(no subject)

Apr 10, 2008 14:01

So my coworker quit yesterday. I'll post his note from facebook rather than type up the whole thing myself

""If you want me, you've got me".

I saw this t-shirt on a 20-something female as I was walking through the rain today. Notable, because it may be the last funny shirt I see here.

Normally I wouldn't be walking outside at 5:00 p.m, because my work hours are 2:30 - 9:30, Monday to Friday. My quitting my job an hour ago changed that.

There are a lot of thoughts running through my head now, so I'll try to post something that's reasonably coherent. There are a few reasons why I'm not working anymore, and I'll post in detail about them later. To sum them up: the stress of teaching, and the stress of dealing with a shady, manipulative, law-breaking school.

I was going to come in today and tomorrow if necessary to work, then collect my cheque and end my stay at the school. The manager's actions today negated that plan, as I was summoned to a meeting with her and a co-worker in which she once again tried to tell us that following the law was optional, that it was OUR fault for not bringing it to her attention earlier, that it was OUR fault for not making sure the contract specifically stipulated that certain laws would be followed, and that if we couldn't see eye to eye on this, she may have to not have us work at the school anymore and find another teacher. After all, she's the manager, and we're not listening to her!

For those unfamiliar with the pension system in Korea, here's a refresher. I'm on a E-2 Visa. This means that I've been sponsored by my school to come to Korea to teach at their hagwon (private school). The school, however, has us registered as "independent workers/contractors", not employees. Why would they do that, you might ask? It enables them to avoid paying pension to its employees. See, workers are required to pay 4.5% of their earnings per month into the pension system. The school matches this 4.5% payment, and at the end of the school year, teachers from certain countries (Canada and the U.S being two that immediately spring to mind for me) are eligible to claim all this money in a lump-sum payment if they leave the country. For a worker like me, making 2.0 million won a month (a little over $2000 Canadian), this would amount to about $2200 at the end of the year, $1100 contributed by me and $1100 by the school. If the school can weasel out of these payments, that's over a grand that they don't have to pay me. Unfortunately for the school, I'm aware that they have to pay into the pension system for me. I spoke specifically to the guy who deals with this at the pension office, who said "schools are required" to pay into the pension. I printed off the specific part of the pension website that states that schools have to pay into the pension system. Here it is, copied'n'pasted:

"What if my employer refuses to contribute?
Please visit or telephone the person in charge and we can help you.
If you have some evidence to support your claim, please submit it. We can force your employer to pay your contributions. If we find that your employer didn't pay contributions to our Service, first we will remind him/her of the deferred payment by mail, then we will investigate his/her properties.
Finally, if necessary, we will seize his/her assets to pay the contributions."

Pretty unambiguous, don't you think? Not to my manager, who obstinately insisted, "no, no, it's optional!" In essence, this means the school is very determined to screw me out of $1100. Also, they're supposed to put me on the health insurance plan. Of course, they didn't do that either.

I've talked to my manager about this several times. She repeats the same things over and over again, while I show her hard evidence that I'm right. Today she wanted to talk about it again, and repeated the same old rhertoric. Here's the crux of her argument: "YOU signed the contract, and the contract doesn't specfically say that we'll pay into the pension system. It's YOUR fault for signing it. You really should read things more carefully. Sorry!" Of course, this argument is easily defeated by the fact that national law trumps anything that's written in a contract.

Here's an appropriate Canadian analogy: say I apply for a job with a Canadian-based company, and the pay rate, for whatever reason, isn't mentioned in the contract. I sign the contract. My boss then tells me "by the way, we're paying you $1 an hour!" I say, "well, by law, you're required to pay me at least minimum wage. That's the law." The boss replies, "nope, that's not written in the contract, the contract is God, la la la la la la". My entire point is that IT DOESN'T MATTER IF NATIONAL LAWS ARE SPECIFICALLY WRITTEN INTO THE CONTRACT, THEY MUST BE FOLLOWED. Contracts do not trump national law. She asked me why I didn't ask before I signed the contract if they'd be paying pension. I didn't ask, then I signed the contract, so this is really all my fault. I replied that I don't feel I should have to ask if labor laws will be followed, as it's illegal not to follow them. I showed my boss the paper from the pension office that I pasted above. She said "I don't care".

So, this is what I'm dealing with at the school. I must say, though, I did love the reaction of my manager on the following exchange. She said, "we can't start giving you pension now, it has to be reported within 15 days of you starting, and you've been here seven months!" to which I replied, "that's not our problem." Her mouth dropped open and she let out an incredulous, disbelieving laugh, as if to say "how DARE you make me responsible for dodging the law!" It was a small victory.

It's very difficult to work your ass off for someone who has no respect for you and steals over $1000 from you, and then tells you it's your fault, while denying the evidence that you've produced without seemingly even considering it. That's really, really hard. This is a significant part of why I left.

The other part is that the teaching is really stressful. That part's not the school's fault, I'm just not cut out to be a teacher. I'm not very effective in controlling the classroom, and it causes me a lot of stress as a result. I accept responsibility for not having more an iron fist in the classroom. The thing is that you're feeling incredible stress from the job, and then your employer is just absolutely giving it to you as hard as they can, laws be damned, it makes it that much harder to try to stick it out and work hard at it. Would I have stayed for the duration if the school had showed me a little respect? I'm not sure - I was feeling burned out anyway and I may have left early regardless. But the blatant disregard of the law and the disrespect shown to me forced my hand. Don't make me travel 8000 miles to work for you and then try to take advantage of me. That doesn't really inspire me to make things work, and it causes me incredible stress.

Monday, after a brutal day of teaching and then reading other horror stories on Dave's ESL Cafe of people screwed over by management, I was so stressed out I was unable to sleep. I went over 24 hours without sleeping a single minute. It was about 18 hours into that period that it hit me that I had to go home. I packed all my bags at 7:00 in the morning, having just completed pulling a stress-induced all-nighter that I had no intention of undertaking, and began moving my bags to my friend Stefan's apartment. I called in sick to school on Tuesday because I was just too stressed. I slept all day to catch up on my sleep deprivation, and decided that I could go in for a couple of days to collect my check on Thursday before leaving. The situation with my manager that I described above changed all that. After willing myself to go in, I got bent over yet again, and that was it.

After that huge talk with my manager (if I haven't mentioned it already, my co-worker Brian was heavily involved in the discussion as well and took just as much, or more, crap) I went back to the teacher's room. I sat at my desk and stared out the window, comtemplating teaching five hours of classes that day with all of this running through my head. The first class was due to start in ten minutes, and I decided I just couldn't do it. I went back to my manager, and told her that I guess we just didn't see eye-to-eye and that I was quitting. She told me that the contract stated that I had to give advance notice before quitting. I told her that the contract also said they had to register me under the national health plan, but they didn't do that either. Therefore, I said, you violated the contract here (pointing at the health insurance), so I'm violating it here (pointing at the "you have to give 50 days notice before quitting" clause). She said that I had to go to class to teach, and she said she'd look over the contract and "let me know if I could quit today". I left her office as the bell to signal the start of class rang. She likely assumed I was going to class. I walked right out of the building and hopped in a taxi cab. It would have been interesting to see the absolute shitstorm and panic that hit when they realized that I wasn't in class, and - oh shit! - he's not even in the building anymore. Oh well.

I'll have more to say about all of this later, and I'm sure everyone will form their own opinions on it, which they're completely entitled to. If you have any questions or uncertainties, don't assume - ask me, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about this whole thing.

Looks like I'll be home for the summer after all."

A bit surprising, to say the least. I'm bummed because now I have to deal with the pension fight all by myself, combined with the fact that I'll have one less cool dude to hang out with over here. I'm going to the VP today or tomorrow, though I'll have to bring a translator. And I'm currently debating whether I should turn in my 50 days notice next week, which would put me over the 6 month mark and free me from several financial obligations. I'm glad I slept on it, but I'm not ruling out any drastic action in the future. I came over here for an adventure more than anything else, and I'd say I've had one, though not the one I was hoping for.
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