Before I begin this post, I would like to mention that I still like my boss at wonderland/reading town. The workload was ridiculous, but he was generally honest, paid on time in full, was very helpful in getting the teachers situated, and was open to some compromises. I would recommend the school for a first year teacher who is wary of hagwons. Nevertheless, I wouldn't return there myself.
I began working in the middle of the week. I came in on a Wednesday, I believe. My first week, I was just observing classes and going over the new program. The first surprise came when I was handed my schedule. I was in fact teaching kindergarten. I started in the afternoon, but I had to teach kindergarten PE and attend field trips and Saturday events. I would be fine with this except for the fact that on field trip days, I was working from 9:30am to 10:15pm. That's a bit much.
After my training, I started teaching. Teaching was fine for the most part, but the kindergarten classes were horrible. It's one thing when you teach 10 students everyday and you can build up a relationship with the students. It's another when you teach different groups of 20 students each day and you only teach them once a week in a room filled with toys.
The elementary students were fine. The paperwork involved with the elementary students was insane, however. Each student wrote two journals, one essay and three book reports every week. I had about 80-90 elementary students, so that comes out to around 510 pages of marking every week. Then there were tests, quizzes and report cards. I was also teaching a program for a few hours a week with middle school students. This program wasn't so bad, but there was a lot of information I had to print out and enter into the computer using an incredibly buggy and horribly illogical system.
Most days, I was there for about 12 hours. I was barely able to complete all of my paperwork in that time. Sometimes, I'd make a mistake or two like forgetting to write a daily report or not correcting a set of papers for one class on time. This happened on days when I was there for more than 12 hours. The first two weeks, my supervisor was on my ass the entire time.
I am usually a laid back person. I'll be very stern with kids, but I'm usually very calm and diplomatic when I speak to adults. If I am really pissed, I usually maintain my composure. When my boss in Bucheon lied to me every day about my severance pay, I never raised my voice. After two weeks at Reading Town, however, I snapped.
It was Friday. I had come in at 9:30 to go on a field trip. The night before, I stayed until around 11:30 to get some paperwork done because I wouldn't be able to the next morning because I had a field trip. After the field trip, the elementary classes and the middle school classes, it was 10:15, and I was doing some more paperwork. My supervisor came in and started yelling at me about one of the middle school classes. I made a mistake the previous night while assigning their online homework. I had assigned them homework for level 4-AC instead of level 4-AB or something else along those lines.
I said, "Sorry, which class are you talking about? I'll fix it." She said "the Mario class." I said "Which class is that? Is that WM4C or WT4C?" She started yelling again. "You are a terrible teacher. You should know all of your students names. Why don't you know Mario?" I was still calm and explained that I have only been here for two weeks, I only teach the middle school students twice a week and I have about 200 students in total(As it turned out, Mario had been absent for the first two weeks I was teaching, so there is no way I could have known who he was). She yelled for a little while longer and dragged me into her office to watch me enter the homework into the computer. I logged in and began looking for the class after going through six steps to pull up the online homework assignment page. I was slowly scrolling through a list of around 60 classes to find the WM4C class. After I took to long, she pushed me out of the way, found the class and assigned them.
"Why didn't you memorize the instructions I gave you?"
"I need to sleep and eat. I don't have time."
"You are so lazy. I thought you were smart. Mike Teacher memorized the instructions in one day. You don't know how to use the computer after two weeks."
This is when I decided to vent my fury which had been building up over the past two weeks. I yelled at her first about how I would be able to use the computer system just fine if things were listed alphabetically, by level or any other logical system rather than completely random. There is no way to remember a list of names consisting of three letters and one number. I then ranted about how I wouldn't be making so many mistakes if anyone had bothered to debug the horrible software we were using, if I wasn't here for 12 hours a day, and I was able to eat something other than kimchi and rice during my 12 hours at the school.
After I finished yelling at her, she gave me a written warning and I gave my written notice.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Back to the old stomping grounds
Sorry for the delay between updates. I tend to only catch the writing bug when I've consumed some of the Toad Juice, and it's been a while.
So, after I was dicked around for awhile by Lingua, I decided to say goodbye to my free time and hello to a guaranteed paycheck and benefits. I went back to wonderland.
I talked to my former boss and negotiated my new salary which wasn't too bad. I was also taking the afternoon/evening shift which meant not only no phone teaching but no bullshit weekend work or any other nonsense, or so I thought.
Wonderland had changed. They bought a different franchise which I thought I would like, Reading Town.
Towards the end of my first year, my boss had taken an interest in the Reading Town Franchise. He purchased some of their materials and had the teachers try them out. I enjoyed them. I liked the idea of using children's books and basing classes around the stories, grammar and vocabulary in real books rather than half-assed konglish stories about nothing. I thought that the layout was good, and that a lot of important things were emphasized in the workbooks. Granted, I would still say that Reading Town has a decent educational philosophy and system, but I would never work there again.
My boss picked me up and moved me to my new apartment in my old neighborhood. This was an ok apartment in a really great spot. The apartment was really tiny, but it had a veranda and was fully furnished. The kitchen was in the veranda, but that wasn't too important because I don't cook that often, and the immediate neighborhood was great.
This was back in the neighborhood of Siheung-dong. No, not Siheung-Si. Siheung-dong in the southwest corner of Seoul. About thirty steps away from the front of my apartment was a market street where I could buy almost anything I needed for a ridiculously low price. I also found my favorite food a stone's throw away from my new apartment.
In my new, immediate neighborhood, there were/are tons of Chinese immigrants. One Chinese(sort of) food I had not tried before was yang gochi. This is a very simple but delicious food. It's lmab meat on skewers. Not shishkebabs. This is just lamb meat. You grill it for a while and then move the skewer away from the grill/charcoal. You then roll it in whatever you call the red pepper salt/powder. GochuSogeum??? I don't know. Nevertheless, it's one of my all time favorite foods.
Anyhoo, my apartment wasn't so great, but my neighborhood was amazing. I was also much closer to my school than I was my first year.
I knew I would have to adjust to a higher workload than I had become accustomed to the previous year, but I was willing to sacrifice a little bit of free time for a stable and honest employer.
My new found appreciation for the wonders of reading town soon faded....
So, after I was dicked around for awhile by Lingua, I decided to say goodbye to my free time and hello to a guaranteed paycheck and benefits. I went back to wonderland.
I talked to my former boss and negotiated my new salary which wasn't too bad. I was also taking the afternoon/evening shift which meant not only no phone teaching but no bullshit weekend work or any other nonsense, or so I thought.
Wonderland had changed. They bought a different franchise which I thought I would like, Reading Town.
Towards the end of my first year, my boss had taken an interest in the Reading Town Franchise. He purchased some of their materials and had the teachers try them out. I enjoyed them. I liked the idea of using children's books and basing classes around the stories, grammar and vocabulary in real books rather than half-assed konglish stories about nothing. I thought that the layout was good, and that a lot of important things were emphasized in the workbooks. Granted, I would still say that Reading Town has a decent educational philosophy and system, but I would never work there again.
My boss picked me up and moved me to my new apartment in my old neighborhood. This was an ok apartment in a really great spot. The apartment was really tiny, but it had a veranda and was fully furnished. The kitchen was in the veranda, but that wasn't too important because I don't cook that often, and the immediate neighborhood was great.
This was back in the neighborhood of Siheung-dong. No, not Siheung-Si. Siheung-dong in the southwest corner of Seoul. About thirty steps away from the front of my apartment was a market street where I could buy almost anything I needed for a ridiculously low price. I also found my favorite food a stone's throw away from my new apartment.
In my new, immediate neighborhood, there were/are tons of Chinese immigrants. One Chinese(sort of) food I had not tried before was yang gochi. This is a very simple but delicious food. It's lmab meat on skewers. Not shishkebabs. This is just lamb meat. You grill it for a while and then move the skewer away from the grill/charcoal. You then roll it in whatever you call the red pepper salt/powder. GochuSogeum??? I don't know. Nevertheless, it's one of my all time favorite foods.
Anyhoo, my apartment wasn't so great, but my neighborhood was amazing. I was also much closer to my school than I was my first year.
I knew I would have to adjust to a higher workload than I had become accustomed to the previous year, but I was willing to sacrifice a little bit of free time for a stable and honest employer.
My new found appreciation for the wonders of reading town soon faded....
Friday, April 2, 2010
The end of the new job
After a couple of weeks in Sanbon/gunpo, my employer secured a sweet apartment in Uiwang. It's pronounced eu wi wong, but I always liked calling it wee wang because I'm mature like that. The new place was the best apartment I've had in Korea. It was a relatively new officetel with a loft, a gs25 on the first floor and a great view.
Work was going ok. Some of the paper work was getting annoying, though. It's a bit frustrating to correct multiple choice quizzes with no possible correct answers.
One tuesday morning, I went to the nearest hospital to get an insulin refill. They gave me a bill for 400,000 won. They told me that I didn't have insurance. I called my boss and asked him what the deal was and he told me my old location never transferred over my visa and he can't provide health insurance until that was taken care of. I called my old institute to ask why I didn't have health insurance when I have a pay statement which said that 50,000 was deducted for it. They pretended they didn't know who I was.
After a while, my visa was finally transferred and I had health insurance. I was able to get a refund from the hospital.
After I left the hospital, I went to work and was called into the office. My new boss was "very upset" I didn't tell him I was diabetic. He gave me two weeks notice because he "didn't feel comfortable employing someone with health problems."
Two weeks later, my replacement arrived from the US. This was his first time teaching in Korea, and this was right after the new immigration policies went into effect.
So, somehow, this person was found, hired and had all of his paperwork and consulate interviews taken care of in under two weeks. I later talked to him, because I was a bit suspicious and found out that he was hired a month before he came over.
So, I was in fact hired just so that I could cover for a month while they waited for a teacher who could work for significantly less pay arrived.
On my last day, I was paid for my month at the hagwon. It was 600k less than I was expecting. I was told that the entire vacation was unpaid. As I mentioned earlier, the new vacation plan was 4 weeks vacation, 2 unpaid, 2 paid. So, If we had two weeks off in May, our paychecks would be 75%, not 50%. My vacation was the last week in April and the first week in May, so because my April pay was 75%, I expected my May pay to be 100%.
I talked to the old school and they said, "Oh, no. The whole vacation is unpaid." I asked them why it said 10 days paid vacation, and they told me it was for sick days despite the fact that there were sick days on a different page. I talked to a couple of teachers at my old gig, and they were pissed too. One of them threatened to quit if she didn't receive her contractual vacation pay, and she was successful. I decided to let it go because I was quite tired of dealing with all of the lying and bs.
I also made another poor choice. I was so sick of dealing with people who constantly lied, cheated and were unable to pay me. So, I decided to go back to my first job. I figured it was a stressful job, but I could always count on getting paid on time and in full. I called up my old boss who was thrilled to hear from me. Apparently, they had a relatively new employee they hated and wanted to fire. I would be taking his schedule which was an afternoon/evening elementary/middle school schedule. I was pretty happy, because while I love the kindergarten kids, most of the stress and bullshit from my first year came from doing all of the extra work for the kindergarten program. He offered me a new contract with a generous salary, so I agreed.
Work was going ok. Some of the paper work was getting annoying, though. It's a bit frustrating to correct multiple choice quizzes with no possible correct answers.
One tuesday morning, I went to the nearest hospital to get an insulin refill. They gave me a bill for 400,000 won. They told me that I didn't have insurance. I called my boss and asked him what the deal was and he told me my old location never transferred over my visa and he can't provide health insurance until that was taken care of. I called my old institute to ask why I didn't have health insurance when I have a pay statement which said that 50,000 was deducted for it. They pretended they didn't know who I was.
After a while, my visa was finally transferred and I had health insurance. I was able to get a refund from the hospital.
After I left the hospital, I went to work and was called into the office. My new boss was "very upset" I didn't tell him I was diabetic. He gave me two weeks notice because he "didn't feel comfortable employing someone with health problems."
Two weeks later, my replacement arrived from the US. This was his first time teaching in Korea, and this was right after the new immigration policies went into effect.
So, somehow, this person was found, hired and had all of his paperwork and consulate interviews taken care of in under two weeks. I later talked to him, because I was a bit suspicious and found out that he was hired a month before he came over.
So, I was in fact hired just so that I could cover for a month while they waited for a teacher who could work for significantly less pay arrived.
On my last day, I was paid for my month at the hagwon. It was 600k less than I was expecting. I was told that the entire vacation was unpaid. As I mentioned earlier, the new vacation plan was 4 weeks vacation, 2 unpaid, 2 paid. So, If we had two weeks off in May, our paychecks would be 75%, not 50%. My vacation was the last week in April and the first week in May, so because my April pay was 75%, I expected my May pay to be 100%.
I talked to the old school and they said, "Oh, no. The whole vacation is unpaid." I asked them why it said 10 days paid vacation, and they told me it was for sick days despite the fact that there were sick days on a different page. I talked to a couple of teachers at my old gig, and they were pissed too. One of them threatened to quit if she didn't receive her contractual vacation pay, and she was successful. I decided to let it go because I was quite tired of dealing with all of the lying and bs.
I also made another poor choice. I was so sick of dealing with people who constantly lied, cheated and were unable to pay me. So, I decided to go back to my first job. I figured it was a stressful job, but I could always count on getting paid on time and in full. I called up my old boss who was thrilled to hear from me. Apparently, they had a relatively new employee they hated and wanted to fire. I would be taking his schedule which was an afternoon/evening elementary/middle school schedule. I was pretty happy, because while I love the kindergarten kids, most of the stress and bullshit from my first year came from doing all of the extra work for the kindergarten program. He offered me a new contract with a generous salary, so I agreed.
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