Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Josey1]

My current contract says that I must give 2 months notice of resignation. I'm at the 9th month of my contract and desperate to resign. To put it mildly I'm being overworked, and my schedule is due to increase on Monday.
Is having to give 2 months notice of resignation even legal?
I seriously don't think I can tolerate, or survive, one more week, let alone 2 months.

[crossmr]

is the work they're giving you what is outlined in your contract?

[Josey1]

My contract says a 40 hour working week, with no more than 30 hours of teaching per week. The length of one teaching hour is not stipulated in my contract.
I have been teaching 29.5 hours per week.
We are required to write report cards every month for kindergarten. These are written reports, not "tick the box" type reports, so they take a while to write. And we must write report cards every 3 months for our elementary students. We also have to submit a one month lesson plan for the following month, at the end of every month. I also have to write a monthly test every month for my 2 elementary classes. Each class uses 2 books. One book has a teachers manual, so I just copy the review tests from there. The other 3 books have no teachers manual, so I have to write three tests per month. These tests must be at least 40 minutes long. So we have to do all of this within our 10 "free" hours per week.
On top of that, my preschool class is a new class that has no curriculum, so I have been making the programme for that for the past 9 months. That takes up a lot of my time.
Also, every 3 months we have parent/teacher meetings. During this time we have to cover for the other teacher's classes, plus have our own parent/teacher meetings. During this week our working time can go up to 33 or 35 hours of teaching. Nobody has ever received any overtime as far as I've heard.
My issue is that my schedule is due to increase on Monday. I will be working from 10am to 6:10pm (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). I raised my concerns with my bosses, so they said I could have lunch time free (12:20pm to 1:20pm). I previously did not have lunch times free. After eating lunch that would give me only about 30 minutes to prepare for 6 hours of classes in the afternoon.
I'm not lazy, but I'm not a friggin robot either.

[big_fella1]

Yes 2 months is legal but the good news for you is it applies to both parties. i.e. if they want to fire you for other than gross misconduct, they must give you 2 months notice as well. Use this knowledge and don't agree to unreasonable requests.

The labour board (1350 from any landline and some mobiles) is aware of Hagwons that try to force resignation especially near the end of the contract.

Good luck!

[noobteacher]

Ugh, sounds like a horrible job. Two months is legal but it doesn't mean you HAVE to do it. Sounds like you have three options: give your notice and stay until they have a replacement, do a runner and go back home, or if you have all your documents ready (apostilled degree, background check, etc.) then you can quit and start a new job ASAP.

Good luck to you!

[chaz47]

[West Coast Tatterdemalion]

It all depends upon your options. If staying for even one week is a barely tolerable, then I don't imagine how you'd be able to do 2 more months.

If you don't plan on staying in Korea, then you should just leave. Midnight run. Your hagwon doesn't sound too reasonable, so I don't think I'd give them any notice. By doing so, you are only inviting a screwjob. Plus, they would feel more empowered because they would be off the hook for the return airfare, bonus pay, etc.

If you plan to stay in Korea, then, you should probably tough it out. You are 9 months into a contract. If your school doesn't screw you over, you've got a lot of benefits coming if you can stay for 3 more months. Yes, your schedule sounds brutal and I wouldn't do it. I would have a talk with the boss and say that I am not going to do all this additional work and that I would like the schedule to be tweaked. If the boss says no, it would be then when I would tell them that I am giving notice to leave. Of course, in all likelihood, they will be pissed about this and will try to make the last 2 months of your life as hard as they can. They might be reasonable and figure that they'll save on the return airfare and bonus, but the thing with them is that they probably lack foresight. Koreans see things short-term, so I doubt these things will cross their minds.

This is yet another example of hawons wielding power over people who have E-2s. If we owned our own visas, this kind of garbage would cease to exist because then we could walk anytime. The E-2 is extremely restrictive and designed to subjugate the employee.

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

Either wait until payday and leave, or stick it out until the rest of the contract. If you gave 2 months, you'd be working 11 months. You may as well do the 12 and get severance. If that doesn't matter, just leave after this payday.

[noobteacher]

[shifty]

Josey, I incline to a runner. Three months is not a short time in terms of hakwon hell, it's full quarter of a year.

I believe you when you say that each week is a mountain to climb. There are plenty of weeks in 3 months.

You should have run before this, however, and not left it so that a dilemma could arise. As means of 'punishing' yourself or atonement, maybe you should stick it out, a hard lesson learned. Unless you feel it's unconstructive suffering.

Stick personal wherewithal or lack thereof into the equation. Can you afford to run? Bear a positive frame of mind in this respect, even if my talk is cheap.

Drool on the prospects of vengefulness when you leave them in the lurch, the swine sure deserves it. You should hurt them while you can, or in retrospect ever regret that you didn't.

Don't lose your soul over lost benefits unless you must.

On no account give notice!!!!!

[Epik_Teacher]

Make your preperations, and quietly go about doing a midnight run. If they say anything at immigration, you are leaving for a week because a family member is very sick.

[OculisOrbis]

[big_fella1]

[Josey1]

[quote]"Just turn in your ARC and tell them you are not returning to korea to work. They will cancel the visa and you are free to apply for a new visa immediately."[/quote]

Is this really true?

Got another piece of news from my employers today. From today we are required to be in the classroom at 10:10am (previously it was 10:00am), and our finishing time is still 6:10pm. So they calculate, and have stated, that we are working a 40 hour week (10:10am to 6:10pm). However, we MUST sign-in to work at 10:00am. I'm not a Maths teacher, but is that not a 40 hour and 50 minute working week?

Thank you so much to everyone who has responded to my post. All responses have been appreciated and most helpful.

[garybliss123]

MIDNIGHT RUN.

Academies screw us over daily. As soon as I can afford it, I'll be doing the same.