::A Geek in Korea::

I don’t claim to have predictive powers, but I’ve been around the block enough in Korea that I can see the writing on the wall at times when others around me can’t. Chock that up to being in the country for a ridiculous amount of time for a person working in my field I suppose.

I seemed prescient when a friend started to have problems at his school. I was telling him that his school was going to have cash flow problems a month before their deposits arrived late for the first time. When I went to their school, saw their staff, their rolls, and heard about their plans, I knew what was going to happen because I had been in that exact same situation before.

I had heard the same excuses, seen the same warning signs, and had chose to ignore them first time it happened to me. It’s a lot easier to give advice when you aren’t the one being financially impacted, and when you have a much better visa not dependent on your employer for status. He has a few tough choices ahead for himself, and I’ll just try to help him weather the storm.

However, my school is headed for choppy waters again as well. My school does not offer raises on renewal of contracts. I have been in an envious position of calling their bluff TWICE in a row due to my visa status, first getting a raise, then negotiating for a PAID VACATION period as a part-time employee.

My Korean coworkers don’t have that bargaining power. When I first started the school, they were churning through employees once a month or less. High turnover was starting to damage the school, but they found two really fantastic coworkers that stayed on for an entire year. The goal of young Korean teachers is to suffer for a year or more at a school that is less desirable to prove their worth. It’s like a paid internship more or less. Then, once they tolerate everything, they don’t get their much deserved raise. Instead they can get a better job somewhere else and start over.

I don’t know if this is something agreed upon beforehand, but my two awesome Korean coworker’s terms of employment are coming due now. They stayed an entire year and won’t be staying on because my director refused their raises. My director took us out to dinner for the woman that left this week. We got treated to a multi-course EXPENSIVE meal of raw fish.

It was a nice send off, but we’ve got a new teacher in the office now and I’m not getting good vibes at the moment. She seems like she won’t be around a year if I had to take out a bet.

Pretty soon there won’t be anyone to take a bet with in the office. Another awesome Korean teacher leaves in a month’s time, and my Foreign coworker leaves Christmas Eve for another school in Korea, maybe even a rival school somewhere in Daejeon.

I expect no loyalty in the business, and people are free to work whereever they want, but I signed my contract in the middle of summer before all this information was available about the working conditions of the second half of my contract. Not only are my coworkers bailing once they finish their year, but there is news we’ll be franchised, and the school will change it’s format, layout, and materials completely. There were people coming to visit the school, which smells like re-investment, or possibly a take-over.

I’ve SEEN that before, and the proper response is “RUN!”

All of a sudden, my instincts are telling me that I’ve got to watch out for my job again, and that I’ve got to be hyper-aware of any changes I hear in earshot. It won’t be as bad as when I quit my second job, or third job, to find better employment, as my boss this time is fully LEGAL and compliant with everything. Plus, even if things go completely south, I won’t be kicked out of the country. I also own my own home now, so I don’t have to worry about a place to stay, only how to pay for it if things go sour.

The good thing is that now I’ve got a social network to find better places to work at, more leverage than ever, and the drive to do anything I can. I’m welcoming the change instead of running from it.