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tanklor1
Joined: 13 Jun 2006
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 Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:36 pm Post subject: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| I work for The Royal House of Chungdahm so I'll be in my classroom this Tuesday preaching the holy creed of transitions and Main ideas. Anyone else working next Tuesday? If you are: feel proud to know that you are just as important as a police officer, doctor, or a taxi driver. Without us those kids would be able to freely enjoy a day off! Who needs that? |
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Stan Rogers
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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| If I was in your situation, I would tell my boss that either Christmas is a day off or I quit. |
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PigeonFart
Joined: 27 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Christmas Day is a 'red day' in Korea. So most English teachers will not be working, even most hogwons will close.
Is it in your contract that you have to work christmas day? If so, there's nothing you can really do about it. I feel for you. Anyway, maybe it won't be all that bad. But it's never nice being told you have to do something (when most others don't have to). |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:21 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| tanklor1 wrote: |
| I work for The Royal House of Chungdahm |
No sympathy. Seriously, friend. Look at the number of threads about Chungdahm. It has only marginally better comments about it than Wonderland. |
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fustiancorduroy
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:12 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
| tanklor1 wrote: |
| I work for The Royal House of Chungdahm |
No sympathy. Seriously, friend. Look at the number of threads about Chungdahm. It has only marginally better comments about it than Wonderland. |
Chungdam is very organized and professional with a well-developed curriculum and support system for teachers. They also pay more, in some cases much more, than the industry average. But, yeah, having basically no vacations is a major bummer, but not necessarily a deal breaker, especially if you want to earn a good amount of money and work in a professional environment.
Case in point, I worked with a fellow who worked at Chungdam. He eventually became a manager, teaching only 12 or so hours a week. His salary was is the mid 4-million won a month range. Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month. Which Wonderland location offers opportunities like that? None. So to compare Chungdam to Wonderland is a bit ridiculous and just plain wrong. |
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What the Book
Joined: 23 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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One of the hogwons I worked at in Yeosu had a director who seemed to believe holidays were a North Korean Communist plot. After my first year the only holidays any of us got were Chuseok and Solnal, but even he gave me Christmas Day off. (I always had to ask for it though; it was weird finding out exactly how Bob Cratchit felt.)
New Year's Day. however, was another story. The year NYD fell on a Thursday, I found out teachers at some other hogwon got the following day off as well because it was so close to the weekend anyway... and that was the final straw.
Last edited by What the Book on Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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newb
Joined: 27 Aug 2012
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:20 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
Case in point, I worked with a fellow who worked at Chungdam. He eventually became a manager, teaching only 12 or so hours a week. His salary was is the mid 4-million won a month range. Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month. Which Wonderland location offers opportunities like that? None. So to compare Chungdam to Wonderland is a bit ridiculous and just plain wrong. |
Good grief! Teaching almost 11 hours a day? He must've been eating lots of ginsaeng and kimchi for stamina. 
I assume they were IC's with no benefits. |
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Snowkr
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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I'm working Christmas Day. So are all the majority of my colleagues. It's a regular working day- and the last teaching day of our semester.
I'm in Oman. |
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fustiancorduroy
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:50 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| newb wrote: |
| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
Case in point, I worked with a fellow who worked at Chungdam. He eventually became a manager, teaching only 12 or so hours a week. His salary was is the mid 4-million won a month range. Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month. Which Wonderland location offers opportunities like that? None. So to compare Chungdam to Wonderland is a bit ridiculous and just plain wrong. |
Good grief! Teaching almost 11 hours a day? He must've been eating lots of ginsaeng and kimchi for stamina.
I assume they were IC's with no benefits. |
When did I write that he was a teacher? Look at my description again: "Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month."
Those are still long hours, regardless, but he chooses to work that much because he enjoys it. And if you're making 8.5 million won a month, it doesn't really matter if you aren't getting health insurance, pension, or a dinky 500,000 won a month housing stipend. You'd have plenty of money -- about quadruple what the average English teacher makes with benefits -- to do what you want with. |
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lemak
Joined: 02 Jan 2011
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:09 am Post subject: |
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I had a boss a few years ago who sprang 100 odd report cards on each of us Dec. 24th and said they needed to be completed by Dec. 26th, effectively meaning Christmas would have been spent at home writing lies about what wonderful, polite, diligent, hygienic darlings Min Ju, Min Su, Min Hee, Min Ji numbers 1 thru 25 are.
None of us foreigners were overly religious or gave much of a crap about Christmas, but the audacity of this *beep* to spring a pile of work on what he knew is essentially our biggest holiday created near mutiny. Despite him being quite adamant and threatening about it everyone quickly united, said no, made counter threats about leaving and he rapidly caved and pushed the report cards back a month.
Some of these Korean bosses can't stand the fact that most of us relish our lives outside work far more than we do brown nosing up their stinky corn holes. |
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newb
Joined: 27 Aug 2012
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:44 am Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
| newb wrote: |
| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
Case in point, I worked with a fellow who worked at Chungdam. He eventually became a manager, teaching only 12 or so hours a week. His salary was is the mid 4-million won a month range. Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month. Which Wonderland location offers opportunities like that? None. So to compare Chungdam to Wonderland is a bit ridiculous and just plain wrong. |
Good grief! Teaching almost 11 hours a day? He must've been eating lots of ginsaeng and kimchi for stamina.
I assume they were IC's with no benefits. |
When did I write that he was a teacher? Look at my description again: "Another guy I know from there works as one of their main curriculum developers. He works long hours, generally from 11 am to 10 pm, but he makes around 8.5 million won a month."
Those are still long hours, regardless, but he chooses to work that much because he enjoys it. And if you're making 8.5 million won a month, it doesn't really matter if you aren't getting health insurance, pension, or a dinky 500,000 won a month housing stipend. You'd have plenty of money -- about quadruple what the average English teacher makes with benefits -- to do what you want with. |
Let's get this straight. He's making 8.5 mil as an IC.
8.5 million minus his own health insurance (NHIC) over 5% (425,000/month)
minus his own housing (you said dinky 500K) probably 1 million/month.
minus his tax (15%) 1.275 million/month
minus no airfare averages 200,000/month
minus no severance 800,000/month
minus probably +30 days of paid holiday & vacation 800,000/month
So roughly, he is actually clearing a little over 4 million working 11 hours a day without paid holiday or vacation working as an IC. Correct me if I'm wrong. |
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fustiancorduroy
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:41 am Post subject: Re: Anyone else working on Christmas? |
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| newb wrote: |
Let's get this straight. He's making 8.5 mil as an IC.
8.5 million minus his own health insurance (NHIC) over 5% (425,000/month)
minus his own housing (you said dinky 500K) probably 1 million/month.
minus his tax (15%) 1.275 million/month
minus no airfare averages 200,000/month
minus no severance 800,000/month
minus probably +30 days of paid holiday & vacation 800,000/month
So roughly, he is actually clearing a little over 4 million working 11 hours a day without paid holiday or vacation working as an IC. Correct me if I'm wrong. |
You have an interesting way of interpreting numbers. You're overestimating certain costs and skewing others. In any case, I don't know his exact situation, since I'm not his keeper, but I would look at his salary as the following:
8.5 million*12 = 102 million won
That alone is more money in the bank than the vast majority of ESL teachers here, period. But if you want to talk about costs of benefits and deductions, I suppose you could break it down as the following:
- Private Health Insurance: 100,000 a month = 1.2 million a year (Where did you get your figure of 425,000 from? You can get your own health insurance, if so want it, for much less than this a month.)
- Housing:
Typical Teacher's Housing: 500,000 a month = 6 million a year
Actually Good Housing: 1 million a month = 12 million a year (If you want a better place in most jobs, you have to pay out of pocket, as well, even if they give you an extra 500,000 a month for it.)
- Taxes: 8.5 million a month taxed at 3.3% = 280,500 a month = 3,366,000 a year (As an IC, your tax rate is 3.3%, and if you file your taxes with a professional accountant, you usually end up paying even less than this)
- Airfare: Subtract approximately 2.5 million won a year
- Severance: Subtract 8.5 million won (Although this is irrelevant when calculating his yearly salary.)
- Vacation: He gets 10 days vacation a year, but not 30, so I guess we can subtract 20 days' pay = 5,666,666 million won a year
Total: 102 million - 27,232,000 in deductions = 74,768,000 won for the year, which still equates to a monthly salary of 6.23 million won, plus 8.5 million severance, which I subtracted above. If you forget subtracting the severance, since I'm considering the yearly salary, you get 83,268,000 million won a year, or about 6.7 million won a month, which is a far cry from your figure of just over 4 million won a month. And the fact is, his after-tax take home pay for the year is still 98.7 million won, which is a ton of money no matter how you interpret the numbers. Yes, he has to pay for his own housing and other costs that people in other position have covered by their employers. But frankly, I don't think he has insurance or cares about not receiving airfare since he's planning on staying here for quite a few years, so those deductions are irrelevant to him. And if has an apartment that costs a million won a month, that means he is living better than most teachers. At his income, spending more for a good apartment is probably worth it.
It is interesting to consider his hourly pay. If we use the after-deductions figure of 6.7 million a month, and assume that he works 220 hours a month, that equates to just over 30,000 won an hour, which is not great, but still quite good, especially for an R&D position such as his (most pay around 20,000 to 25,000 an hour). If you look at his pre-tax and deductions pay, his hourly salary is nearly 39,000 won an hour, which is very good. While there are teachers who make more than he does per hour, very few work as many hours as he does. This means that they have more free time, sure, but they don't make as much money. For him, his free time is less valuable than earning lots of money, and there is nothing wrong with that.
In any case, I also work as an IC in a teaching position. I make less a bit less money than my friend, though I also only work about 30 hours a week. Last year, I paid 3.3 percent in taxes. I filed my taxes professionally and ended up getting about 60 percent of the money I paid in taxes returned to me. So, essentially, my taxes amounted to just under 1 million won for the year. I have to pay for my own housing, but that's okay, because I get a higher salary because I didn't take the housing offered by my employer and live in my own three bedroom, two bathroom apartment. I mean, it's not like you get FREE housing in any case. The cost of rent is basically deducted from your paycheck. I don't have health insurance and don't want to have it because I am still young and paying for it would mean I would have less money to spend and save. In short, no teacher who makes 2, 3, 4, or even 5 million won a month with benefits takes home as much money as I do or is able to live like I do, and that's all that matters to me. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:04 am Post subject: |
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| Fustian we have been through this before. You and your friend are not declaring your earnings properly. Otherwise you would be paying 12-15% on your 8 million or so. I know because I work for a legitimate company on a proper contract and have to pay upwards of 1million a month when I earn this much. If you think it's legal to declare yourself an IC and pay less than 3.3% tax on an 8 million a month salary, instead of 12-15%, don't you think everyone would be doing it? I really would keep your financial shenanigans to yourself from now on. You've as much as told people where you work in previous posts so the tax office might start getting interested soon. |
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fustiancorduroy
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:51 am Post subject: |
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Edward,
I appreciate your concern as well as your more thoughtful tone, but, to the best of my knowledge, I have filed my taxes properly. My income summary that was generated by my employer and was submitted to the national tax office listed my full, correct income for the year. It did not omit or otherwise reduce any of my income. The Korean government knows my exact earnings for the year. However, I ended up paying less than 1 percent in taxes last year. I attribute this to the fact that I used a professional accountant to file my taxes this year and last. In previous years, I got much smaller tax returns even though my salary was much lower and my tax rate higher. So, the accountant I use (and I must point out that his office handles the taxes for many of the teachers at a large hagwon chain, not Chungdam, but just as large, and gets them similar rates of return). So, unless my accountant is doing something illegal with my income statement, even though he runs a large company with dozens of employees and has been in business for over 20 years, then the amount of taxes I pay is correct.
As for my friend, he works for Chungdam. I don't. Honestly, I don't know how much he pays in taxes each year. Maybe he pays more than I suggested above. But if he files his taxes correctly, my estimate should be reasonably accurate. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Your employer? Right there, you admit that what you and your employer are doing is not legitimate. |
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