Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cdninkorea]

[radcon]

Years ago the school I was working at hired two friends from Newfoundland. Their flight got in one afternoon and they came to the school to meet the other teachers and observe a few classes that evening before heading to their apartment. It's not relevant to the story but these two guys were some of the biggest people I have ever met. Not fat just huge: 6 foot five and 280 pounds. NFL lineman sized.

Next morning they don't show up to work. They decided after 1 hour that Korea was not for them. Earlier that morning they went back to the airport and used the return portion of their round trip ticket that the school bought them. In those days the school bought round trip tickets and when the teacher showed up in Korea they took the return portion of the ticket and saved it for teachers until the contract was finished. The school saved money that way. However teachers usually gave the school the ticket once they got settled in a few days later, so these guys still had their tickets.

The school owner went to the airport to try to convince them to stay as the flight wasn't until the evening. She coaxed immigration at the airport to let her through to the gate to where the teachers were waiting for their flight. No dice. She was out over 3 grand.

I hope those guys went back to Newfoundland and became unemployed, alcoholics who are hated by their wives and kids.

[creeper1]

Running. It's the last resort of the EFL teacher. It always creates a buzz of excitement when you find out about someone pulling one.

I have sympathy for those that run from abusive employers.

And I can accept those that run THE FIRST TIME after deciding they hate the country.

However the mark of a true loser is those that return after running. Unless your employer your employer was really bad once you run, stay gone.

[young_clinton]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[atwood]

1. A guy from Colorado who says his nickname is Blow shows up on a Friday and spends the night drinking with us. We give him the scoop and the next morning Blow has blown town. It didn't help that he had brought his dog without going through the proper procedures and it was going to be in quarantine for a while.
2. A popular teacher was a bit bipolar which would manifest itself when he drank. Very smart, funny guy but couldn't handle Korea. Finally left for Prague. But he had written some postcards addressed to the school and left them with us. We'd mail them when were out of town, and the school was sure he was still in Korea.
3. A Japanese teacher got sick of being treated like dirt by the school and took off for Seoul. She was very popular with Samsung executives, so the school had purchased a very expensive set of textbooks for her to use. She took those with her and continued teaching the Samsung guys on the sly.
4. A Vietnam veteran who had coached women's softball in Australia and had just married a Russian mail order bride comes over from Iowa, leaving his bride with his none too happy family. He spends the weekend, sees the sights, realizes he's not going to be able to bring his Russian wife over and so uses the return ticket the school had been trying to get from him to go home. He uses the I got an urgent call about my mother being very sick dodge. The guy talked non-stop. After a weekend with him I felt I knew more about him than I did myself.
5. A Canadian instructor, horrified that he was expected to give his students A's and B's, just stopped teaching his classes, telling the students they would all get A+s since it was just a sham. Instead he took the students out for coffee which worked out until while with the students he was accosted by some mentally disturbed Korean and without a by your leave jumped into a taxi and left the students. Everything had been copacetic until then, but the students now felt disrespected and spilled the beans to the administration. They didn't care all that much as long as he gave them a final exam and a grade, but he cracked and flew back to Vancouver.

And then there were people whose situation was such that I thought they should do a runner, even offering to help with the plane tickets in one case.

I don't have any problem with people who decide Korea's not for them and leave. It's a free country, isn't it?

[BroodingSea]

Dont hate the runner, its all in the game. Korea has since the 90s been this way. Less so now, but young grads and old salts have used and been played by the system.

To quote staff sergeant Barnes: there's the way it ought to be, and the way it is.

[young_clinton]

[Died By Bear]

[PatrickGHBusan]

From the "if you are going to pull a runner, at least do it right" category.

I worked with this teacher in 1998ish, this was at a hakwon. The school itself was decent and respected the contract. Pay was on time, days off were respected, OT was paid to the last Won. The work load was heavy but the general atmosphere at the school was good.

This teacher was a bit of an odd ball. She was from NYC but had a gigantic fear of germs. She would not touch students or let them touch her, she wore plastic gloves to open doors when out and about. She mostly stayed home when not working. In class, she was fine & the kids liked her. She was always on time and did her prep for her class. Basically a bit of a loner but nothing seriously wrong with her. When she ran, she had been at the school for 8 months. At that time, the director requested we start giving workshops (once per month) to other teachers (Korean and Foreign) at the school; this policy started on her 5th month at the school. The aim was to present the learning actitivies we used in our classes so that everyone could share and learn from them. To be fair, this was mostly a light meeting where we discussed school events and issues. The 3rd monthly workshop event was to be hers. She seemed to be nervous about it so we (myself and a couple of FTs) went to talk to her about it, see if we could help. She said she did not like being in front of people, which seemed odd because she was clearly at ease in front of her class. We offered to give pointers and she refused saying she would be ok.

Two days before her workshop and ONE DAY before payday, she failed to show up at work. The director asked us (FTs) if we had seen her that morning and we said no. The director had called her apt a few times but no response, the teacher had no cell. Kindergarten classes started and we covered for her thinking she was sick. After kindy classes ended, the director asked a couple of us if we would mind going to her apt to see if she was there as there was no response on the phone. We went (myself, one FT and on Korean Teacher she was relatively close to). We knocked on the door and no answer. At this point we were wondering if she had ran or if was in there hurt or seriously ill. The K-teacher called the school and the director told the building super to come unlock the door.

The apt was spotless. I mean it was sparkling clear. Clearly it had been through a deep cleaning the night before. All the closets were open, clean and empty. The bedroom was made up, the bedding freshly laundered and folded on the matress. The fridge was empty and pristine, same with the bathroom. On the kitchen table was brief note. The note was her apology for leaving for personal reasons.

She had pulled a runner, we never heard from her again. Later that day, in the staff room we (FTs) wondered about her decision to leaver BEFORE payday to avoid having to deliver what was a light workshop. That poor girl must have had a pretty debilitating fear of public speaking but yet managed to be good in front of her class. That fear drove her to run and leave a full months pay on the table and left her with the cost of her ticket back home (we assume she went home).

[young_clinton]

If the Hogwan was reasonable I'm willing to bet she could have talked the owner/manager out of making her do the workshop. It's a sad story.

[Stain]

It is a sad story. Seems like she was one of those people who are great with kids but bad with adults. Understandable considering adults are pretty messed up.

[PatrickGHBusan]

[Hokie21]

Towards the end of my last contract we got a new guy who was either from the US or Canada (I forget) but was of Korean descent. He was, and still remains to this day the weirdest person I've met in Korea.

To begin with, he had just arrived from China where supposedly he was a tennis instructor, as for teaching English I don't believe he had any experience. The very first day he was paired up with myself to shadow my classes. At the beginning of class I asked him to come up to the front of the class with me so that he could introduce himself. After a brief introduction the kids asked a couple of questions, the typical, "How old are you?" "Do you have girlfriend?" routine. I believe it was the "Do you have g/f" question which pissed him off. He got really defensive when after answering in the negative they laughed and asked "Why?" I don't remember his exact words but it was a long the lines of, "DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?! No? Well shut up then!" (This guy was in his mid-30's and these kids were maybe 4th grade?)

After that I told him to sit in the back to take notes and watch my lesson. It was about 15 minutes later when very loudly he mentions he has to fart. I just kind of stare at him, stunned....as he gets up and leaves the room...only to reenter one minute later. Another 10 or 15 minutes go by and again he very loudly interrupts my class by announcing that he has to go take a poop. He exits.......I'm just staring at the door and my students looking at me like "wtf teacher? did he say he has to poop??"

This went on the entire two weeks I worked with the guy, we'd have a weekly meeting and he would just randomly say, "Sorry I have to fart." and leave the room for a minute and come back in. He would also hit on and ask out every female teacher in the office which made them very uncomfortable and from what I heard he made a huge scene and tried to fight one of the foreign teachers in the teachers room. I know they were planning on firing him but he may have seen the writing on the wall and fled before he was actually fired.

The guy must have been slightly autistic or something.

[schwa]

Not exactly midnight runners but I've had two teachers under my charge simply stop coming to work, holed up for days in their apartments, without a word to anyone. Had to bang on their doors just to get acknowledgement they were alive.

One was a chronic drunk, the other an emotionally unstable packrat. Both were quietly let go by their schools for "personal reasons."