last minute out of them that they can without bothering to train them to do their jobs. Some people can handle it and live for the weekends, some people find a way to force their boss to treat them better, other people just can't handle it.

I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about. You tried to make your concerns known to your head teacher and recruiter, and they couldn't be arsed to do anything to help you. They didn't. You left. I hope you got paid, and I hope it leaves your school in a hell of a bind.

You might not care, but you probably won't be able to get another work visa until the term of your current E2 expires (a little less than a year from now). There are much better jobs available here, but it can take some work and luck to get them.

Good luck to you, whatever you do next.

[cypher]

I understand why it was stressful and that, being new, you may not have had the resources to just say no and let the chips fall.

That being said, please do not teach English, since you seem to have such a poor understanding of it. "would of" and "had to of" are not English. Would've, yes, and had to've, if you must. The only thing I can think that extraverte means is especially green, but that would be in a language that is not English. If you are going to teach English, you should have a better knowledge of it.

[jaganath69]

What's wrong with working a 12 hour day? That's pretty much what I do at the moment and as long as you get the overtime payment, what's to complain about? I'm also doing 3 MA courses on top of this. I think it would have been better to go and confront your school directly rather than taking the more extreme approach. I understand there are mitigating circumstances, youth, culture shock etc, but you are educated and an adult and probably could have handled the situation a little bit better.

[Son Deureo!]

Way to kick a man while he's down, cypher.

[cypher]

Yeah, I was going to apologize for kicking when he's down, but he didn't really sound like he was all that down. Besides, I'm not a very nice person. I know. I accept.

[Lizara]

[TheUrbanMyth]

I know I've said this a thousand times before, and I know that this might seem like kicking someone when he's down... but whatever.

Why didn't you just say no?

I will never understand people who let their boss exploit them.

Oh by the way 34 hours a month of overtime is not all that much that's only about 1.5+ hours a day. AND it was only for six weeks.

You should have at least sat down with the boss and head teacher and told them, "better conditions or I quit." That seems to have the effect of focusing minds wonderfully.


And then you wrote: "I couldn't cook properly, I'm only 21"
"I ran away after 3 weeks of everything being hell"
"I've never lived away from home before"
"I didn't raise the issues with them directly. I told my recruiters"

But the final crowning glory was this one. "I should have realized that this is what Korea is like." Hello? All the issues above focused on YOU AND YOUR PROBLEMS. In short it was you that was the problem. Now this is NOT a personal attack just a summation of what YOU wrote. You have poor life skills--you can't even cook despite being 21. You've never lived away from home before--didn't you think about surviving on the other side of the world in a different culture? At least most people here lived away from home when they went to college/uni. And you didn't even sit down and talk with them about it.

And you are only 21 and you have a degree and were in Korea already?
You must have hopped on a plane the day after you graduated then.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you REALLY REALLY don't seem to have put ANY thought into this enterprise from beginning to end when you accepted that job. That said, that hakwon sounds like a pretty brutal place for a newbie...although you did say you were happy there for the first two months, so it can't have been all bad, it was just the overtime.

[Son Deureo!]

It sounds like he was in a honeymoon period, where the adrenaline rush of being in a new and exciting environment cancels out a lot of the negatives. I think most people go through that here, I know I did.

Jaganath, so far as you being tough enough to handle 12-hour days, I'm very proud of you. You've been here for a while, so I can only assume that you are doing so of your own free choice, and are reaping some tangible benefits from it. Did the OP know when he signed on that his days would be so long? Or was he led to believe that he would only be working 30 hours a week/6 hours a day? I know I was. Was he actually paid for his overtime, or did his boss play games to deny him? That's a pretty common situation, too.

Yeah, he probably could have and should have done his research. But he couldn't have spoken to his boss directly because the boss didn't speak English. He tried to speak to his boss through his recruiter, his head teacher, and his co-worker's husband. What was his boss' response? To blow his teacher's concerns off.

Maybe the OP could have tried harder to work things out, but you can't say he didn't try.

As far as I'm concerned, that hogwon got what was coming.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[blizzard_jdf]

The job I was told about was just an 8 hour day, no overtime and no kindergarten. All three of these promises were broken.

This is the OP. Just to clarify a few things. The boss couldn't speak english so I had to bring my issues to the head teacher who just said that everyone is in the same boat and that there was nothing he could do.

I was supposed to teach for 5 hours a day. 1.5 extra hours a day doesn't sound like much but when you work it out it's like a %30 increase in workload. Remember I was new to teaching so I needed a lot of preperation time.

It got to the point where I had 7 hours of classes on some days. I had like an hour to prepare for all of these.

[blizzard_jdf]

And one last thing. The other 2 foreign teachers said that they didn't care because it just meant that classes would get combined. It was almost impossible to give them extra classes cos they were already doing so much overtime.

[tzechuk]

What books are you using?

Chances are that you can actually get away with very little to no preparation...

I think, though, the number of hours you are teaching is just too many. I teach fewer than 4 and that's tough.

[Homer]

Well you found out what your limits were.

Who is to blame?

You for not asking yourself the right questions before signing on. The school did poor management for overloading the teachers if and only if they did not actively look for another teacher. Perhaps they just had a tough time finding a teacher? If that was the case then overtime is just what they had to do.

You became unhappy and ran.

Now, you could have talked to your head teacher and tried to figure something out.

You could have given notice like an adult would and quit instead of running (according to you the main problem was overtime...not late pay, not abuse....so why run except to save yourself soem cash?).

You could also have refused the overtime as chances are it was not mandatory.

In short, you had many options besides running and stiffing your co-workers (who do you think picked up your classes after you ran into the night?).

Overall, I am sorry you sank like a stone in a pond here but you showed a fair amount of immaturity.

[coolsage]

If it were me (and I did the hagwan hell in a previous life), I would have sucked it up and tolerated it, with the exception of the CCTV. I'm somewhat surprised that nobody has yet referred to that intrusive, big-brotherish eye. If there was a camera in my classroom, I'd be out of there yesterday.