No Reply At All

I have received a lot of comments from friends and family lately about how they can't believe the shit I put up with in the overseas ESL life I have manufactured for myself. My sister, Jenn, keeps telling me I should just give it up and move back to Canada. So does my Mom. My friend Jenny says she doesn't know how I put up with the abuse I go through. And when you are broke and unemployed, people see you differently. They look down on you consciously or subconsciously and give you advice that is appreciated, but sometimes a little insulting in its simplicity. Like, "Why don't you come back to Canada and teach in Canadian schools?" My friend Jessica is doing that now. There are some small differences between my friend Jessica and me. For instance, she worked for 10 years straight in Korea and brought home over 60,000 bucks in pension alone, not including her savings over that period. Also, she has a teaching certificate. "People are crying for teachers in North America! You should come back," she advised.

I tried years ago, and I tried years before THAT and years before THAT. Every time it became harder, not easier. I can't even teach ESL in the schools where I taught in Canada before, let alone teach in public schools. Canadian education has become a business and I would have to do over 2 years, probably 3, to get the one-year education certificate I need to teach in Canada. And it now costs 10 times what it cost for a year of Canadian university when I last attended. From 5 grand in 1994 to 50 grand in 2018. I've looked into it. This isn't improving the teaching ability, just making it more expensive and time-consuming for the teachers.

"You should come to Viet Nam! It'd be easy for you to get work here," advised my friend, Dan, who has been working there for a while. He even gave me a few places to apply. I applied and found that they all require Cambridge CELTA certificates. I have an old TESL certificate that cannot be verified by the good people of CELTA, so I am unacceptable in places of employment in the CELTA neighbourhoods. This is the same in Canada with Canada TESL. They are like mafia. They go from school to school and get them to refuse anyone without a CELTA in exchange for not breaking the legs of the teachers they have at their schools currently teaching. Or money, or free practicum teaching, or whatever. It's all just superfluous middlemen insinuating themselves into an industry that was just fine and dandy without them. There is absolutely NO evidence, (or chance), that they have improved teaching ability. Just made it more expensive and time-consuming for the teachers.

"You should put in for work in Azerbaijan! I know a place that is desperate for a teacher! Tell them you are the guy I told them about," my friend, Allen offered. I DID put in for the job and never heard from them even though I had been talked up to them by Allen. This is a common occurrence in the ESL industry. Nobody answers emails unless they feel you can make them money or help them. Even when you CAN make them money or help them, they STILL don't answer sometimes. It has to do with the deterioration of work ethic, professionalism and courtesy in the industry.

Let me give you a great ferinstance: The company I have recently signed on with for a year, Carrot Global Inc., a language company/recruiter, has been quite irresponsible to this point and I see no signs of it ending. When I first had contact with them I was up for a job in Naju at Korea Electric Power Company. KEPCO. I arranged for an interview, bought a 50-dollar train ticket to Naju and had the interview cancelled at the last second. Then a week later had another interview scheduled, bought a train ticket and the interview was cancelled at the last second. Both times I had to return the ticket and lose 5% of what I'd paid. Carrot was nice enough to reimburse me for this, but it was the poor performance from them that cost me this job. Hours before the second interview I was instructed to fill in some forms that had information on them that Carrot had already received. I could have done this at any time during the previous two weeks, but it wasn't thought about until the eleventh hour. Had I dealt with KEPCO directly, I have no doubt I'd be working there now. But because of the ubiquitous recruiters who have shouldered in on the ESL racket here in Korea, mainly for their ability to relieve the clients of the burden of dealing, in English, with the teachers, here I remain, unemployed.

So what they get at recruiting firms are Kyopos who are Koreans who lived in English speaking countries and speak fluently, or people who have learned English through hard study. These people have no problem finding work in Korea. They usually find multiple jobs and work impossible hours thereby diminishing their job performance at all of their jobs. When I say work ethic is suffering, I don't mean willingness to work long hours, I mean ability to handle the hours you work.

Anyway, I kept in touch with the first recruiter and she put me into another job opportunity with Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power also down near Naju. KHNP. They asked me to go to an interview down south but I explained that I'd rather do it in Seoul. Carrot's offices are in Seoul and they have one of these valuable Kyopos working there named Chris, who had lived in Canada for a long time. So they set me up for an interview with Chris. Wouldn't you know it, THAT interview was cancelled too! Last minute. After lots of waiting, I finally had the interview after some more waiting. It went well. They called me in, after a little bit more waiting, to sign contracts. Then they postponed THAT appointment because Chris wasn't available. But we finally got it done. After some more waiting.

At contract signing time I told Chris it would take 2 weeks for me to get my criminal record check. If they needed a certified degree, it was going to take a lot longer because I'd also have to send the original degree, plus a copy, plus a scan of my passport, plus get sealed transcripts sent to the Korean Embassy in Ottawa. So he said, "Okay, I'll find out for sure if we need the stamped degree or not then get back to you tomorrow." This was 21 days before May 14th when KHNP wanted me to start teaching.

So that day I prepared all the documents I needed to send to Ottawa, (I had been fingerprinted the day before because I like to do things in advance). I was prepared to send a scan of my passport, a scan of my degree, and the original if I had to. I heard nothing from anyone at Carrot the next day. Then it was the weekend. Still nothing but I thought Chris probably wasn't working and we'd probably have to wait till Monday to send anything anyway. Monday rolls around. STILL nothing, but I reckoned it was probably because it was a Korean holiday. Labour Day of sorts. Then Tuesday comes and I hear nothing from Chris. I didn't yet have a phone so I borrowed my friend Heather's phone and called him to ask, (as politely as I could), what the fuck was taking so long. He said he'd look into it the next day and get back to me. He DID! And we found that FOR SURE I didn't need the degree. So that was good news, though the six days Chris had wasted would probably have been enough to get the extra documents, but at least, (there's that phrase again), I didn't have to pay the considerable extra money.

So the documents were sent. Five days ago I received word that the fingerprints were submitted to the RCMP in Ottawa. They would take 2-3 working days to make the Criminal Record Check, then submit it to the Korean Embassy where they would take a day or two to "apostille" the thing and give it back. After that it would be sent express mail, (2-3 days), to the offices of Carrot in Kangnam, Seoul. So optimistically thinking, I'll get it at the end of this week. Either today or tomorrow. Pessimistically, I'll get it on the weekend. I can go to Japan Sunday, file for my visa at the Korean embassy there early Monday morning and come back Tuesday. I'll miss two days. Out of a year.

Well, I received word from Chris yesterday that KHNP has decided they don't want me any more. Remember, there's a signed contract here. It's a contract WITH Carrot, but to work FOR KHNP. I asked Chris why they bailed and he said it was the work visa situation. So obviously KHNP was not told that the visa would take two weeks, (probably because of the 6 days Chris had wasted), and they were expecting me there BEFORE the teaching was to begin. To, oh I dunno... get me settled in my house, get me a pass to get into the company, MEET me... Should not have been a problem, but here we are.

I sent an email to two of the Carrot workers who work at the KHNP offices where I would have been teaching asking them not to give up just because I'll miss two days of work. But I have my doubts that my pleas will be appreciated.

I WAS offered another job by Chris, in Ilsan, starting the next day. That would have been impossible but he said that Carrot had something else in Icheon. If that word rings a bell in the ears of a loyal reader, it might be because that is where I had a job with Lincoln International School that was cancelled when their major investor got sent to prison for fraud. Anyway, he says it pays better and starts in June. I told him to send me the details of the offer, but I didn't want to abandon ship on KHNP just yet. He said, "Okay, I have a meeting to go to now, but I'll send that information tomorrow." Tomorrow was yesterday. No information. It's almost noon two days afterward and as yet no information. Are you sensing a pattern here?

The question remains, why the hell DO I put up with this shit? I will answer in cartoon form:

Bear in mind, when I was offered the job with Carrot, I had 4 jobs pending. Victoria U. in Shenyang still says they will hire me for the next semester in Sept. but I told them I won't make it that long so I have taken the job here with Carrot. They understood and said they'd send back my paperwork. No offer to share in the thousand dollar expense for the paperwork, but that's no surprise. I received all my paperwork from them by courier yesterday. If I could get my foreign expert certificate cancelled, we'd just hand that all in and bingo!

The dream contract in Ningbo at the International school still wants me and they are NOW saying the foreign expert certificate doesn't even need to be cancelled to get work there. They were telling me to get it cancelled a month ago. THEY couldn't help me but I needed to cancel it. When I tell them I don't want the job, now I don't need to get it cancelled? Well, that job sounded too good to be true anyway.

I am told that I would be a shoe-in for the job that Donseo University in Busan defunded before I could start it. But that's not until September either. I haven't yet burned that bridge though. We'll see how things pan out with Carrot, or, as I am increasingly paranoid of, if I get ANY work at all from them!

I also have an offer from Saudi Arabia. They interviewed me and were a little sketchy about my TESL asking if it could be verified as a CELTA equivalent or some shit like that. Obviously the CELTA mafia is moving in THERE too. I sent back a reply saying that the interviewer couldn't give me a clear answer about housing and that housing is as important to me as the CELTA shit seems to be to them. That was the big problem with Beijing where I had to live in a hostel and pay over 1200 bucks a month. I actually received another offer from them with an increase in pay to over 4000 American dollars a month. They would take care of visa, relocation, flight, and even give me spending money for the first month. I could be working there NOW if not for the Carrot offer. When I refused, the recruiter told me to keep in touch in case the Carrot thing fell through. I MAY be in touch with him soon...

I am starting to believe the deal with Carrot just might fall through, and mark the fifth contract I've killed recently. Despite email and text message to Chris, he still hasn't sent me the details of the offer he promised to send yesterday. When I received the paperwork from VU, I had to deal with some poor sod at the DHL office who didn't speak English. I'm sorry to sound elitist but at the international shipping department of the German company, DHL, even in Korea, you probably should have some English ability. He sent me an email, all in Korean, saying that they need me to send them some information that they will use to fill out a customs form the purpose of which is to verify that I allow them to use my information at customs to fill out this form.

Luckily, I was able to translate it and get the gist. The form, however, which was not attached to the email, but given in the body of the email, on some Korean program, got completely messed up upon mailing. It didn't matter much anyway, I couldn't make changes to the document as the email. There WAS an attachment, but it was just the DHL logo. Forehead smack!

I just wrote an email saying that I give them permission to use my info for customs and then just listed my passport, SIN, document number, address, phone, absolutely everything I could. It arrived late last night, two days after we started this nonsense. My concern is that the same thing might happen with my criminal record check that I actually NEED. The one coming from the Korean embassy that I need to work for Carrot. That could throw things out of whack and I'd need to miss MORE than the two days of work.

I'll just have to wait and see...

In the mean time, my good buddy, Guns, gave me his old IPhone and I got a month of service for it. Even though Chris knows my number and can now call or text, I still get no reply at all. I've constantly got that song going through my head these days. Genesis - No Reply At All. It's a classic.

*** It may come as no surprise at all that I have still received no reply at all from Carrot and it's now May 14th, the day I was supposed to start work in Nampyeong for KHNP. Since then I have lost all phone ability too. I try to text now or make a phone call and it just says "not sent" or "call ended." This is because the wifi where I am staying either went off completely or was so weak it didn't register on my phone. But I don't think I was doing anything on the phone because I was trying to preserve my calling and data. I got about ten dings while my phone was charging from the telephone company saying my data and calling were all used up. HOW? My phone was charging! Was something running in the background using up my minutes?

Anyway, I sent a text 4 days ago and an email 4 hours ago to Chris saying we need to meet up and discuss what the hell is going on. And... no reply at all...