Blind Sided

They sure do know how to celebrate your six months here at DYB. . .

Taking off from New Orleans at 4:41pm Tuesday afternoon, I didn't arrive in Seoul until 6:05am, Thursday morning, two days later. Where did Wednesday go? Well, I can't exactly say but it sure didn't happen this year!

I quickly gathered my bags then stumbled through customs half asleep and fully jet lagged. Two hours, three subways and a short taxi ride later, I arrived at Dootavill. I managed to get in a quick shower and wash off three days of traveling before heading to work at 9:30am.

Here come the fun surprises. . .

I was immediately greeted at work by Anna who told me she had some surprising news. I informed her that I too had a surprise for her and pulled out a string of giant beads that seriously set her eyes a glow. Too bad her surprise wasn't quite as nice.

She took me in to her room and after about five minutes of beating around the bush, finally decided to tell me that I had been scheduled to work six days a week for the next three weeks. Well, that's what it sounded like at least. To be honest, she told me a whole bunch of different things, the majority of which I didn't quite grasp, partly because of the language barrier and partly because I was using every ounce of strength in me not to collapse right there and fall asleep.

I told Anna that I was somewhat aware of the situation as Yumi (head secretary?) had shot me an e-mail at around 7:30am that I just happened to glance at on my way in. I told her that I consider it and get back to Yumi by tomorrow. . . this was not accepted.

Anna informed me that my decision had to be made by 1:00pm as they had to fax the finalized schedules over to the Main Branch before the end of the day. Uh huh. Okay. With no energy to argue and no real desire to do so at that time, I agreed to the revised schedule which has me working two extra hours on a sixth day of the week.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon when Joseph came to confirm the schedule with me that I learned my sixth day was not what I had originally imagined. Apparently, due to the new semester (and the consolidation of the Middle School and Elementary School in to one building) Joseph scheduled me to work a five day week from Tuesday through Saturday. As for my sixth day? Well, I'm expected to come in to work Monday evening for two hours. Now this I didn't see coming. . .

With Joseph literally getting on his knees begging me to accept the schedule, I agreed but informed him that I would be responding to Yumi's e-mail later that evening with my concerns.

After finally 'resolving' the scheduling issue, I headed towards the Native room to try and take a few minutes to myself. Immediately after settling into a seat, Terry Teacher burst in to the room with more surprises. Apparently, one of the subs had failed to show up last week which means my students didn't get a speaking/writing lesson (not that they actually do when I'm there anyways). So, she requested, or, more rightly informed me that I would have to make the class up tomorrow (Friday) morning during my two hour essay period.

As the missed class is one of my best I agreed figuring that I could simply kill time talking about my trip and it's not like I was actually adding hours to my day. Before leaving though, Terry turns around and hands me another stack of about 50 essays and ask that I get them to her as soon as I can. Ha! This coming immediately after her telling me to utilize my essay time to teach her class. . .umm, sorry but not going to have time this week.

Oh, and on the topic of essay time. . . During our first few months here, I was originally scheduled for four hours of essay time each week. Sometimes I would have plenty of essays to keep me busy and other times I would have a bit of freedom but, in the end, it all evened out really well. During Winter Intensive, my essay time was cut down to two hours. Not a huge deal as I decided not to assign essays. However, Terry Teacher and Eun Kyung (whom I only worked with for two weeks) decided that they needed to assign essays and then give them to me for grading. Not a huge problem except for the fact that all of a sudden one day I had a stack of 50 essays sitting around and only two hours a week to work on them.

Now, I've missed my essay time the past two weeks (once due to vacation and once due to Terry's rescheduling me) and have accumulated probably around 100 essays. So, what can I do but slowly chip away at them during my essay time as I simply refuse to take home work to grade that I did not assign and that I know the kids do not look at/care about. Oh wait, herein lies the problem. My schedule for the next three weeks and the one for beyond that include exactly zero hours of essay time. Hmmm, well, not only does this mean I'm teaching four 'extra' hours a week but that I have no allotted in school time to grade. . . starting to sound like teaching in Korea yet?

Anyways, after conking out at 7:00pm Thursday evening I popped up at around five in the morning unable to get back to sleep. Thus, I figured I'd shoot Yumi and e-mail. After reviewing my contract I reconfirmed my inklings that I would be paid overtime for my extra two hours but that the overtime is only a few won an hour over my regular pay. With only two extra hours of work on Monday, I would essentially be making only an extra 8,000 won (or about $5) each week to miss out on a second day of rest. This hardly seems worth it!

Thus I informed Yumi that I would be more than willing to accept the new schedule if Mr. Lee would pay me an overtime rate of double my current hourly wage; informing her that it is both customary and actually mandated by law (right?) in the US. Content with my demands, I lay back down for a few hours until I had to get up to go back to work.

Halfway through my Friday class while taking a break, Joseph comes barging in screaming "Aaadaaaam, whiiiieeeee!?!!!" Apparently Yumi had contacted him. For about twenty minutes I tried to negotiate with Joseph who continually reassured me that no ground would be given by the Main Branch, especially as my contract stipulates the overtime rate which, of course, I had no qualms about when signing a contract assuming that I would not be working overtime. We went through the different possibilities, including me demanding extra vacation days for working extra days, and finally decided on, well, nothing.

Joseph assured me that it would be okay if I refused the extra hours but that he would have to change my schedule again such that my two full days of break would be not consecutive but one on Sunday and the other Friday. Well, that sounds even worse that an extra two hours that I'd at least get paid for so I finally consented. More so to get Joseph off of his knees and hanging on my arm than anything.

So, that's where we stand right now. I'm working an extra two hours a week on Monday as Saturday has apparently been added to my schedule. I have a stack of essays as thick as my school bag but no time allotted to do them. Oh, and our Native Room was literally cut in half yesterday. We showed up for work and our spacious naturally lit room was suddenly filled with enormous shelving units that reduced our work area down to the size of a narrow hallway. Not only that but the elementary school is moving in to our building next week which means we'll be sharing the room with an extra one or two Native Teachers. . . sound fun?

As for the consolidation? Well, I can't be sure of anything but the future doesn't look too bright for DYB's Junggye Branch. Earlier this month Razer talked to us about how Korean Teachers are receiving not only pay cuts but an increase in work load. . .hmm, sounds like a great way to cut costs and lose employees. . . .and that's exactly what's starting to happen. Well, not exactly starting, but, continuing at least!

In the few short days I was gone DYB experienced one of it's highest turnover periods that I've witnessed. First of all, we all went out to lunch yesterday to 'celebrate' Claire's departure from the school. The way this event was described was that she had gotten sick last week and decided to take a few months off to get better. Even though she had miraculously recovered in a week (from a cold mind you) she decided it would be better to take some time to 'recharge,' and move on. Interesting timing as she has just hit her one year mark with DYB and six months exactly at Junggye as her first day of work coincided with ours.

Looking at the Native Teacher schedule it was brought to my attention that the New Hiree, Joseph, was also being 'let go,' supposedly, as Nate found out, because he talked about Canada too much. . .now, I can't exactly vouch for the validity of this statement but it sure seems like a great excuse to lighten the payroll! Oh that and Nate also told me that 17 other foreign teachers had been cut from DYB during the past week. . .whoa, well, we made it through the first round of downsizing! That must mean something about our ability!

Finally, towards the end of the day we were both shocked, but somewhat excited to hear that Sunny, our always cheery secretary, had decided to move on and accept a position teaching theater at a local highschool! Now this is exciting as she finally gets to do something that she clearly loves versus working long hours with no breaks for DYB which didn't even allow her to attend the New Years Party for which she choreographed our DYB Dance.

Oh, and, as I've mentioned, the elementary school is moving into our middle school, clearly to save money on rent and also in part probably due to the severe drop in enrollment numbers that have been obvious for a while now.

Yesterday the best student in the school, D.J., showed up to my class even though I had already seen him this week. I asked him why he was here and he informed me that he came to say goodbye as he was moving on to the 'very famous Topia Academy.' I tried to get him to explain why but he either didn't want to or couldn't quite do so. It didn't seem to have anything to do with me which was good to know but still somewhat disconcerting. D.J. has not always been the top student but since 2Kutz (also known as Yu-Jin) and Lisa left (both of whom previously held top honors, and no, this is not me ranking the kids, the staff actually does this) he has held the role for the past few months.

What a welcome back party huh!? I just got an e-mail from our recruiter, Scot Sustad, trying to encourage me through my 'six month lull.' It sounded like great advice at first but to be honest, it doesn't seem like a whole lot of what's going on is in my control. I figure if I can make it through six days a week then I'll be able to handle anything they throw at me. . .or, maybe I'll just get sick and quit. . . either way, I guess it's time to start planning the next step. . . .

Oh, and in other news, it doesn't look like I made the 50 person shortlist for The Best Job! To be honest, I didn't expect much after viewing my completed video. . .it was far from an artistic masterpiece but at least I now have taken a crash course in video editing! Thank you so much though to Nate who helped me film and Jay, along with my Dad, who helped to edit and upload the video from my computer in Seoul while they were in China and I was at The Gras! What a team effort it was and I really appreciate all the continued assistance. . .

But hey, if you hear about any island jobs opening up, thanks in advance for letting me know, I'd love to look into 'em!