FUCKING WITH THE MANAGEMENT
Seoul, Korea: September 1996 - January 1997
Actually, the people in Korea weren't all that bad to me, as far as it went.
I got paid for everything I did. And that's a lot more than a lot of people who went to Korea in the 90's can say.
But they were incompetent.
So, inevitably, they started to fuck with me.
I tell you -- I really think I'm basically a calm, rational and patient person. WHICH IS WHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SCHOOLS KEEP FUCKING WITH ME AND FORCING ME TO DESTROY THEM! MY GOD! WHAT IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM HERE, HUH?
So, as I said, the owner of the school was a complete dick. A typical Confucian asshole -- somehow managed to be born with enough connections to start some businesses of his own, and accumulate enough money to consider himself Mr. Fucking Big Shot. He hardly spoke English, but English schools turned quick profits, so he'd opened one.
The first manager there was a guy named Mr. Jyong. He was well-mannered and nerdy, and a born-again Christian (as a disturbing number of my students seemed to be) all smiles and nerves. The assistant manager, who'd just been hired, seemed to be a sharp guy, spoke English well and all.
So the second day after I was hired, when I was going in with my passport to fill out some documents, I saw the assistant manger. He was fuming. "I quit this job just now. The owner is a. . ." he stopped short of saying asshole, just made a kind of rude dismissive gesture. He suggested I come with him to another school he knew of that was hiring, he thought the pay was better.
I just kind of shrugged -- there didn't seem much percentage in trading one devil I didn't know for another I didn't know.
They replaced the assistant manager with a retarded guy.
Okay, he wasn't exactly retarded, but man he was dumb. I don't remember his name. He was from a village, I think, or at least that was my impression, and he'd just gotten out of the army. He walked around with his mouth hanging open all the time, I remembered that, and in a country of cheap, smelly, ugly suits, his was one of the cheapest, smelliest, ugliest suits I'd seen.
He tried to be pally-pally with me, constantly bugged me to go drinking with him, but he spoke practically no English. He was in a couple of my classes even, but made no progress.
The academic system there was utterly ludicrous. There were three levels -- Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. And each course lasted a month, or five weeks, actually. One hour every day, Monday through Friday. Not even one hour, fifty minutes.
So ideally, a student would enter speaking no English and then four months later be completely fluent.
Yeah, right.
Fortunately most of our students were so horrified by the small cramped classrooms -- so small that once all the students entered it was impossible for anyone to stand up or move around -- and the general incompetence of the management and staff that they only rarely returned for more than one level. We were very close to the subway station, however, which is what more than one student told me was the reason they had chosen the school.
The scheduling was shitty, but nothing too unusual about that -- I had classes usually at 7:00am, 8:00am, maybe 9:00 or 10:00am, and then again in the evening at 5:00pm, 6:00pm, and 7:00pm. I generally worked 5 classes a day, occasionally 6, 4 on a slow month. There was supposed to be a maximum of 13 students, but on busy months they'd stick 18 in a room, no problem. And my god, the stench of cigarette smoke and kimchee in those tiny unventilated rooms. Lord. (Kimchee, for those who don't know, is a popular Korean dish composed of fermented pickled cabbage, garlic, and military CN pepper gas.)
The problem was that as classes lasted five weeks, but started every month, there was constantly a one-week period when the few students that remained in a course would be forced to move to new smaller rooms. No one ever seemed to know what room they were supposed to be in at any given time.
Students often didn't bother to buy the book; it would have been nearly impossible to finish the book anyway in five weeks. The topics were grossly inappropriate to Korean culture -- there was a chapter on driving, for example -- none of my students, who were University students or low-level salary men, drove -- and a chapter on dating -- none of my students had ever had time to be on a date, as they mostly studied or worked 12 hours a day -- and a chapter on travel -- very few of my students had ever been out of Korea.
There was no tape player, but that didn't matter, because they were no cassettes either, and there were no teacher's books to use. There was a photocopier, which was a nice touch -- however, there being nothing on the premises to photocopy, it didn't exactly make my day. There was nothing like a public computer to type anything on, either.
There was no system of tests of any sort; if a student finished a level, he or she was welcome to go to the next.
There was no entrance test -- teachers just had to interview the students and say which of the three levels they belonged in. (And I'll give them credit for this -- they paid us for doing that, which is more than a lot of schools do.)
After a couple months, Mr. Jyong left -- with an obvious cock and bull story about his mother being ill. He had me proofread his resume before he left and help write a fax to another employer.
There was another manager in there for a while, but only about a month or two. He came up and tried to talk me one time while I was sitting reading waiting for a class to start, but I thought he was just a chatty student and blew him off. Nobody ever introduced him to me or anything. And he was gone before I ever had call to speak to him again.
Then the drunk guy came. He was cheerful and beaming and well-mannered, constantly trying to joke and talk with me. He stank of alcohol most of the time. He would ask me a lot of questions about my love life, apparently under the impression that white men had sex with just about every girl they met. Though he was never crude enough to use the term "sex".
I went into my classroom one time and found the little retarded assistant manager guy nearly in tears, smoking a cigarette. "My boss crazy" he said. I guess they let him go or something; I didn't see him for a while, anyway. (Although I seem to recall he was back after a few months, so who knows.)
There were a lot of managers at the school -- some of them were in charge of the Korean staff, though, so I didn't ever speak to them. (Hell, I didn't generally speak with the managers of the foreign staff.) I porked one of the Korean staff manager's cousins though, without really realizing what a scandal that could possible cause.
Then Mr. Efficiency arrived. It was September, I think. Maybe October -- about six months after I started.
Six months in Korea. I was beginning to wig out, no doubt. I had more than enough money saved to constantly be asking myself what the fuck I was doing there. But saving $1000 a month and all, I thought I might as well stick with it.
I was just walking to my classroom on a warm day. There was no dress code at the school, and I was wearing a t-shirt.
"Hey!" said a young guy in a nice suit, looking sharp and well groomed. "Do you work here?" I'd never seen him before. He approached me severely.
"Yeah. Do you?"
"I'm the new assistant manager. You must wear a tie to work, and a jacket."
"Oh really," I said. Just kind of reeling -- I was used to Koreans yelling at me for no reason, but this was a new kettle of fish. "I see."
"You can buy one at the Chongak Market, not expensive."
"Uh. Mmm-hmm. Okay. "
"Tomorrow," he said. Then he scurried off.
I went back to my shitty little hotel after work and got out one of my grey legal pads and one of those fine Korean rollerball 0.5mm pens.
And I went to town, baby.
I made a list. It filled three pages. I think I may still have it somewhere, I'll try to scan a copy if I can ever find it.
ATTENTION: MANAGEMENT, it began. THE FOLLOWING ARE A LIST OF PROBLEMS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE RECTIFIED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE:
And it continued, making a minute detailing of every single complaint I could think of. No teachers books, no clear course outline, no cassettes, no cassette player, no housing money, students of different levels in same classes, no organized entrance examinations, no clear allocation of rooms, more students than the official maximum in the classes, etc.
Etc, etc. Three pages.
It was just beautiful man.
I reamed 'em out. There had been an incident where they'd asked me to stay after class because a popular "man in the street" program wanted to interview some people who worked in the evening (i.e. the manager) and wanted me around for comic relief. "#23: Numerous incidents of unpaid extra work, (i.e. the ridiculous TV program I was forced to participate in.)
The first manager had made some vague references to getting me a housing bonus, though it wasn't in the contract. That went on the list, too.
And of course the last one: "32) No clear dress code specified in contract. (NB I was hired on the condition I could dress as I liked)"
I went into work the next day wearing my oldest jeans and t-shirt.
Mr. Efficiency saw me and stalked up to me. "Hey, what did I tell you."
I had no hesitation. I whipped the three pages out of my folder in one smooth motion and handed them to him. "Please read this, it's a list of problems with this school. We can discuss it at your leisure."
Heh heh heh.
Amazing it worked.
After class he approached me, wringing his hands and considerably humbled. "Okay, please, can we talk?"
I smiled magnanimously. "Why sure!"
And the Internet was nothing more than a novelty in those days. It just goes to show you: A well-written letter of complaint, appropriately presented, is worth a sucker punch to the testicles in 9 cases out of 10. Asians in particular seem to really appreciate and fear them.
I got the impression management was shaken to its very foundation by this little memo. The drunk guy and the efficient guy promised me they would bring it up with owner, and changes would be made. This was just the kind of thing a low-level today could use to try to strategically de-face the boss as revenge, without being clearly responsible for it and putting the blame on the White Devil.
"And you know: you have beautiful handwriting," said the drunk guy.
That surprised a laugh out of me.
"No I mean it. You should see the writing of many teachers. Terrible, just terrible!"
So I happily wore a shirt and tie to work the next day. Hell, I told you, I'm as patient and pleasant as the next guy. Really, Underneath it all. The drunk guy resigned in a few weeks, and the efficient guy took his place.
And the guy whose cousin I'd porked was now academic manager for the foreign teachers.
How much he knew about that I have never been able to figure out. Surely she denied it, but the gossipy Korean teachers had seen us together a few times, so God knows what they'd told him.
(She herself, the cousin I'd porked, refused to speak to me after the two times we'd gone out and the one time we'd porked, so that helped I guess.)
And damned if they didn't start paying us a housing allowance in November! That had mostly been bullshit anyway, they were already paying a typical salary by Seoul standards -- about $20 an hour, but I managed to bang the equivalent of an extra $400 a month out of them! They did start deducting about $100 for taxes a month though, but still, I considered it a sizeable victory.
And damned if they didn't straighten out the classroom situation! Classes were carefully scheduled and placed.
Of course everything else still sucked.
And now, of course, the owner, having been deeply defaced by me, hated my guts. I saw him sitting with the managers in the lobby one time, and indicated me in a sneering way that suggested he was saying, "Get that fucker!"
Ah, but how can you fuck over a man who has nothing to lose! It's impossible!
Now for some reason, as I said, they actually were fair about paying me, so they never ripped me off on payment. As I said, this is EXCEEDINGLY rare -- in the ten months or so I was in Korea, I don't think I met any teachers who hadn't been ripped off by a school at least once.
So thus came the Ridiculous Rulings.
Number one: Teachers may not carry backpacks into the school. It looks unprofessional.
Maybe -- but how the fuck am I supposed to carry a bottle of water, and three text books in a briefcase? I bought a paper briefcase and managed it though.
Number two: Teachers may not wear leather jackets in the building. It looks thuggish.
Even the Efficiency Guy seemed embarrassed by having to relate this little rule to us. This when the owner normally wore a baseball hat and sandals with socks in the building.
The owner himself approached me for the last. As I said, he was a sneering bastard. He sneered like a champ.
I was walking into the school carrying my paper briefcase and wearing my wool non-leather coat.
"Don't chew" he said. He indicated my gum, which I was chewing to get the garlic off my breath from the pungent Korean food.
I said, "Oh. Mmm, right."
I took the gum out of my mouth and made to hand it to him.
He began fuming in Korean and pointed at the wastepaper basket.
At one point the manager called us into the office and asked us to please be more personable with the students. It had come to the owner's attention that we rarely knew our students' names. He challenged us to write the names of all our students on a pieces of paper, even going so far as to give us the paper and pen. ("Does Marcellus Wallace look like a bitch? Huh?")
Now of course, none of us knew most of our students names, as we had new ones every month. The fat Canadian guy blythely replied, "We use English nicknames in my class," and began writing "Tad" "Jennifer" "Chuckles" and "Laser" on his piece of paper.
I wrote "Mr. Kim" 8 times and "Mrs. Lee" 8 times and "Mrs. Jyung" 8 times and "Mrs. Oh" 8 times.
So January 1997 rolled around, and I told them my mom was sick and I had to leave at the end of the month. I'd saved the maximum I was allowed to change into dollars and take out of the country -- $10,000. Actually I had about $9,800.
Just as well, most of the students hated me at that point anyway.
Still they were kind to me when I left. The Efficiency guy was, anyway. Even the guy whose cousin I'd boffed was nice to me.
He said he thought I was a very good teacher and a gentleman, and he wished me luck.
I returned the compliments.
So let this be a lesson: if you're going to bitch, bitch in print. And make it clear, detailed, and intelligent, none of this: "This skool sukz man they cheeted me and lied all the time" crap. And my advice: THREATEN to put something on the Internet before you actually do it.
I don't know if the pen is mightier than the sword and all, but if you jab one into someone's eye and twist, I suppose it's still quite effective.