I am up at 4 AM watching the first game of the NHL semi-finals. This means there are only 4 teams remaining. These days with Covid still hanging on and a job that requires me to be in the office 9 hours a day warming the seat of my desk chair for most of that time, I thank the good Lord for hockey! I've watched a good deal of the games and I've watched a lot of them while at "work." Now, to fairly describe my current working situation, if I WERE working all nine hours of every day, I'd be getting paid an hourly wage that is less than minimum wage. But calculating in two months of vacation, it's a bit more than minimum wage. $15.33 an hour. And if you consider I don't even teach for over half of my time at work, I am making over 30 bucks per hour of work. But I consider time at work to be worth something too. I'm a visible presence. I'm here if needed, even if that's rarely or never. I deter prospective trespassing, vandalism and theft, even if that's rare or never happens. I've worked security and I know the value of just sitting or standing in a place so people can see you. It's minimum wage, THAT'S the value of it! At least it was for all the scumbag security companies I worked for in Canada. So I should be paid the 30 bucks an hour, which I'm worth, for my hours of teaching and 15 bucks an hour for the other hours I'm here. Or I should just not BE here when I'm not teaching. Hell even when I AM teaching.
Around about the year 2002, so like almost 20 years ago, I was making 50 bucks an hour. When I worked for SKhynix, I was told by some of the execs I taught how much they were paying for an hour of classes with me. It was more like 75 bucks an hour. So I'm worth MORE than the 30 an hour I'm currently pulling in, but I'm fine with that. So long as I don't have to do security work voluntarily. I'll eventually convince them of this. I don't think it'll be a problem to go home when I'm not needed and get it written in my contract by the end of my first 11 months here. It's just gonna be shitty getting through all this wasted, salary-sapping time. However, if they smarten up and give me a normal contract the second time around, it'll be okay.
So as you read this, I don't want you to think of it as a complaint. I'm happy with the job. Very happy! I liked all of my students and I like most of the international students I am associating with. I got some really nice comments from my students saying they enjoyed my class and I sincerely hope they feel their English got better either taking my classes via Zoom or face-to-face in my office. I left a little early for lunch or at the end of the day a few times, but I can honestly say I was there the whole semester, all nine hours of my work day every day.
But if you recall, I didn't start at the beginning of the semester. I started a month late (Apr. 1 instead of Mar. 1). I suspected this would cause problems and it did. Housing was the first of the difficulties. I had little to choose from and the place I ended up in, even though it was the far superior choice of the places I looked at, is a rip-off. It isn't as big, new, or nice in any way as my previous apartment. And my previous apartment was in a bigger city. I've had to spend quite a bit of money to make it as comfortable as I could replacing fixtures and buying furniture and tomorrow, (rather, today) my bed will be delivered at around 3 in the afternoon. I'll need to pay some cash on delivery, so it's not the sort of thing the deliverers will be able to just leave outside my door.
The second problem I foresaw was with severance pay. When I first met my supervisor, Pyunghwa, I asked about it. You see, over my years of working here in Korea, I've learned a lot of the laws the employers like to take advantage of here. As I have said many times before, they all do it to make themselves feel like savvy business-folk, and if you're here long enough, you learn to accept it and prepare for it since you will still have a decent deal even after their cheap chicanery. And if they can stroke their business egos on your dime, instead of your dollar, it ain't so bad. So even though I asked Pyunghwa at contract signing time if I'd get my full severance pay (one month's salary) at the end of my 11-month contract even though the law says you give it after 12 months of work, she assured me I'd be paid, but not in writing and not in a way that was very convincing. On Friday she pointed out that I won't be getting my severance pay at the end of my 11th month of work here. Not a huge surprise.
In that same meeting, I was told a few other things. One is that my office will be changing soon to a building much farther from my apartment. The commute will have 5 or 10 extra minutes added to it, but this is not my immediate concern. I've been told that the whole international program will be moved and the only people who have visited my current office are the members of the department that will be taking it over when the change is made. You know, scoping out the offices and mentally arranging desks, lamps, fans etc. I haven't been able to investigate what will be my new office. This is my concern.
At present, I'm all alone. And I love that! Nobody has come into my office except the aforementioned scopers, and the helper I have every day. That's been either Aminur, Thoa, or Achilles. Why do I have a helper even though I don't even have enough to keep myself busy? They are from Bangladesh, Vietnam and China respectively, but they all speak Korean. That has been their help to this point. And I've been able to do a few things with their help. I got a health check done with Aminur's help. Turned out to be a useless waste of money and time, but... I also have been able to join the ranks of the online shopper here in Korea. This has burnt more than a few hours of my ample spare time at work, and it was how I purchased my bed actually. I have tried and been frustrated a few times to do online shopping here in Korea because you can get some things online that are really hard to find otherwise. It took hours and hours and multiple attempts, but Thoa helped me get signed up on Coupang and Gmarket. Without her Korean abilities, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
For example, Friday night I visited Rob and Meagan and told them the news I'm sharing here over burgers, beers and salt and vinegar kettle chips. I brought the chips, which I'd bought on Coupang. They were much appreciated too! That made me happy. Rob teaches at Gongju and Meagan teaches IN Gongju too. This is how I know I am the only teacher at Gongju University being forced to go into class at all. Rob teaches completely from home and online. I did that all last year when I was at Gongju in Cheonan too. With the international program, I am expected to make myself available to the students in case they want to ask about anything they might be having trouble with, or just talk to someone in English. I had 4 hours of office time a week that was euphemistically written down as "International Student Counselling" on my schedule. As I said, NObody came in. Nobody.
Now with the semester over, the building I'm in will be locked. Some of the international students have been given phone scan cards to get into the sliding door to the building, but they don't work. Till the end of last week, there was a swinging door that was left open, so that didn't matter. But then the swinging door was also locked. What a glorious example of "mo technology - mo problems" THAT was! The doors were locked at 5 after the other side of the international offices, the students, had cleared out. THEY get to go home at 5. But I was still there. Even my helper was gone. Then when I tried to go home, I couldn't get out of the building. I shit thee not, I was locked into the building. I knew they wanted me to stay in the office for whatever antiquated reason, but this was ridiculous! Pyunghwa had promised, Monday, to give me a card for the sliding door. She sent a helper over with the card. Luckily, it worked. Before I left that night, this was Thursday, I had to let a few other stranded people out of the building when their phone cards didn't work. Then Friday morning I had to let some folks in and, believe it or not, Friday after lunch, I had to let some people out. I guess they'd been stranded there for the entire lunch hour. Hilarious!
Anyway, since Pyunghwas is no longer my supervisor, I don't really have contact information for the new girl, I don't have any classes to teach, and I have a delivery to receive at 3:00 tomorrow, I'm planning on being at my apartment at 3. Since there is nobody from the international department in my building, I doubt this will be noticed. However, when we move the international department to the new building, I'm not so sure I'll be able to get away with such subterfuge.
I am also planning on bringing pants and dress shirt to work with me for the next three weeks, but don't intend to change into them unless necessary. And I can't imagine a scenario in which they might be necessary. I'll be wearing shorts and tee-shirt. This too I might not be able to pull off at the new building. So this is my concern.
My one duty for the next three weeks is to write a curriculum for July. A four-week teacher training curriculum. I'll be teaching English to some of the profs here. I've heard some of them have really bad English, but I usually enjoy teaching teachers, and I actually prefer low levels, so I'm happy to do this. What I'm not so happy about is, you guessed it, the other teachers will have this time off. Vacation. And if you ever want to see an example of a bogus, time-waster of a schedule, get a load of this:
Yup. That's my sched. Class every day at 10. Then four hours of pud pulling followed by a class at 2. A three-hour afternoon session of canine coitus, then a class at 6 PM. Friday is different because nobody, except me, will be doing anything but starting the weekend after 4 PM. I'll likely have to stay three more hours jackin' my joint until I start my weekend at 7 on Friday night.
Again, to whinge about monetary compensation or the work would be ungrateful. Especially in these times when the ESL industry is toughening up. I'm betting it won't be long till a masters will be required for any university position here, so I should count my blessings. Also, I get all of August off. And January, I'm told. And in other mitigating news, Pyunghwa told me that if I stay another year, I will be able to collect severance on the entire 23 months I will have worked by the end of my second contract. Of course I'll be getting that written INTO my second contract. I'm also hoping to impress upon management the idea of allowing me to go home when there is absolutely no use for me. Not sure if I will get that written in the contract, or if I'll be able to swing an agreement with someone at contract time. But any such agreement will be tough to make if I'm in the same office as the old fashioned, Korean dinosaurs who are trying their best to maintain the traditionally inefficient 9 hour day with 2/3 of that day wasted and only 1/3 of it doing anything productive.
Last year I had a lot more problems and I was able to say, "But not to worry, two months vacation coming up." This year I have fewer problems and am able to say, "Not to worry, a month of vacation coming up." I don't have to jack around with the online portal or LMS gymnastics. I don't have to give grades or listen to students crying the blues about the "low" grades they received. These I may exchange for a month less vacation if given the choice. So again, counting my blessings right about now. But July is gonna be a bit hard to take. Especially with the hot, humid, sticky walks to work that I know none of the other teachers are being forced to make.
Well, it's 6:40 AM. Islanders win game one 2-1! I like the Islanders better than the Lightning so I'm happy. I'm glad I got up to watch. And since I have nothing I really need to do at work today, I'll be fine with the sleep deprivation. Also, it'll be nice to have my own bed upon which to recover from it tonight. I'm still happy to be working so I can buy nice things like beds too. Aside from frustrations with Korean ways of doing things like the desk warming and the exhaustively repetitive online form filling, text answering and even phone calls I have to deal with - I had a delivery guy who was looking at my package that had on it my name, address, email, alien card #, passport #, personal customs code, preferred underwear brand... and phone number, send me an SMS on my phone asking for my name, address, email, alien card #, etc., etc., etc... - but other than those minor stressors I'm sweating, but I know I shouldn't be, life is pretty good here. I really shouldn't say things like that, should I?
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