Okay! So what's been going on?
It's been about a week since I posted here, such a gap was because we've both been *very* busy! I'll type out the full story in short here. So, I suppose, that makes this post kinda like the Junior Novelization of a movie. As such, just imagine it with a collection of photo pages stuffed in the middle. Although I think that's me showing my age, as the newer junior novelizations seem to have pictures throughout. In either case, I'm not of enough of a sound mind to attempt to retrieve some pictures of the events of last week as they're trapped on Becky's PSP. Without further ado!
As most of you know, our school was hit very badly by the financial crisis. With students parents unable to afford the fees, the school was losing a lot of students. As in over 1/6 of all the students (I think, and ish). So, with no money coming in and lots of money going out, the school couldn't afford to pay us. Or so we were told. Eventually, it got to the stage where Becky and I threatened to leave and not return to work until we got paid. At this point we got paid, but only after we were half way down the street, heading for our apartment.
At this point we got really pissed off. If the money was there to pay us with, why weren't we paid before we got out the door? And if the money wasn't there and our pay came from the school's overdraft, or similar, then we had question if we could afford another month of working for free (we never saw any money for January - this was December's wages we're talking about).
When we spoke about it and weighed up the facts, we decided that payment could not be guaranteed for the future. Some of the staff were leaving around the time of the next pay day, which meant that the school had to pay out several lots of severance pay (2 months pay a time) and pay for a flight home for one of the foreigner teachers who was leaving. When we combined this with the knowledge that the Korean teachers had not been paid since *November*, we thought that it was unlikely that we ever see another pay check. Combine this with various other signs, such as the shouting at everyone for everything by the headmaster (the dude in charge of the school, not the transformer), and so on, it didn't look good.
So we packed our bags and bought a ticket back to the U.K. over the New Year vacation.
(((JUNIOR NOVELIZATION MOVIE PICTURES GO HERE)))
Our friend Kate was in a similar situation, but had been kicked out of her apartment, so we put her up for a few days, had a laugh and hung out. That was really cool and she was a lot of fun. I think, because I am quite quiet, she would forget that I was funny/silly/a geek too and thus found me (maybe?) perpetually amusing.
So, yeah, we're back home in the U.K., crashing with Becky's parents until we can get ourselves sorted out with jobs and our own place. We've giving it a little time, because although we left with the school owing us quite a lot of cash, we still might be in a good position to actually *buy* a house, rather than rent one, depending on what type of jobs we can land. So far, the job hunting would've been going better if it weren't for a) horrific jet lag, b) the beginnings of the PS2 game price crash and c) preparation work for our reunion RPG games with our friends.
The only angst we had about leaving was with regard to the children. Some of them we *really* loved, seriously so, so it was very difficult to not tell them we were going. All those Friday "See you next week, Teacher!" comments were really difficult. I almost cried when I got that off of one of my favorites. Ah well. We were advised not to tell the school we were going. Basically, the way the Koreans do business would mean that we would not have seen any money and they would've kicked us out of the apartment. We were leaving - and thus not important and not (were we ever?) valuable. Which would've made things very difficult for us, so we did a turn.
We left a letter explaining everything and hoping that now the school doesn't have to pay us, they can at least afford to pay the other teachers. One of them was in a horrible position of having a maxed out credit card and no way of paying for fuel to drive to work. Again, the way that Koreans do business, this meant that it was all the teacher's fault, not the school's for not paying her. This was the same poor awesome girl who was given a day off, her first in almost 18 months, and was told to lie about it to the other teachers so the headmaster didn't have to give them all a day off. When she didn't, and the other teachers found out, it was obviously her fault. I asked about it and was told that it was her "Duty".
I suggested that the Korean teachers band together and say something similar to our 'Pay us or we Walk' thing. I got one nervous laugh and one amazed, disbelieving stare. I don't think that Korea is ready for worker's rights, unions, or, in fact, any degree of work related sanity.
By my horrifically imperialist standards, of course.
Well, that's about it. We're glad to be home and looking forward to catching up, in person, with all our friends. Finally, I can say that Resident Evil (at least Nemesis and Code Veronica) isn't fun when you're jet lagged, but so far FFII, any version of Dynasty Warriors, Mercenaries and Dead or Alive, all work much better. Now to try to get back to some writing. It's really hard to get into the mind set of work without a work station! At least, I have a Play-station....
As most of you know, our school was hit very badly by the financial crisis. With students parents unable to afford the fees, the school was losing a lot of students. As in over 1/6 of all the students (I think, and ish). So, with no money coming in and lots of money going out, the school couldn't afford to pay us. Or so we were told. Eventually, it got to the stage where Becky and I threatened to leave and not return to work until we got paid. At this point we got paid, but only after we were half way down the street, heading for our apartment.
At this point we got really pissed off. If the money was there to pay us with, why weren't we paid before we got out the door? And if the money wasn't there and our pay came from the school's overdraft, or similar, then we had question if we could afford another month of working for free (we never saw any money for January - this was December's wages we're talking about).
When we spoke about it and weighed up the facts, we decided that payment could not be guaranteed for the future. Some of the staff were leaving around the time of the next pay day, which meant that the school had to pay out several lots of severance pay (2 months pay a time) and pay for a flight home for one of the foreigner teachers who was leaving. When we combined this with the knowledge that the Korean teachers had not been paid since *November*, we thought that it was unlikely that we ever see another pay check. Combine this with various other signs, such as the shouting at everyone for everything by the headmaster (the dude in charge of the school, not the transformer), and so on, it didn't look good.
So we packed our bags and bought a ticket back to the U.K. over the New Year vacation.
(((JUNIOR NOVELIZATION MOVIE PICTURES GO HERE)))
Our friend Kate was in a similar situation, but had been kicked out of her apartment, so we put her up for a few days, had a laugh and hung out. That was really cool and she was a lot of fun. I think, because I am quite quiet, she would forget that I was funny/silly/a geek too and thus found me (maybe?) perpetually amusing.
So, yeah, we're back home in the U.K., crashing with Becky's parents until we can get ourselves sorted out with jobs and our own place. We've giving it a little time, because although we left with the school owing us quite a lot of cash, we still might be in a good position to actually *buy* a house, rather than rent one, depending on what type of jobs we can land. So far, the job hunting would've been going better if it weren't for a) horrific jet lag, b) the beginnings of the PS2 game price crash and c) preparation work for our reunion RPG games with our friends.
The only angst we had about leaving was with regard to the children. Some of them we *really* loved, seriously so, so it was very difficult to not tell them we were going. All those Friday "See you next week, Teacher!" comments were really difficult. I almost cried when I got that off of one of my favorites. Ah well. We were advised not to tell the school we were going. Basically, the way the Koreans do business would mean that we would not have seen any money and they would've kicked us out of the apartment. We were leaving - and thus not important and not (were we ever?) valuable. Which would've made things very difficult for us, so we did a turn.
We left a letter explaining everything and hoping that now the school doesn't have to pay us, they can at least afford to pay the other teachers. One of them was in a horrible position of having a maxed out credit card and no way of paying for fuel to drive to work. Again, the way that Koreans do business, this meant that it was all the teacher's fault, not the school's for not paying her. This was the same poor awesome girl who was given a day off, her first in almost 18 months, and was told to lie about it to the other teachers so the headmaster didn't have to give them all a day off. When she didn't, and the other teachers found out, it was obviously her fault. I asked about it and was told that it was her "Duty".
I suggested that the Korean teachers band together and say something similar to our 'Pay us or we Walk' thing. I got one nervous laugh and one amazed, disbelieving stare. I don't think that Korea is ready for worker's rights, unions, or, in fact, any degree of work related sanity.
By my horrifically imperialist standards, of course.
Well, that's about it. We're glad to be home and looking forward to catching up, in person, with all our friends. Finally, I can say that Resident Evil (at least Nemesis and Code Veronica) isn't fun when you're jet lagged, but so far FFII, any version of Dynasty Warriors, Mercenaries and Dead or Alive, all work much better. Now to try to get back to some writing. It's really hard to get into the mind set of work without a work station! At least, I have a Play-station....