Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I saw this in yesterday's Chosun Ilbo. It's advice to bosses on how to deal with subordinates who are insubordinate. It gives some insight into Korean thinking about the workplace.

It is NOT about foreigners, although this part sounds familiar:

"They are so rude; they are so forceful. They go home at exactly 6 p.m. and are terribly demanding about overtime and vacation. When they perform well, they get big-headed and show their elders no respect at all. What�s worse, others are neither competent nor care how they do their jobs."

http://english.chosun.com/

[Hater Depot]

Imagine, if you will, the sheer audacity of a worker who asks to be paid for all hours worked! Mindbendingly incredible, isn't it.

A student recently told me she does 5 hours of unpaid overtime every single day. I said, why don't you ask for overtime pay? She said her company has no money for overtime pay. If my boss said that I'd say "What a coincidence -- you have no money, and I have no time. See ya!"

Another student told me he does quite a bit of unpaid overtime as well... I said, what happens if you go home at 5? Will you get fired? He said no, just scolded. But the threat of a scolding is enough to keep him at work all night.

[babtangee]

[R-Seoul]

You may find this hard to believe but all salary men in Korea clock up hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime a year. At my company nobody ever leaves at 6pm - if a project has to be finished then you stay until it's done even if these means working at the weekend or until 4am every night. It's shocking but true.

On the plus side the older you are and more senior at the company in question the less hours you do because the 20something grunts are putting in the hours for projects you are managing...

[Yu_Bum_suk]

No doubt there's a culture of exploitation by employers here.

On the other side of the coin, however, when it comes to the field of education, there are heaps of 'salaried' teachers in the west who have no idea of what making a decent contribution to a school means. Rather than get involved they'd rather spend their spare time getting a master's degree so they can move up into a higher pay-bracket. There are also a lot of hourly wage-slaves with a degree who come over here to teach and think they have to keep a running tally of every extra minute they spend they spend at school, expected to be paid down to the quarter-hour.

Somewhere in the middle there must be a happy medium.

[babtangee]

[JongnoGuru]