Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shantaram]

Grrrrrrrr, after getting an assurance from my co-teacher that the button-happy air-con nazis at my school wouldn't switch the air-con off during summer camp, they have gone and switched it off for the whole day. I went downstairs and asked them (in their nice air-conditioned office) to switch it back on twice, they told me it is a windy day outside. Not in my classroom it isn't. They then told me that there is a problem with the air-con and they are working on it- which explains why their office has working air-con I suppose. I want to break stuff.

[Xuanzang]

That's rough. Time to morph into fire breathing foreign teacher now? I don't know how anyone could do without AC in Korea...especially Daegu. It's that hot and humid.

[marlow]

Take the kids outside to play soccer. Except you get a cold drink and sit in the shade supervising.

[shantaram]

It's okay, it's working now. Maybe there was a problem with it, or maybe my threat of cancelling the afternoon class fixed the 'problem'.

[Horangi Munshin]

Do you know where the central control panel is? Find it and push the button for your classroom. I did that just this morning. No need to ask. While you are at it push the button for the office .

[contrarian]

Ah Daegu in the summer time. Sitting in my air-conditioned room with the temp cranked down to 19 C. Usually in my Birthday suit and then 6 hours of suffereing in class.

[mindmetoo]

a) send a student (ie paying customer) to ask for the a/c to be turned on.

b) ask your kids to complain to their mothers that school is too hot and they should call the school.

[lowpo]

[oneofthesarahs]

The air conditioner went out during my 2:30 class, and the poor kindy kids were just moist lumps of humanity drenched in sweat. I could not motivate them to do anything, they were draped all over the tables like wet laundry. It would have been kind of funny if it weren't so miserable. I asked if we could move to a different classroom, but I was told to stay in the room because the repairman was coming. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either. So the repairman came in during the middle of my class, and I was supposed to keep teaching with a random guy standing on a table fiddling with the AC unit. He finally got it working with about 10 minutes left in class, but at that point the kids were basically zombies (and I was too). Although it was cute when they all told the repairman "THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!" in English, completely unprompted by me. He looked kind of terrified.


And another thing that bugs me is that my boss is such a stickler about saving money on electricity, she goes BALLISTIC if we leave on a fan, air conditioner, or even light when there is nobody in the room, even if it is only for a couple of minutes. So even though I have multiple classes in the same room back to back, I have to turn off the AC every time for the 10 minute break, which is just enough time to make the room hellishly hot again. It takes up a good 10 minutes at the start of class just to cool the room down again.