Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pegpig]

Ok. I was a little bored. The way you're calculating the days in the year is no way to figure this one out. This calendar year, for example, would give you an extra 13 days off. Now, if you don't mind those extra "vacation" days spread out throughout the year, I guess that's not bad. I'm only getting 5, three of which were chosen by my boss. Hey, I used to like the school.

Now, there is one month where you only have 17 days. You may have to make those up on Saturdays, which I had to do my 1st unfortunate time around.

You have a clause about prorated salary in the event of teaching less than 100 hours. That might worry me if you're not teaching a full schedule (less than 5 hours a day). But, if you are teaching a full schedule that 17-day month is not a concern because you would still have 100 hours.

Also, during my first time around, those months where there were extra days, we still had to come in for a lunch class on Friday afternoons.

And, since you'd also be teaching kids, you might still have to come in during those "vacation" days just to teach the kiddies for a couple of hours.

You may also want to ask about a potential lunch class, which I had to teach for my entire first year. That turns your daily split shift into a wonderful double split-shift.

Also, those meetings/workshops could take place on those "vacation" days. On those days, we were supposed to call the students who had been late too often during the month, in addition to the lunch and kiddie classes. However, no one to my knowledge actually did any calling.

[Hagwon Muppet]

The holiday and pro-rated pay clauses just seem wrong to me. Not illegally wrong but wrong as in 'why would anyone sign up for that' wrong.

Unless you think there is some redeeming feature of this job that you won't get elsewhere I would ask to be given a stipulated 10 days vacation and a guaranteed minimum 2m won salary.

If they don't agree then go elsewhere.

[peppermint]

Theres's one minor upside to this holiday arrangement, that's easy to overlook. You get your vacation time when Korean people mostly don't. That means that it will be relatively cheap and easy to get a ticket out of Korea.

That's what I consoled myself with when I worked at a school with a similar arrangement anyway.

[Hagwon Muppet]

[Grotto]

The problem with the Korean labour laws about vacation time is the 10 days are awarded after you complete a year of work. The OP will work a full year and will not recieve those 10 days at the end of the contract. Now if you work a year and dont miss a day you should get 10 or 15 days of paid vacation. So basically you should get your year end bonus + an extra 10 days of pay for your vacation time.

[peppermint]

nah- you'd get a 4 or 5 day weekend a few times a year. Not enough for serious travel, but enough for short hops to a beach.

[Hagwon Muppet]

[Pulgasori]

I took the job.

A hearty thank-you for the advice I found both here and via PM. I was able to negotiate my way to several alterations to the initial contract.
I had the part about working at other schools taken out, my flight is now paid for in advance, I got the guaranteed hours up'ed to 120 and a couple other smaller issues ironed out.

I was able to contact two other teachers currently working at the school, and was met with glowing commentaries. The hagwon director is a native English speaker who's lived in the States for a decade and a half so hopefully that'll be a 'plus'.

Other things which sold me on the job:
-Teaching adults: less time babysitting.
-Location: downtown Daejeon (my GFs hometown, her parents actually live about 15 minutes walking from the school)

I even managed to get the GF's parents to 'scout' the school for me. I didn't manage to get much out of them other than 'It's a good school'.

I'm looking forward to this, I've been waiting all year.
Hopefully things work out well!