Leaving Korea Behind

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Leaving Korea-Part 1
(Jeremy writing) It has been an interesting few weeks to say the least, and there is much to chronicle. I will start by saying that we are making this post from Japan. Our teaching job in Korea became untenable, so we made the move to the place where we had originally intended to come. How we got here is a story in itself that will require several posts. So I will begin in the beginning: our gradual slide into extreme dislike for our job.

(Jen writing) My slide was not gradual and it started long ago. Everything you could say about what you did not want in a manger, he epitomized. To be brief about my numerous annoyances, he was a habitual liar and only did things to the school’s detriment.

(Jeremy again) Our director was what many web sites had warned us about: manipulative, prevaricating, underhanded. He had us work overtime but refused to pay us. He changed our schedules at his personal whimsy without regard for our students or us. He made curriculum changes that made no sense at all. The list is endless and I will not bore you with it, but whereas we still loved our kids and Korea in general, our boss was suffocating us. We had wanted to go to Japan from the beginning, but somehow we had found ourselves in Korea. We decided it was time to move on, but this was no easy decision. If we could make it through another six months, we would receive (maybe: our director was truly malevolent) a bonus. But we had no vacation at all left, and it would be six months of misery. We decided if we could find a job that started in November or December we would take it. Otherwise, we would go ahead and finish it out. After applying around, we got a few job offers for January. We were nearing a point of no return of sorts, because our contract stipulated that we give 30 days notice or we pay all kinds of outrageous fees. It appeared we would be staying in Korea, so we began mentally preparing ourselves for the long haul. Then Jen got a job offer on October 13. The job would be starting on November 15. Thirty-three days. We had a decision to make. At face value, it was everything we wanted: close to Tokyo, great pay, and other amenities. On the other hand, I would be quitting without having secured a job. However, in Asia, speaking English seems to be the one key to getting a job, much less having a degree in it. So we were not too worried about my prospects. But still we hesitated. We would have to pay back one-half of our airfare and part of our recruiter’s fee. We could stare down the next six months at a job we had come to dislike with no vacation but financial security or we could take a leap and try to chase our dream of teaching in Japan. Saturday November 16 came around: exactly 30 days until Jen’s job would start. We had discussed ourselves blue in the face on Friday night without reaching a decision. We got up that morning having planned a trip to the old capital of Korea. As we got ready for our trip, we made a decision about the decision. Insanely or brilliantly, I’ll never be sure myself, we decided to leave the issue to fate, like a proverbial flip of the coin. If a certain thing happened, we would go to Japan. If it didn’t we would stay in Korea. It happened. We leapt.

(Jen again) Without getting too personal, I woke up early that morning planning to quit. Then I received some unsettling news and could not reach anyone at home to find out more. It seemed that this new obstacle would be far more than we could handle with an international move on the horizon. I, of course, could reach no one at home to find out more. I called around and around and finally got through. Things were not good, but they seemed to have settled down. It appeared that it was “meant to be”. We decided to go in and quit because we were down to the wire. The required 30 days notice put me at a Sunday which would barely make it possible for me to start work on that Monday. My new boss was extremely nice so it seemed I would be able to get a little bit of room if it came down to it.

(Jeremy) It is difficult being a nice person. Although our director had wronged us in many ways, my stomach was in knots as we approached the school to give notice. I hate disappointing people. The school seemed empty except for a secretary who told us that the director was in the bathroom. We went into the teacher’s area and waited. He came in, shirt still untucked and quite surprised to see us. (Jen writing) This vision will remain in my mind as long as I live. I also felt terrible for quitting at the same time. We knew it would be hard to get two more teachers immediately. However, I can’t help but to smirk at the memory of him coming in completely disheveled with his shirt untucked and newspaper in tow. He frantically stuttered out, “What…what? What’s the matter?” as his gold tooth blinded me. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I really did not like him so even the little things about him had started to annoy me. The gold dental filling is very common in Korea and perhaps I should not mention it… (Jeremy) Jen was over by the bulletin board and I channeled Clint Eastwood, looked him right in the eye and said, “We have decided to leave Korea. This is your 30 days notice.” That may seem like no big deal to some of you, but I’m the kind of guy who pays full sticker price for a car because I don’t want to hurt the salesperson’s feelings. I buy the magazines from the door-to-door con artists. I have a problem saying no, and this was like screaming no through a bullhorn. The first words out of his mouth were, “45 days.” We assured him that it was indeed 30. He asked us in his slick salesman way if there was anything he could do to make us stay. It suddenly became much easier to say no. The butterflies flew away. I knew then we had made the right choice. We left the school walking on air, excited about the future and Japan. We made the trip to the old capital, which will be the subject of our next post. We went to a local bar that night and met up with our colleagues and told them. They were shocked but happy, as they have identical impressions of our director.

(Jen writing) I couldn’t help but laugh when he told us we had to give him 45 days. He was very manipulative and therefore I had studied our contract intensely. I knew what was and was not required of us. I also researched it on the Internet and knew the law of Korea. We had to play the game and pretend we were leaving for personal reasons if we wanted to get out without any problems. Of course we didn’t want to lie and didn’t. I remained persistently ambiguous to his questioning. When he continued to ask why we were leaving, I just restated it was for “personal reasons”. I didn’t bother to tell him that personally, I thought he was a horrible director, habitual liar, slimy, incompetent, and a lazy person. Instead we played nice and were content knowing that the end was near for us. Now, when we told our coworkers, it was actually kind of funny. We all met up and tried to keep it a little quite. While one half of the group was immersed in conversation, Jeremy and I quickly asked the two we were closest with, “Guess what we did today?” Then I simply said, “We quit.” They both laughed out loud and mocked us. One said, “Oh yeah, you just walked in there on a Saturday and quit! I’m sure!” I was very happy to tell her, “Yes, that’s exactly what happened actually!”

(Jeremy) Monday came around and our director pulled us into the meeting room. He asked us if we could leave the school early, preferably October 31. That shocked us, but his angle became clear. A teacher already living in Busan said she would take the job but only if she could start in early November. He tried to make it seem like he was doing us a favor by waiving the 30 day rule, but as always, he was building lies on lies. We decided to fire a salvo of our own. We told him we would leave early if he waived the recruiter fee, which was about $500. They blinked first after taking about 3 days to understand exactly what we meant (English is not their strong suit). So we would lose our housing deposit to the one-half airline fee and get out owing nothing. It was perfect. We booked a one-week trip to Singapore in celebration, and began the mad packing scramble, as we only had two weeks to leave instead of four.

(Jen) From that point on it was a mad scramble. I contacted my new school and asked if they wanted me to start early. They were very happy and said that would be perfect. We got everything in order and began the process of telling our students and packing. Now, packing is everyone’s least favorite thing to do. There is no question about it. It really stinks! Now imagine having to move internationally on a budget. We basically had to carry everything we were moving on our backs. To the cab, onto the airport limousine, off the limo and into the airport where we finally got to rid ourselves of our luggage. The night before in a panic about our luggage we called the airline to confirm their policies. Apparently, between Korea and Japan you can check as many bags as you want to as long as they’re under 23kg. That’s about fifty pounds. Now we thought we could check two under 70 pounds. At 12:30 pm at night, we began repacking. We had to be up by 6am. If only we had found out this valuable information before Jeremy carried six extremely heavy boxes, by hand, two blocks to the post office… Good times!

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