Korean Job Discussion Forums

[footnote]

Does anyone else have privates who try to invite you to do some things with them outside of class, trying to become your friend instead of your paying client, and then just stop paying you for your lessons??? Usually I give these student two classes per week, and they pay be during the 2nd lesson. It's been really good up until now.

The last two weeks, we have had only one lesson and they invited me out to see a movie, and to go hiking. Like a vulnerable first timer- I agreed to go- you know to see Korea with a Korean.... But so far, I haven't been paid for the last three actual lessons I gave, and there's been nothing said about it. Is this a Korean thing or what? Should I always politely decline their invitations in order to keep our relationship strickly business? Or am I supposed to teach them for free because we are now friends- or are we really?!?

[Mr. Pink]

If I was you I would decline the offer of going out etc.

The only acceptable thing IMO is when you teach businessmen privately and they invite you out. In my experience they pay for both the meals and the lessons. Businessmen are older, and usually don't want to be your friend. They just work so hard, they prefer to have an "informal" lesson chatting away over soju and kalbi.

[kangnamdragon]

Mr. Pink is right. Any young person paying for privates won't be able to afford it for long. You need to look at the nature of how Korean friendships work.

[gi66y]

I've found that with privates, especially when teaching children. With some of the parents part of the appeal is that they have a foreigner teaching their child. A status symbol of sorts.

So they invite you to do things on weekends or you find they have company when you go in to teach their kid. "oh that's our private tutor(b/c were so rich and important)." I hope that doesn't sound cynical, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's felt like that at times.

"A friend of mine" had a private where the mother kept inviting him out on weekends because "that's what the last tutor did." He kept politely declining b/c he was, at the time, quite busy. That and he had lived and travelled around in Korea for over a year and had a Korean girlfriend so he didn't need a guide.

Anyways, after a month the mother decided that 9pm was too late and that her daughter was too tired to study. But next time he sign a contract he could live with them rent free...yeah, that would have made for an interesting situation.

[Skarp]

Better not to do privates imo - they are illegal and you will always end up working twice as hard as for any employer.....

Skarp

[mack the knife]

Business and pleasure should generally be separate endeavors. Many a mother has asked me to "play" with their kid on like, a weekend or something. NO. HELL. NO. That is the correct answer. In no uncertain terms. Time is money, and if any people in the world understand that, Koreans do.

[J.B. Clamence]

I don't do privates, but if I did, I would make it a point never to mix business with pleasure (assuming it was a guy of course ). Once you start being friends, the business relationship becomes blurred, and then you've got real problems on your hand. I would just say I was busy and politely decline all invitations.

The same goes for people who invite you to do stuff who are just so obviously after English practice - I say no to them, too. Once you've got an English kling-on, they can be hard to get rid of without resorting to rudeness. People who you teach privately are obviously in this category too, so if I were you, I would try to keep the relationship as professional as possible.

[Starperson]

Ask them plainly whether they intend to pay. Discuss it openly. If you like them and their company, why not spend time with them? Just discuss pay frankly.

[lush72]

[U.S.A.]

When I taught children, parents sometimes invited me out but mostly didn't. Usually I didn't go. With my adult privates, almost all of them became my friends and we maintained class fine enough.

Actually, I bought dinner now and then for some of my adult privates. Still, the ways they helped me both mentally and financially far outweighed anything I could've spent on them.

One group of privates set up and paid for my flight from Kyungsung nam do to Seoul when my father died. Prior to that, one of the ladies in the group fixed me lunch for free several days a week.

A group of two businessmen I taught took me out to eat several times. Did I want to be paid also? Hell no. I generally liked their company and was happy to give up some of my time (also, they were already paying me about 70,000 won an hour). I got a free meal, some decent conversation, and kept them as clients. (Oh yeah, does it hurt to have more friends in life?)

I don't think a teacher should go crazy hanging out with someone they purely see as a business transaction.

Here's one way to think about it: anyone here every worked in a bar? If you can have a customer drinking all night and buying expensive stuff, but you give him or her one free drink or two, he or she will keep coming back (and usually tip well). What you have to do is judge whether or not the customer is the type of person that will then expect a lot of free drinks or will be appreciative.

[Ryst Helmut]