Around the time when the two new employees started working at our hagwon, CDI moved in one floor below us. For those of you who are unfamiliar with CDI, It's a giant, hugely popular English hagwon/academy. When this happened, many of our students left and joined the more famous and prestigious academy.(At this point I should mention that my teaching hours were increasing, and my boss was pulling a ton of obnoxious crap like calling me in the morning and telling me I need to come to the academy right away to interview students who never showed up.)
Around this time, I was negotiating my contract for the next year, had saturdays removed and re-signed.
In order to gain more students and compete with the hagwon below us, my boss decided to buy a franchise name which was gaining popularity. I'm not too sure about libel/slander/defamation laws here, so I'll just say that the franchise/chain rhymes with Ringua.
After the Chinese new year break, I returned to work. As I stepped through the door, I noticed that there was rubble strewn everywhere, a cloud of grey and white dust, and the sound of drills and electric saws.
I immediately went to the head teacher and asked him what the hell was going on. He explained that they were remodeling and going with the Ringua theme. I asked him why we were open and why the boss didn't think there were any health or safety issues when there were students as young as seven years old running around a construction site. He said he agreed, but the boss didn't want to lose any money by closing the school down for a few days.
I did my best to teach the few students who decided to come during the renovations and had to step outside plenty of times to breathe air that wasn't filled with sawdust and cement powder.
During this time, my boss decided he didn't want to stay around the academy during the construction, so he took a vacation to Busan.
Towards the end of the renovations, the workers brought in cans of paint and paint thinner to be used the next day. I talked to the vp and asked him if they were going to be painting and using paint thinner during business hours the next day. He said they were, but they were only going to use a little bit of oil based paint and set up an electric fan to bring in fresh air.
The next day, I decided to stay home. Early in the morning, I texted my boss, head teacher and the vp that I was not coming in. I then left a voice message on the academy phone saying the same thing.
***Continued in Part 2****
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