Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sarbonn]

Not to say I don't live for the continuous Korean hagwon drama, but a month or so ago, my boss, who couldn't pay us because he never had money, sold the school to another person who supposedly was going to be solving all of those problems. Yesterday (the 10th) was payday. No pay. So, I came into work today, planning to talk to our new boss because, well, I just have this thing about continuing to work for free. It kind of bothers me. Anyhoo, so I was going to go in to see her, and I was told by the head teacher, "Don't ask the boss about pay because she is in a bad mood. She's yelling at everyone." So, this brought both a note of concern to me and a look of hilarity. I mean, so what? If I don't talk to her, I'm obviously not going to get paid. If I do talk to her and she says she's not going to pay me, better to know now, book a flight back to the states and end this ridiculous carpet ride forever.

Anyway, she's now "in meetings" with people, so I'm kind of upstairs waiting for a moment to go and talk to her about not having been paid. By the way, the old boss still owes me about 1.5 million won that he keeps "promising" to pay. Well, he used to keep promising. Now, he just doesn't return calls to me or the other former teachers (including the one that filed the lawsuit against him for lack of two months pay).

So, based on this, what are your thoughts? Real, humorous, ridiculous, I don't really care. Just looking for something to pay attention to before I get a chance to piss off the big boss who is in a bad mood by asking her "um, where's my paycheck?"

My biggest concern is that I don't have a lot of money (the whole problem thing started while I was still paying off debts), so I have about enough money to get home and probably enough to last a few weeks, if lucky. But I'm thinking this probably isn't a great circumstance to continue to be in when I'm not even allowed to tak another job. At least back in the states, I can take another job somewhere without having to do so illegally (even if I knew how to do it illegally here).

[ekul]

Sell rides on your carpet!

[Straphanger]

[ED209]

She was dumb enough to buy a failing hagwon. And now she can't pay you. Look for an exit. The rules about changing jobs here are as foggy as they've ever being. Essentially I think it comes down to convincing immigration to cancel your visa and getting an exit order.

[cdninkorea]

Have you considered striking? I did it once when I wasn't paid:

I was working at a public elementary school (yes, it can happen at public schools. Sorry to burst your bubble) and wasn't paid. The next day I went to admin. and asked when I would get paid. They told me it would be the next day. Next day, no pay. Again, tomorrow. Still no pay. By now it's the third day past my payday.

So I went to the admin. office with a book and stood at the woman's desk, directly in front of where she was sitting and with the book resting on her cubicle wall. She kept telling me it would happen that day and to go teach, but I refused and said "I'll go when you tell me I've been paid, and even then I'm going to the bank to check. If I'm paid, then I'll go teach."

I got paid pretty quick, and was never paid late again either.

[Rory_Calhoun27]

I like your style.

[Teelo]

I say we do the good cop bad cop thing.
You interrogate the witness, and I growl. Grrrrrrrrrr.

[Steelrails]

I think now is the time to call in all your favors and get in touch with the contacts you have over here and get your $$$ one way or another.

I normally fall on the side of 'Professionalism and doing what your boss says, etc.' but in this case...Time to pull out your inner lawyer/mobster/politician and make your boss tremble.

[lifeinkorea]

I would go up to "the boss" and pretend jokingly that you don't recognize them as the boss. Pretend they are a parent of one of the students. Explain the situation about pay and the fact you haven't been paid yet.

Try to get a giggle out of her in the process, LOL, I know it's not going to be easy. However, it's better than trying to threaten her after she bought into a sinking hagwon.

[ontheway]

OP.

So, is your pay a few days late from the new owner who has never paid you plus one month from the former owner? Or is it more than that?

If I understand your situation correctly, you are not likely to ever get paid everything you are due. But, maybe your new/old bosses owe you even more than it seems.

Either way, you should get busy looking for a new job. Get a recruiter. Get several recruiters. Explain your situation. Post your ad on Dave's. Network. Whatever. When you find a new job they will be able to help you get your visa transferred or at least arrange for you to get your old visa cancelled and go on a visa run. Since your school was sold, you may need a new visa anyway. Has your visa been transferred to your new school yet? Later you can use persuasion and other legal means to try to get your past due pay.

You should probably keep working until you find a new job. This way you have housing, at least, while you are working and looking for a new job. And it looks better to be working while you are looking. Many employers will be happy to help you change jobs and it should be possible since you haven't been paid.

Get moving. The longer you stay where you are the more you will lose.

[dporter]

I'm guessing the books were cooked so the bottom line didn't look as bad as it was. Maybe some Enron accounting going on.

You know, you have 200 students but you take out a loan based on 300 students. You loan that money to your brother-in-law in Shanghai so he can open up a private ESL school using copied curriculum from your school.

The brother-in-law forgets to pay off the local Chinese Education Minister so they raid his place. He needs to shred all the documents tying you two together.

Now the first payment is due on the loan but you can't pay it because your brother is in a Chinese jail. So you decide to sell shares in the Chinese ESL venture (even though its been shut down) to raise money.

You sell enough shares to pay the note for the first month but now you're getting worried because a few investors want to go to the mainland and see the Chinese program. At the same time the teachers in your South Korean school need to get paid.

So you hire a Russian accountant trained in the U.S. to make a fake set of books. Then you sell the Korean business and the Chinese subsidiary to a naive South Korean woman who inherited money from her dead husband.

Now she realizes she's broke and these teachers keep asking her for money.

And you want to push the issue?