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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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Apple Scruff
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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 Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:13 pm Post subject: It's not a hogwan thing....it's a Korean thing. |
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Korea uncompetitive in all the wrong places
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International economic institutions listed Korea's weakest points as labor relations, institutional corruption and the public's attitude toward foreign culture, said the government in a report yesterday.
Referring to recent studies on Korea's competitiveness released by the two world renowned research institutes, World Economic Forum and International Institute for Management Development, the government said the nation turned in the worst grades in labor management relations. Although the nation has continued to advance in the general ranking for the past few years, IMD and WEF placed Korea in 60th and 81st position respectively in the labor category. |
Hmmm....among the worst in labor-management relations, institutional corruption and attitudes towards foreign cultures.
Frankly, I'm shocked and appalled. |
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Col.Brandon
Joined: 09 Aug 2004
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 1:28 am Post subject: Re: It's not a hogwan thing....it's a Korean thing. |
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| Apple Scruff wrote: |
Frankly, I'm shocked and appalled. |
Yes, but are you surprised? |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| No surprises to anyone who's been here more than a year. |
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weatherman
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| Yaeh~hub of Asia, Yeah, Yeah, hub.. hub, Yeah, Hub, hub, hub, yeah, hub, hub, h-hub, hub, hub, h-hub, hub, yaeh, yeah, Hub, h-hub, h-hub, yeah Ah, HUB!... Hu..B Ah....ah..........Hu.... B.. ah ah....... ... .. |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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| weatherman wrote: |
| Yaeh~hub of Asia, Yeah, Yeah, hub.. hub, Yeah, Hub, hub, hub, yeah, hub, hub, h-hub, hub, hub, h-hub, hub, yaeh, yeah, Hub, h-hub, h-hub, yeah Ah, HUB!... Hu..B Ah....ah..........Hu.... B.. ah ah....... ... .. |
Maybe Noh got the idea from foreign men.. you know, the ones eyeing Korean women and saying "Hubbah hubbah!" |
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xingyiman
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Gee, I just must have one of the REALLY good jobs. No matter what happens to me here in Korea it could never beat the sh1tty way I've been treated by American companies. |
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The Hierophant
Joined: 13 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| xingyiman wrote: |
| Gee, I just must have one of the REALLY good jobs. No matter what happens to me here in Korea it could never beat the sh1tty way I've been treated by American companies. |
Hear hear. I worked for franchise catering companies in NZ when I was a student. Hakwon language coaching is a dream job in comparison. |
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Barefootbelle
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| xingyiman wrote: |
| Gee, I just must have one of the REALLY good jobs. No matter what happens to me here in Korea it could never beat the sh1tty way I've been treated by American companies. |
And how. "Gee, you're awfully good at that so we're going to demote you to a job you hated as a reward." |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| xingyiman wrote: |
| Gee, I just must have one of the REALLY good jobs. No matter what happens to me here in Korea it could never beat the sh1tty way I've been treated by American companies. |
No sh*t, i love it here.
In America I was always being asked to do the same job or more, with less resources. If I dropped dead, it would only take a couple of phone calls to replace me. (You may argue that the very same may be true here, but that's not my perception of my particular situation).
Here, I am treated like a rockstar daily. I love my school, the owner, and the students. Sincerely, I am sorry for those of you who have not had the experience I have. |
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xingyiman
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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No sh*t, i love it here.
In America I was always being asked to do the same job or more, with less resources. If I dropped dead, it would only take a couple of phone calls to replace me. (You may argue that the very same may be true here, but that's not my perception of my particular situation).
Here, I am treated like a rockstar daily. I love my school, the owner, and the students. Sincerely, I am sorry for those of you who have not had the experience I have. |
Yeah, there always seems to be a steady stream of people in America who are willing to do your job for way less money than they're paying you. One of the complusions that drew me here in the first place was the fact that I figured no matter how badly I could be treated here it could never be worse than how I was treated back home. I will agree that coping with the immediate noteriety takes a while to get used to. I'm not used to being appreciated. During my time here I've seen ESL'ers come and go. I have never come across a seemingly all to common case of a person not getting paid. Most of the cases I knew that were experiencing problems were primarily of their own making. To survive here you must roll with the punches. And they're baby punches in compare. If it's a molehill don't make it a mountain. I plan to come back to Korea or somewhere else, I'm not sure yet. What I don't want to do is go back to America and work 60 hours a week for 25,000 a year, live in a dump, and be socially ostracized because I don't drive a Lexus. Our society has it's good points but for me it had become entirely too unaccomodating. In my view the AMerican dream has become reduced to not so much personal effort, motivation, and drive to succeed as is just being in the right place at the right time. For now I'll stick with Korea. |
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xingyiman
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| And how. "Gee, you're awfully good at that so we're going to demote you to a job you hated as a reward." |
I think there is something that people who are complaining about Korean jobs are failing to recognize.
1. Bad Korean job or job loss.
Go find a new one. Jobs are plentiful here and employment opportunities abound. Sure there are some annoyances to this process but eventually (probably more sooner than later) you will find one.
2. Bad American job or job loss.
You are immediately thrust into the school of Pihrana, so to speak, of people competing for the same few jobs. They are willing to use any means, regardless to get that job becasue their livelihoods depend on it. In the meantime you become a ward of the system and must subsist on welfare and unemployment which cannot support a lifestyle even at the poverty level. Job interviews you do get are humiliating yexperiences most likely with you spending your time and money preparing and traveling for the interview only to not be handed the job. Thats because someone who had a year or two experience on you just got the same raw deal, or another interviewee was fortunate enough to be able to "bond" with one of the interviewers. In the meantime your car, house, and everything else you've worked for slides toward repossession. In the end you find that you must take a job you didnt really want for way less money than you can afford to live on and bust your standard of living down a few notches to cope with the new changes.
You wanna go go back to that be my guest. I for one, have had enough of that to last this lifetime. |
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Barefootbelle
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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xingyiman,
You misunderstand. I was agreeing with you. I'll take Korea any day. I went from earning $12K with $13K in bills annually to $24K and $6K in bills annually.
My boss in the US was actively trying to make me miserable (but carefully because HIS boss liked me.) My boss here goes out of his way to make sure I'm happy and comfortable.
My house in Ohio had a crack apartment down the road. My apartment here has a Buddhist temple up the mountain.
My students here are mostly eager and affectionate while the people I dealt with at home were almost exclusively rude and pushy. My mother is retiring after 32 years of teaching and she's spent the last 8 years telling me how glad she is I didn't go into teaching in the US.
I've been trying to convince some of my friends to come over. |
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Barefootbelle
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| sorry, double post |
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nautilus
Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:08 am Post subject: |
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| xingyiman wrote: |
Yeah, there always seems to be a steady stream of people in America who are willing to do your job for way less money than they're paying you. |
Yep. either immigrants, or young people trying to get a foot in the door. Some even do the whole trial period" or work for free initially to get that first job. Its tough. I'm willing to persist to succeed, but not if I decide I really dislike the cut-throat rat race of western working culture, which is what happened.. |
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xingyiman
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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xingyiman,
You misunderstand. I was agreeing with you. I'll take Korea any day. I went from earning $12K with $13K in bills annually to $24K and $6K in bills annually.
My boss in the US was actively trying to make me miserable (but carefully because HIS boss liked me.) My boss here goes out of his way to make sure I'm happy and comfortable.
My house in Ohio had a crack apartment down the road. My apartment here has a Buddhist temple up the mountain.
My students here are mostly eager and affectionate while the people I dealt with at home were almost exclusively rude and pushy. My mother is retiring after 32 years of teaching and she's spent the last 8 years telling me how glad she is I didn't go into teaching in the US.
I've been trying to convince some of my friends to come over. |
No I didn't missunderstand you. I was merely adding to what you had said. Sorry for the confusion. One of the biggest complaints I've heard among the E bloggers is no pay. I have honestly never in my time here met a teacher who complained of not getting paid. I'm sure it happens, but Koreans ar not stupid and it stands to reason that an expat teacher cannot survive long after a missed paycheck. However I could see that it would be a way to put out a teacher they were wanting to get rid of. I will say again that most of the teachers that I have known that had problems were of their own making. I hear what you are saying about teaching back home. It is funny(and frightening sometimes) when I see the trend of schools wanting teachers with actual educational degrees. My whole family consisted of teachers (thats one of the reasons I studied Geophysics) so I have a pretty good idea of the field and can say that American teachers are some of the most highly trained, least effective teachers in the world. Thats because their actual jobs have nothing to do with teaching. For 8+ hours a day they just try to insure that little Booby and Jenny aren't:
1. Smoking
2. Doing drugs
3. Fighting
4. Drinking alchohaul
5. Having sex
They are basically glorified babysitters. Once they figure this out it really puts a damper on any aspirations of personal fulfillment that they ever had. Many go into the field with the delusion that they can work 9 months out of the year and have their summers off only to find out that they have to work summers to make ends meet because the job, like many, many others doesn't pay enough to live on. In graduate school I took an elective class in computer networking that consisted primarily of Graduate level teachers who had gone back to school because the State now requires them to have a master's degree. I have never seen a bunch of more emotionally distraught, negative, disenfranchized people in my entire life. They had virtually nothing good to say about their jobs, most were overweight, and they all hated teaching.
| Quote: |
| Yep. either immigrants, or young people trying to get a foot in the door. Some even do the whole trial period" or work for free initially to get that first job. Its tough. I'm willing to persist to succeed, but not if I decide I really dislike the cut-throat rat race of western working culture, which is what happened.. |
One of my undergraduate degrees is in archeology. There are cultural resource management jobs available in America that pay fair to well, but any opportunities at the entry level were all "volunteer". Sadly this is becoming the trend in many professions. I remember I had to file a greviance in order to get my Professional Writing B.A. because part of the curriculum required a 3-month, UNPAID intrernship that I, as a working supporter of my family, could not comply with. The whole internship thing grates on me because for non-traditional students its almost impossible to do without putting an extreme burden on yourself. Sure I'll "volunteer" so long as somebody volunteers to pay my bills every month. Sadly, it seems to be the only way a person can get that coveted "experience" any more, and all it amounts to is a back scratching system between Universities and local employers. The colleges farm-out free labor to the businesses and then they give kickbacks to the colleges. In many college towns its getting tough to get any jobs because the businesses never have to pay anything for their help because its mostly interns. |
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