Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ghostrider]

1) He had lived in Korea for about five years. He said he was running because he realized Korea had turned him into an alcoholic. A lot of his private students were angry when they found out he left because they had paid him in advance. They didn't receive any refunds.

2) I don't know much about this guy. He was only here for three days.

3) This guy had been in Korea for about five years. He was in his late thirties. He said his hagwon treated him very well. However, he had grown very bored with living in Korea and teaching English. I had dinner with him on his last night. After that he went to a traditional Thai massage parlor hoping to have one final happy memory of his time in Korea. To his disappointment he only got a massage.

[World Traveler]

[young_clinton]

I worked at a hectic school. It had probably about 2000+ elementary students. The guy who came right before me lasted 3 days also. He left with the money they give you upfront, although he didn't get his airfare, that comes later. They told me he was from New Zealand. One of the teachers was telling me the co-teacher was wondering for days where he was. When I came, I was a bit apprehensive but I adjusted to the school pretty quickly, a couple of days. It was not that bad of a job at all, in fact I wish they would rehire me. I left after two contracts like a fool. People that are the partying type or bar going type and have no history of teaching professionalism at all (no TEFL etc, past experience, anything at all) are going to be the runners, when placed in this kind of a situation. You know you're getting paid, you're given a decent apartment, teachers speaking good English and at times helpful, warm reception, but the character just is not there, Oh I have to get out of here.

[ghostrider]

[Gnawbert]

Gyopo dude just up and vanished from my hagwon in 2008.

No notification, nothing, just didn't show up one morning mid-week. The director phoned him, went to his apartment, banged on his door and got nothing, no answer. After a few hours they hired a locksmith to get into the apartment. Everything was there. All the dude's clothes, his laptop, dirty dishes, groceries recently bought, the works.

We heard—albeit second hand from the director—that even immigration had no records of him leaving. Dude just flat out fell off the earth Paul Own American Psycho style. Still a mystery to this day.

[Stain]

[young_clinton]

[coralreefer_1]

Knew a guy, he had been here just about 4 years.

A cocky mofo to say the least. Seemed hell bent to convince everyone he was somehow special. Was constantly starting this or that facebook group in hopes to set himself up as a "leader", or otherwise as someone of importance. Constantly touting this or that thing he did, for example...letting everyone know he was studying Korean 4 hours a day, doing MMA/kickboxing 2 hours a day, working his job, attending some hagwon to learn Japanese two hours a day...etc etc (even went as far as to post a timetable of this)...lol

Dude basically went on a rant about how teaching English was not for him, and that Korean women are stupid because they choose loser foreigners with no intellect.

In reality...he was lonely because he had no friends (he was a real dbag to be around) and was jealous that other foreigners whom he considered lower than himself were getting the things he couldn't get. (hot women, decent jobs, better conditions...etc)

He ran last month.

Sad part is...he really could be a decent guy if he wasnt so wrapped up in himself and working so hard to differentiate himself from everyone else by claiming his "hood" back home is sooooo hardcore and real, and everyone else is just some Lilly-white pansy.

[Joe Boxer]

I have to be careful because I'm only semi-anonymous on the board

1) She was nice, blonde and big-busted, and (so) I recruited her. She quickly met and got engaged to a US army guy. One Friday she was supposed to get paid, and the school owner asked if everyone could wait until Monday. The teacher seemed SUPER upset about that (I found out later it was because she had a plane ticket bought for that night), and was raising quite a stink. I told her supervisor that she should consider advancing the teacher the 2.2 million, out of pocket. LOL. The teacher took off that night, and left a note saying "I 'm so sorry; I had a family emergency". The school owner then REFUSED to pay the 2.2 million to the supervisor. So, I told the supervisor that I'd pay her 1.1 million. I then hired a lawyer in Canada to contact the teacher's family and we ended up getting the whole 2.2 million back. FF a few years, and the girl contacts me from US, asking if she's been blacklisted. I said no, and that since her family paid the 2.2 million, there were no hard feelings. She returned to Korea, and the SAME SUPERVISOR HIRED HER AGAIN, for a new school that she had opened Haha, the girl finished her contract this time, though.

2) An academy in Bundang was employing a LOT of degreeless teachers (maybe five), with most living in the same building as me. A couple days before the 11th payday, the owner calls all of them and tells then not to come to the school; immigration had raided the school and had all of their names and information. All of the teachers quickly packed, headed to the airport and took off. And then the hogwan hired five more illegals

[Chaparrastique]

[young_clinton]

[cdninkorea]

Can I post a non-runner story? Here goes:

Back in 2005, a friend's co-worker got busted with a fake degree. For those of you who were here then, you may remember when Immigration found a recruiter who was forging degrees got caught and we all had to go "verify" our degrees. This guy was one of those caught.

He was teaching his class one day when his boss came in and asked him to step into the hallway, where he was arrested and taken to a holding cell. The students never found out what really happened, why their teacher just suddenly vanished.

His bank account was frozen and his parents had to wire money for his flight home. He was never allowed back into his apartment, so his co-workers (including my friend) had to go into his apartment and mail his stuff back to him. They found some disturbing stuff, too: a sink full of mould and a drawer full of worn panties- "trophies" he had kept.

The last anyone heard, he was teaching in Thailand. Do you need a university degree to teach there? If so, he must've used another forged degree.

[J Rock]

I had a buddy, a pretty good one actually who bailed 11 months into his 12 month contract. He was really getting fed up with the kids and the managment. I think his final straw was when we visited the pension office to see how much the owner had been contributing and they had no record of anything. The entire 11 months she had not been paying into his pension when she said she was and it was in his contract.

He bought a plane ticket that friday night, gave me his giutar, and left sunday moring. I had to break the news to the owner monday moring, she wasn't as mad as I imagined but she was just shocked. LIke something like this couldn't ever happen to her.

I worked at another kindy in the mornings (where I first met my wife), I was finishing up my 6 months there (my wife found me a better job) and I got to meet my replacement on my last day. He kinda followed me around and was trying to get used to how we ran the classroom, real nice guy from England. We ended up going to lunch after class and he starts asking me if I think it was ok that he didn't have a degree. I really didnt know what to say, I had mine so I was unfamiliar with that whole scene.

My wife, then girl friend kept me updated on his progress at the school. He told my girlfriend (he didnt know she was my lady) that he thought I was gay, he hated Korean food, and the cherry on top, he said he was a professional hockey player back in England!

He made it 2 weeks before he pulled a no call no show. Maybe he had to get back to the UK to play hockey again, who knows.

[EZE]

At my previous school (Wonderland), I was the replacement for a teacher who pulled a midnight run after three days.

After a month, an Australian was hired on. He was the only foreign teacher I have ever worked with who was licensed in his homeland. He had a lot of teaching experience and had completed a contract in Jeonju.

Three months into the contract, he told our boss he was quitting if she didn't reimburse him for his airfare. She reimbursed it in that month's pay. A couple of months later, one of his utilities got cut off because our boss took the money for our electricity, gas, internet, water, etc. out of our pay but wouldn't pay it, resulting in cutoffs. My gas was shut off twice, but I think it may have been his internet that got cut off. Which utility got shut off varied from teacher to teacher, since we lived in different neighborhoods. When our boss asked him if his water had been cut off, he replied, "No, if it had I wouldn't be here. I would've flown home."

They knew he could speak Hebrew, but they didn't realize his Korean was as good as it was, because the two Korean English teachers would badmouth him in Korean right in front of him. He and I would get our report cards, monthly plans, and monthly word lists completed at least three weeks before the deadline, taking our materials home and completing it on Saturday just to get it done and out of the way. Each time the deadline finally came, the two Korean teachers and the other two American teachers would basically be sitting in each other's laps at the two computers, trying to get theirs completed. I'm 184 cm, taller than most guys, but he must've been 205 cm because I felt like a dwarf when standing next to him. One day, on the deadline of monthly plans and report cards, the Korean teachers were frantically trying to complete their work while the Australian and I were having casual conversation about something. The Australian was leaned back in his chair with his long legs crossed and his cup of coffee looking so small in his giant hand. He did look very casual and relaxed, but in my opinion he earned it, getting his work done so far ahead of schedule. But one of the Korean teachers looked at him in disgust and said "Tim is so lazy!" in Korean to the other Korean teacher. He didn't seem upset at the time, but as he was telling me about it on the way home, I could tell he was a little bit angry.

On the walk home on a different night, he told me the same Korean teacher told his students to not do the homework he had assigned. She told them "he has a bad brain." At that point, he really hated her.

One day, our boss told us that she wanted us to teach math to a group of students in English. She went on to explain, "Math is so hard for you people, so you'll be able to talk a lot about it and all of the steps you have to take to finally figure out the answer, whereas Koreans wouldn't have much to say about a math problem. We just look at the problem and know the answer. We. Just. Know!" I didn't take it as being anti-Semitic and thought "you guys" was meaning all non-Koreans, but I'm pretty certain he took it more personally.

On the walk home one night, he said he was pulling a midnight runner. He said, "If the pay was screwed up but the work environment was good, that would be fine. Or if the work environment was screwed up but the pay was straight, I could handle that too. But I've had enough of a bad work environment with late pay every month, utility shut offs, and so much stolen pay." I told him he had just summed up exactly how I felt.

He pulled a runner after the next payday. Two days later, I pulled one too.

[young_clinton]