Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Snowkr]

Was anyone else's trip to school drastically affected by the weather? This traffic where I am is worse than in L.A.!

Just curious as to how many of you were extremely late to work this morning?

Is it really that outrageous to consider starting school 1 or 2 hours late when there is snow and ice?

[xCustomx]

It took me 20 minutes to move 2 blocks via bus in Bundang. I was 20 minutes late to work, but one teacher was 1 hour late and got in a car accident

[lowpo]

[poet13]

5 hours late. Yee-haw car accident.

[anyangoldboy]

Wasn't late at all today. No ice or snow on the roads where i was.

[KYC]

1 hour and 30 mins late

My ct picks up each morning..poor man left his home at 730 only to arrive at my home at 9:10. I was 30 minutes late for my first class...after settling in (me and students) we had 5 mins of class time hahah.

[yu suk mi]

3 min walk to work. I was early. Then again it didn't snow around the Cheonan area.

[Atavistic]

Snowkr, where are you from? And where do you live that the snow was so bad?

I'm from MN. If we started school late every time there was snow, nothing would get done. Then again, when I lived in Atlanta, they closed snow for dustings. Literally, dustings. Pathetic.

[icicle]

A significant number of teachers at my Middle School were late to school this morning ... And most of them drive to school from other places ... We are 20-30 minutes out of Seoul in Gyeonggi do and the roads around here and between here and Seoul were very bad this morning due to the amount of snow overnight ... Much worse than yesterday ...

Icicle

[Snowkr]

To answer Atavistic

I'm from the south as well. In Virginia, they close school over a snowflake or two. Schools definitely would have been closed today where I'm from.

I teach in Namyangju City... not too far outside Seoul. Left my home at 7:50. Arrived at school just after 10am. The bus literally did not move for maybe half an hour.

I spent all of last year in Southern California so I guess I got slightly spoiled.
I don't think it's neccessary to close schools here but delaying is not such a bad idea considering hardly any teachers were able to make it in on time where I am anyway!

[icicle]

I gather from what was said at my school today ... that many of them had also been caught by suprise with the snow ... and had not heard the forecast of it mentioned in the weather reports ... I had picked up the possibility of it in a forecast I had found on the Internet ... but last nights snow forecast was not mentioned in the AFN weather forecast last night ... I specificially listed to it to see if it was mentioned ... I had half heard a mention of snow the night before when we got that first snow ... But the snow last night was significantly heavier than the night before ...

It is my first winter here so I don't know how typical this is for winter here ... but I know that the level of impact today's snow had on people getting to work was seen as out of the ordinary ... And significantly worse than the previous day ...

Icicle

[SeoulShakin]

The way people react to snow in Seoul is RIDICULOUS haha.
This was literally just a dusting, and people all of a sudden don't know how to drive. I can't help but laugh when people are over an hour late because of this. It's called winter. Put on some snow tires and get over it.

People I know used to laugh when we would see the news in the US, and see people freaking out over about half an inch of snow. Where I'm from, half an inch is not even something worth noting.

I remember one year (perhaps 2001 or 2002) we had a huge blizzard, and in the span of 24-36 hours, had about 4 feet of snow. When the winds caused drifts, you could look out your window and LITERALLY not be able to find your car. That was great fun. God I love snow.

[icicle]

I don't know where you are from .. But where I am we did not just have 1/2 an inch of snow overnight ... We had more like 2-3 / maybe 4 inches ... Comparing yesterday's snow to this mornings snow ... I would probably put yesterday into more of the "dusting" category ... It was significantly less than was on the ground here this morning ... And caused significantly less problems here ... The snow I walked through this morning to do the work to my bus stop and then from the other bus stop to school was more than ankle deep ...

Icicle

[littlelisa]

I was late today, though it was because my alarm didn't go off.
First time that's happened here. But it was okay, nobody here minded. I don't teach until the afternoons anyway.

I'm only a three minute walk from work, so traffic and snow don't affect me.

[MarionG]

I lived for some years in the DFW area of Texas. In Arlington, a new superintendant of schools was hired from MN. He read the school calendar, and saw snow days (I think 3) written into the calendar. Since he knew all about snow and ice, and thought of Texas as a non-snow area (it IS a non snow area most of the time) he had these days taken out of the calendar. More knowledgeable Texans tried to explain to him about Texas ice storms, but what did the hicks know, anyway?

Came an "ice storm," and the whole DFW area woke up to 10 inches of solid ice. Many cars, garage doors etc were frozen to the ground. The bus drivers refused to go out. Mr. Knows-all-about-ice-and-snow orders them out; they refuse. He goes to the bus barn to "show them how it's done."

He managed to rock a bus free from the ice and pulled it out to the road. He stopped, looked both ways, and then turned right. Bus slid off the road, landed on it's side in the ditch, which did about $35,000 worth of damage to the bus. Fortunately, he was OK, but he closed school and had the snow days put back in the calendar.

People who don't live in ice and snow areas don't know how to drive in it. People who DO live in ice and snow areas, are therefore very self-congratulatory about their "superior" driving skills. Says a lot about them, I think....