7. Lies

You will encounter them often. Your contract says you will work together on lesson plans (never). Your contract says you have 15 paid sick days (very difficult to use without lecturing). I get a lecture for about every 2 that I use. Taking 2 sick days is from Ms. Bak’s mouth “a lot.” They’ll try to feed you this crap about being a Korean teacher and how Korean teachers can’t use sick days… well boo-hoo, we come from western countries and we have a western contract that is full of lies else they wouldn’t be able to get us to come here in the first place. After taking my fifth sick day (after my eighth month working here) I got a few nasty words from the VP saying that taking more sick days could “affect my future job.” It takes a lot to put up with the crap that they try to feed you here. I’m a pretty mellow guy, but a few choice words and hand signals come to mind quite often. Ask who to call (what phone number) and just send a text message that you are sick and then shut off your cell phone (it’s not worth dealing with).

They’ll tell you a certain way to do something, like how to take a sick day, and then get all pissy because they’ll all-of-a-sudden decide that the procedure should have been different. If they would make the procedures clear in the first place then there wouldn’t be any problems to begin with. It’s frustrating working with people who have little common sense.

Instead of saying that we are “co-teachers,” which they think to mean we take full control of the classroom and lessons, they should probably say that we’re private tutors and they are there to accompany us for translation support. It’s quite a lie to say that they will co-teach and work together to make lesson plans with us when that is the farthest from the truth… their logic is that this is the way it is done at the other schools… to which I respond, “it doesn’t make it right.” The fact still remains that they invited you to this strange country under false pretenses. If you the foreigner feel that you are being mistreated, you will turn to your contract. When they imply that your contract is wrong, it’s a slap in the face. It’s strange to have to clutch onto your contract like a life raft, but that’s all you can do.