Because it's impossible to leave Korea on a good note...
I’m convinced that my school either has the biggest pair of cojones ever, or is completely idiotic.
So, I have been struggling with my school this entire year about my 20,000won/day travel allowance that is standard for this island. They have fussed and fussed, and finally a couple months ago, they agreed to pay it as part of my final pay, despite the fact that really, it should be on each paycheck. Whatever, it’s Korea, sometimes it’s easier not to push these things.
This Monday my school gave me a printout of everything that will be on my final paycheck. Guess what wasn’t on there? If you guessed my travel allowance, you get a gold star! Since I have given up on trying to deal with my school directly, I just went straight to the education office here and told my supervisor about the issue. I brought my pay reciepts, the printout I’d been given, and my bankbook, which shows all the deposits I’ve had. He called my school’s “financial officer”, and chattered in Korean for a few minutes, while looking at my papers and paging through my bank book. I heard the tone shift from angry to appeased, and hoped that it meant that it would be resolved. He got off the phone and said that “it was a mistake”, and that my school would be paying me my 26 weeks of 60,000won/week as a separate deposit. They had “forgotten”. I asked about the other 30 weeks, that I’m owed for from last year, and he got back on the phone. He paged through my bank book some more, and chattered for another few minutes, then hung up. My school is trying to claim that a deposit for 873,000won (which was payment for a camp I taught), paid back in August, is my “travel allowance for last year. Do they think I’m retarded? 1. The deposit is in AUGUST. 2. 30 weeks at 60,000won a week is 1.8million won, not 873,000 won. I think even my middle schoolers could do that math. 3. IT WAS FOR A CAMP. The supervisor had to go home at that point, so I was told to talk to the financial officer today, and then report back. This is all utterly ridiculous, and really shows just what they think of their foreign employees.
The second half of this is that after all that yesterday, my co-teacher came to my desk this morning with a stack of forms. I asked what they were for, and it turns out that my school had been paid to host some teacher workshops (wherein I teach Korean English teachers English) this year, once a week. We’ve never had a single one of these workshops. She asked me to fill out the forms with imaginary workshop lessons/activities/topics of discussion. Yes, my school, which just yesterday was trying to cheat me out of a substantial amount of money, was now asking me to forge documents for them so that they wouldn’t have that funding revoked. The corruption here is phenomenal.
I did it, because I am still in negotiations with the financial officer and flat out blackmail will get you nowhere in Korea (especially this close to my departure date, I have very little leverage), but I am astounded by the chutzpah of these people!
Originally published at Teh Blog. You can comment here or there.