Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SandraDee]

Just a heads up for anyone who happens to be jobsearching and comes across Washington School (the Gireum Station location). After looking through many contracts for a friend of mine, we finally thought we had come across a good one with Washington school. So, she signed it and came on over to Korea. Here's a summary of her experiences at Washington school..all within one week:
She was taken at 230am from the airport to her director Charlie's apartment and given the choice to stay with him (my friend being a young Canadian woman new to the country, probably wouldnt' really enjoy staying on the floor of an old korean mans apartment on her first night in Korea). So, he took her to a sketchy hooker motel. It was the size of a small box, with many cockroaches, and a huge hole in the wall covered by a "window". This was 5am. At 11am she was brought to the school, handed a book and told that she would be teaching kindergarten in 10 minutes. They made her teach ONE song all day with no training until 630pm. Then, they brought her to her apartment that they had just got for her maybe a few minutes before.
The apartment was beyond disgusting. Smallest place I"ve ever seen of all my foreign teacher friends...but that's not the worst part. Single dirty mattress on the floor, dirty rag on the floor, no bathroom sink, table held up by a TINCAN!!! Pictures to prove this. So, of course my friend refused to live in this dirty dungeon. The director Charlie said he'd find a new place for her while she stayed at my apartment. The next day she had to work another entire long day with again no orientation, or training or even desire to introduce her to the new job or new country in any way. After working until 7pm, which by the way is longer than specified in the contract, she was taken to 3 more dirthole apartments and told to choose one. From here it just got worse, they discussed making her work hours longer, forcing her to choose to live in horrible conditions, and also the Summer vacation was being pushed to a later unspecified date in the fall.
At this point, this school was being way too sketch and typical korea hogwan horror story, so she quit. In the contract it specified that she would have to repay airfare, which is common. Also, there was a 1 million won penalty for not completing the contract. This sucked, but she prefered it to having to work a year with such an unreliable sketchy director and company.
She arranged to meet to discuss this, but psycho Charlie director threatened to go to the police and held her passport ransom which had been at immigration getting her ARC processed. She met with her recruiter and Charlie to discuss a solution and decided to meet to exchange the 2.1 million won for the airfare and penalty and termination of the contract. At the scheduled time she met with only Charlie, as her recruiter couldn't make it. Upon meeting with him, she was immediately taken in a car with one other man to a BACK ALLEYWAY and yelled at for 10 minutes very aggressively, and threatened that if she were to leave the country he would find her and her friends and do whatever was necesssary to make her unable to leave Korea. My friend had been trying to resolve this solution in such a professional manner, and had no intentions of fleeing the country, as she's job searching for a new school in Korea. They continued to argue when he refused to return her passport or go to immigration to sign a release letter, despite days earlier having negotiated on this and agreed on these conditions in exchange for the 2.1 million won.
My friend continued to explain that she would not hand over the money until she received her passport and release letter. This made Charlie very angry. He began yelling, screaming on the street like a crazy man, and attempted to slam the car door on her many times. Ultimately, he purposely took his elbow and jabbed it into her chest very hard and knocked the wind out of her. CHARLIE FROM WASHINGTON SCHOOL did this to my friend. Anyone thinking of working there, PLEASE think twice. I know there are 2 foreign teachers there who I guess haven't come across such a problem with him, but as you can see he is a very psychotic, unreasonable and abusive man capable of much more than you'd imagine from first meeting him.
DON'T WORK FOR WASHINGTON SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Perfect Cup of Coffee]

Does your friend have her passport? If the psycho S.O.B. still has her passport, tell her to call her embassy ASAP. They'll sick the cops on 'em and pry it out of his filthy hands. Best of luck.

[Adventurer]

Sounds like this guy needs to seriously meet her male cousins and receive a knuckle sandwich. There are so many slime balls out there. You sound traumatized as well for what happened to your friend... That is very bad.... I might have punched the guy, personally, and I am generally non-violent.

[SandraDee]

She does have her passport, and now we're just waiting for the release letter on Monday, meeting with a less insane employee of the school. Anyone know if anything can be done to this guy through immigration, labor laws, or the Canadian embassy??
And in response to adventurer, yes, I'd like to punch the guy...very hard...in a very painful place.

[bellum99]

Nothing can be done...just move on and get out. You take your chances working in Korea and sometimes you get shafted. Good thing your friend got out early and she can get a good school now.

[Adventurer]

[Bibbitybop]

She didn't spend much time researching hogwans and the information on this site, did she? There's a reason the US state department warns Americans about coming to Korea to teach.

It sucks for your friend, but this is a typical case of someone not doing their research. And if sounds like YOU found this contract for here? You didn't go to the school, see the apartment or talk to former teachers?

Unfortunately, this will happen again and again in Korea.

[yingwenlaoshi]

So there's a job opening? What's their number?

[sojourner1]

Ol' Charlie needs his arse wooped, this is SICK! Totaly sick fecker.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[SandraDee]

In response to Bibbitybop..and yes I knew that posting anything on Daves would get some sort of response like THAT! Anyways, first of all, we're not American...Canadian..besides the point. We did research the school, found nothing negative on it, and had a friend who had interviewed at the school previously, met previous coworkers, and all sounded good. Unexpected result, yes. Sometimes regardless of research and being careful, shit happens., but thanks for your input about my friend. Greatly appreciated at this fantastic time we're going through.

[The Perfect Cup of Coffee]

[Tommy]

[wylies99]

Does she have all of her documents?
Does she have an alternative place to stay?

Leave ASAP.
You can fight this BS.

[wylies99]

BTW- Thanks for posting a warning for other teachers.