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poosan
Joined: 19 May 2011
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 Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 4:35 pm Post subject: Some things to consider before accepting a job at poly |
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As a long time viewer of these forums, I have recently felt the urge to share my views on Poly School Korea. I hope to generate conversation and I encourage you to challenge my views if you think they are not accurate. However it is my goal to prove that choosing to work at Poly is not the wisest of decisions. I will attempt to be as objective as possible and only discuss issues that I have experienced first hand.
1. You might be lied to: If you are choosing Poly for their "reputableness" please think again. The HR director for ESC-Poly, Jeremy Lee, is either dangerously incompetent or a liar. His tacky "used car salesmen" personality is perhaps a clear warning. He has mislead me on:
Pension amount: As Poly is known for cleverly evading paying proper pension - I asked him countless times, and he assured me (in writing) that the pension amount would be 4.5% x my full monthly salary. In reality I am getting $1500 less (per year) than what he stated.
Housing: the pictures of the housing I was promised were very nice. A very spacious office-tel with a seperate shower stall. I again asked him and he assured me this was my housing. In reality I was placed in a 70% smaller villa room that smelled terribly of sewage and had no seperate shower stall.
2. A soul crushing job: Working at Poly (especially the morning-afternoon shifts) will wear you out physically and mentally. You will teach anywhere from 42-50+ classes a week and on top of this be expected to do an endless amount of grading, writing report cards and hearing complaints from managers. Poly exemplifies a true top-down Korean business, were you are, unfortunately, at the bottom. Working 10 hours a day will inevitiably make you sick. I get 5 unpaid sick days on the contract, but at my school I was denied even one. Unacceptable. Additionally, working these hours does not give you the chance to go to the bank or the doctor. Leaving my school during the breaks was frowned upon. Sounds reasonable? Perhaps the worst aspect of this job is the negative effect it will have on your personal life. You will be so tired by the end of the day you won't have much energy to do much else during the week.
3. You are being exploited. It doesn't take an accountant to figure this out. Simply divide your monthly salary by the # of hours you work a month. I get a relatively high salary of 3.0 - and it works to around $11.50 an hour. (edit, 11.99 adjusted for today's exchange rate).
In conclusion, Poly falsely advertises itself as a top tier "North American style" school. While their educational material is good and they have very smart kids, they overwork their teachers and the quality of the education suffers immensly. How can you possibly be expected to teach a quality lesson - while teaching a 10 lesson work day?
Last edited by poosan on Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:25 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Working 9-7:30 and teaching without breaks is enough to do it for me. |
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Zanniati
Joined: 04 Apr 2011
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:37 pm Post subject: Re: Do not work at POLY - Here is why: |
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| poosan wrote: |
As a long time viewer of these forums, I have recently felt the urge to share my views on Poly School Korea. I hope to generate conversation and I encourage you to challenge my views if you think they are not accurate. However it is my goal to prove that choosing to work at Poly is not the wisest of decisions. I will attempt to be as objective as possible and only discuss issues that I have experienced first hand.
1. You will most likely be lied to: If you are choosing Poly for their "reputableness" please think again. The HR director for ESC-Poly, Jeremy Lee, is either dangerously incompetent or a liar. His tacky "used car salesmen" personality is perhaps a clear warning. He has mislead me on:
Pension amount: As Poly is known for cleverly evading paying proper pension - I asked him countless times, and he assured me (in writing) that the pension amount would be 4.5% x my full monthly salary. In reality I am getting $1500 less (per year) than what he stated.
Housing: the pictures of the housing I was promised were very nice. A very spacious office-tel with a seperate shower stall. I again asked him and he assured me this was my housing. In reality I was placed in a 70% smaller villa room that smelled terribly of sewage and had no seperate shower stall.
2. A soul crushing job: Working at Poly (especially the morning-afternoon shifts) will wear you out physically and mentally. You will teach anywhere from 42-50+ classes a week and on top of this be expected to do an endless amount of grading, writing report cards and hearing complaints from managers. Poly exemplifies a true top-down Korean business, were you are, unfortunately, at the bottom. Working 10 hours a day will inevitiably make you sick. I get 5 unpaid sick days on the contract, but at my school I was denied even one - even though I had bronchitis for a week. Unacceptable. Additionally, working these hours does not give you the chance to go to the bank or the doctor. Leaving my school during the breaks was frowned upon. Sounds reasonable? Perhaps the worst aspect of this job is the negative effect it will have on your personal life. You will be so tired by the end of the day you won't have much energy to do much else during the week.
3. You are being exploited. It doesn't take an accountant to figure this out. Simply divide your monthly salary by the # of hours you work a month. I get a relatively high salary of 3.0 - and it works to around $11.50 an hour. $11.50 an hour!!! To be a slave in another country. Please outline the rationality behind this.
In conclusion, Poly falsely advertises itself as a top tier "North American style" school. While their educational material is good and they have very smart kids, they overwork their teachers and the quality of the education suffers immensly. How can you possibly be expected to teach a quality lesson - while teaching a 10 lesson work day? |
So, let me get this straight...
1. You don't like Jeremy Lee. That's fine. Not all people that work at Poly ever even talk to him so... I'm not sure you can rule out an entire company because of one person.
Pension: I can't really speak to that so... whatever.
Housing: That sucks. Did you talk to your director or anyone else about changing your housing? I know that at the Poly in my city, I know of at least 2 cases of people being allowed to switch housing with no extra costs even if for very trivial reasons.
2. I think problems with sick days is a complaint that I have heard. As for your long hours. Read your freaking contract. You should not be complaining about how you have to work so hard when you should know that those would be your hours. If you weren't ready for that, you shouldn't have taken the job.
3. You're bad at math... really bad. You make about 13.90/hour. 10 hours per day, times 5 days a week, times 52 weeks in a year, divided by 12 months is 216 hours per month. $3,000 per month divided by 216 hours per month is 13.90 per hour. Stick with teaching english sir. Math is not your thing.
EDIT: btw, even if you want to use the real exchange rate. You're making about $2770 a month for $12. 82 an hour. Still a lot more than you're suggesting. I'm not saying it's a lot, but you should at least represent your pay fairly. Also on this note, you knew ahead of time what your pay and hours would be, you shouldn't be complaining about this.
In conclusion... learn math, read your contract, and do a little research and you wont have the same problems as OP. This is a simple problem of someone not thinking before signing with a company. Clearly you were not able to work the hours. You should have just gotten some 8 hour a day job for 2.1 like most people do their first year. (btw, that's $11.10 per hour... a lot less than you were making)
Just another point. Not every Poly is the same. Poly has both branches and franchises each with their own directors and bosses. Just like any job here, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. |
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minos
Joined: 01 Dec 2010
Location: kOREA
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Even sadder, some folks will defend poly and their crazy schedule.
I still don't know why anyone takes any job around 9+ hours a day(like kindies or poly). |
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Zanniati
Joined: 04 Apr 2011
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| minos wrote: |
Even sadder, some folks will defend poly and their crazy schedule.
I still don't know why anyone takes any job around 9+ hours a day(like kindies or poly). |
I just don't think "They made me work the hours that I agreed to work." to be a legitimate reason to say that a company is bad. |
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Ramen
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Zanniati wrote: |
| minos wrote: |
Even sadder, some folks will defend poly and their crazy schedule.
I still don't know why anyone takes any job around 9+ hours a day(like kindies or poly). |
I just don't think "They made me work the hours that I agreed to work." to be a legitimate reason to say that a company is bad. |
i agree jeremy. but poly is just a bad place to work. they suck your blood right outta you.  |
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thegadfly
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Ramen wrote: |
| Zanniati wrote: |
| minos wrote: |
Even sadder, some folks will defend poly and their crazy schedule.
I still don't know why anyone takes any job around 9+ hours a day(like kindies or poly). |
I just don't think "They made me work the hours that I agreed to work." to be a legitimate reason to say that a company is bad. |
i agree jeremy. but poly is just a bad place to work. they suck your blood right outta you. |
Whether or not Zan IS Jeremy, the fact remains that "working the hours I agreed to work" is not a valid complaint. |
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Zanniati
Joined: 04 Apr 2011
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Ramen wrote: |
| i agree jeremy. but poly is just a bad place to work. they suck your blood right outta you. |
Typical argument here on Daves... I'm not Jeremy. I think my post history would make that quite clear. Don't try to make my arguments invalid because you have no logical counter. I know plenty of people that work at poly schools that don't complain like this. |
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Ramen
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| Zanniati wrote: |
| Ramen wrote: |
| i agree jeremy. but poly is just a bad place to work. they suck your blood right outta you. |
Typical argument here on Daves... I'm not Jeremy. I think my post history would make that quite clear. Don't try to make my arguments invalid because you have no logical counter. I know plenty of people that work at poly schools that don't complain like this. |
jeremy is right. poly is next best thing to wonderland. |
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carleverson
Joined: 04 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 5:09 am Post subject: |
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Working 8 hours a day in a hogwon is really crazy...working 9-10 hours a day is completely insane.
Poly is a horrible place to work for this fact alone. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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| As much as teaching straight from 9-7:30 sounds godawful, it bears mentioning that Poly does compensate its employees significantly better than most hagwons do. |
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bobbybigfoot
Joined: 05 May 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:39 pm Post subject: |
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10 hours of teaching is far too much.
8 hours is far too much.
6 should be the maximum.
5 is better.
4 is ideal.
Anything less is cushy. |
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