Korean Job Discussion Forums

[matthews_world]

Time to collect your stories. We've got the Freaky Waegookin Thread, not it's time for the directors.

Besides the accounts of the usual late pay, contract bantering or anything over cirriculum, etc. what are the silly or interesting things that you've witnessed while in Korea.

Personally, I don't have any as most of mine were pretty good.

[alabamaman]

[stakay]

My old director came in to the teacher's room after the last class one night telling us she was going on a holiday to Europe for 2 weeks and that she was leaving the next day. She never came back.

[jajdude]

One guy I met a few years back would drink soju in his car during work hours. He passed out a few times, in the car, or in the academy. He would take us out a lot though, for expensive raw fish meals, though I think he was trying to show off his cash, which reportedly came from his mom. He was a jerk and people, foreigners and Koreans, left that place like it was on fire.

[seoulsista]

I worked for the most incompetent idiot in all of hagwon history last year. I know that sounds like a huge claim to make but I am convinced no one could be more of a moron than this women.

By August the school was financially on it's knees, we had fewer than 5 students in most of the classes. She had fired the whole Korean staff twice and there were major arguements going on between her and members of the foriegn staff. She calls an "emergency meeting" - the topic...brace yourself...she had heard some of our apartments were messy and was now asking that each of us hire an ajumma to come and clean them for us. Unbelievable. She was taken out of that position shortly after and is now the recruiter for the company.

[Grotto]

A slimy director called 'Tommy'. He had lived in Australia for 5 years and spoke decent English but!!!!!

At the hogwan there were two FT's.

When only one of us was outside during breaks(the other grabbing something to eat, checking internet, going to the washroom etc) he would tell us how unhappy the owner was with the other teacher. "yeah man, parents are complaining about R, the owner doenst like him....he's not a good teacher"

When he was outside with R it was: "yeah man, students are complaining about Grotto, he's too hard on them, the owners husband doesnt like him....he needs to lighten up"

Every day he would pull this crap. I caught on rather quickly and ignored his bullcrap. R on the other hand jumped right in and believed every word as gospel and started to get snide with me. One day when Tommy was out somewhere I had a little chat with R and explained what Tommy was doing. R was shocked, I had hit the nail on the head and he was shocked that someone would do such a thing. I told him that it is often SOP in many hogwans where a director will say one thing to one staff and the same thing to another(just switching the names around). You just have to learn to ignore it.

My personal fav was when he came to me and told me that parents were complaining about my classes. I said "really?, what was the complaint?"

'umm uhhh uuuhhhh complaining'

"about what?"

'uhhh you need to be a better teacher'

"okay, what do you suggest?"

'You are the teacher you figure it out'

Tommy the dumbass never had a constructive thing to say and throughout the year kept trying to play the FT's off against each other. When new teachers were applying and wantedt to talk to a teacher Tommy talked to them. They knew that I would have told the truth about what went on at the school and didnt want me talking to the new teachers at all.

Funny thing is I did get put on the phone with a couple of teachers and they were only interested if the school paid on time.

[captain kirk]

About all I can brace myself to recall is the most recent. She, the manager, was relative of the boss/owner (NEPOTISM) and she believed that it was her way or the highway as well as that she, miss knowitall, knew it all, of course. Her way of teaching was THE way of teaching. And she knew her place was high above those resting in niches below her. As in a Royal step system. And she was only 25, less than five feet tall, less than 60 kilos.

She just kept making everything tighter, and tighter. Student report cards were done every month, instead of every three months. Stupid forms to fill out. More stupid forms. As if being formless was too loose.

Actually, I can't talk about this, it's too painfull. Too much packed into that little brain of hers.

[Ya-ta Boy]

My first job here was at a hakwon. The owner was a creep who did things like read the mail we received at the school. He would throw away letters from other hakwons because he didn't want us looking for new jobs. (This was in the days before internet.) In the end, he decided to sell. Different groups came to look the place over. Mr. Lee sold the hakwon to one group in the morning and a different group in the afternoon and absconded with the money from both groups. Word was, he went up to Seoul and hid out from the mafia. Never did hear if they found him.

At my current job the high school principal last semester was a vegetable thief. There is a large garden area next to the dorm where many of the teachers have gardens. The teachers who supervise the dorm report they often saw the principal sneaking out of the garden early in the morning with armfuls of stolen vegetables.

[Paddycakes]

Compared to other Hogwans, not that bad I suppose...

The owner was a very experienced hogwan man and, like most of them, a little on shady side. His assistant was without a doubt the world's most skilled and calm liar (I think his talents were wasted... he should have became a spy or a diplomat).

My contract was nearly up and I told them I was not renewing.

Next day I'm called into the office and told that I owe them 60 hours worth of time (this is for classes they cancelled for whatever weird reason they had).

So I was told I had to make up for this.

What did I have to do?

I had to make them a video.

Okay, I can make you a video, not a problem I said.

But then they dropped one of those weird, irrational bomb shells that only a Korean hogwan owner could devise.

"You need to make 60 hours worth of video".

That's right - 60 hours!

And they were dead serious, too!

And they wanted it done in two weaks in addition to my normal class sched.

So I protested and out came the usual Korean line:

"You are a bad teacher, many students complain about you".

So if I'm such a bad teacher, why do you want me to make you 60 hours worth of ESL videos?

"Paddycakes: The Extended Collection, Volumes 1 through 30".

Initially I thought they were such using this a way to screw my out of my airfare and severance, but in the end they weren't.

They really want their 60 hours worth of video.

So in the end after much fighting the amount of the video required was negotiated down to a more reasonable level, but the whole video thing itself was truly a Gong show moment with the the manager operating his little video camera.

Of course, word got back to me that the owner didn't like the video I made.

I think he was expecting Gone with The Wind or something...

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Myself and a former Dave's member drove a hogwan director practically crazy. He was a pretty typical director: a businessman who spoke almost no English and only wanted the parents' money; not unnecessarilly belligerant, a bit afraid of confrontation, but ready to blame his employees for any and every problem; good at making first impressions but not able to follow through on anything.

At any rate, my friend and I both started out within a few weeks of each other and really put in a lot of effort at first. After we figured out what the score was, we just gave up on most of our classes. We started dressing like slobs, not shaving, and, by mutual agreement, decided that we'd just disregard everything that management said and do whatever we felt like. We even swapped several classes without asking anyone. Wongjongnim-babo just couldn't figure it out. What was wrong with these two? He was paying them on time. He was s h i t t i n g all over their Korean assistants for every mistake they were making. Why couldn't they play along with his game and pretent to be teaching his customers' children English. We had him swearing at us (and the KTs who weren't keeping us in line), smoking in the staff room, storming out in anger. It was great. In the end I managed to pull off a big loss of face on his part and I'm sure the incompetent businessman still can't understand why people applying for a position of 'teacher' don't want to be treated like clowns.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Barking Mad Lord Snapcase]

[PaperTiger]

Our hagwan was not meeting its expected profit margin and so our boss brought in a new guy, someone who was fired from headquarter's of ******** (who, incidentally, had been fired for incompetance).

He issued memorandums like a madman. One indicated that we were not allowed to talk about him when he's not around. Another outlined how staff are not allowed to date each other, soon after, he began trying to make each an every female staff member part of his mid-life crisis, recently-divorced guy harem.

He hired an English-speaking head teacher (imagine a Korean Cher...a real toucan) who's leadership style resembled the rampage scene in American Werewolf in London where he tears through the streets disemboweling everyone within reach. My last interaction with her was being yelled at for being late for an unscheduled class that she called me about while I was in the shower. The only thing I miss is the apartment.

[periwinkle]

I don't know if I've ever had a crazy director, but I have had an unfair director. He used to take the male teachers out and buy them prostitutes. They'd go to night clubs, and he splurged on tons and tons of whiskey. Of course, the female teachers were never invited to the night clubs. He took good care of his boys, too. They would get to go home at 4pm, whereas the female teachers always had to take the extra classes (maybe staying 'til 8pm). We were all contracted at 120 hours per month, but the women always worked the 120 where the guys worked less.... 'Effin Kids Club...

[babtangee]