2 1/2 year sigh

---

I should have written this weeks ago but time has once again been flying by and I've done nothing to stop it. It's been really joyous around her lately. Summer is coming in fast, the last few weeks were spent prepping the kids for sports day and I've just come off a four day weekend. Also, I've been paid. Pretty good so far, especially when you factor in how I got paid.

Some of my friends and family are already familiar with this story but just in case anyone isn't here's a quick recap.

Back in 2008 I took a job at a Korean Hagwon(Private School) and moved to Seoul for the first time. I was told when I got there that the school was just a little behind schedule for opening but it would be opening in two weeks so I could just enjoy myself on their dime while I waited.

There dimes though, quickly ran out. Eventually the school opened, although this was months later and not weeks. We were getting paid bits and peices of our salary and everyone there started to realize that they were in a bad situation. I can only think of one month that we were actually paid on time and our full salary.

The missing payments kept coming and eventually all of the staff, teachers and administration, made their way to the labor board and filed a complaint. We hired a lawyer and did everything we were asked to do.

From time to time we'd hear that we were going to get our money. We'd all eagerly wait and think what we would do when we finally recieved the thousands of dollars owed to us. I bielieve the entire sum was around $50,000 split up between 10 people. Each of us had diffreent amounts owed to them and mine was pretty substatial.

We never did get paid though. Each tease came and went and I started to try and forget about the money I'd never see. This went on for 2 years and then when I was getting ready to leave Korea and travel I got the phone call that we were going to get our money about a week before I left. I tried not to think about it but the possibility of someone handing you a healthy check before you leave to travel is hard to keep out of your mind.

We all got together and went to the bank to sign the papers for our maoney. A friend even flew back from Ireland because the powers that be told him he had to sign it in person. We all signed and didn't get a single thing. Apparently there was someone in the money transfer line that appealed the decision to send us our money and we never got it.

So, understandably I was pretty pessimistic when I got a text off an old co-worker saying that on April 15th, 2011 we would get our money. This time I didn't think about it. I didn't talk about it. The money was gone and I'd finally come to terms with it.

Then April 15th came and I didn't hear a word from anyone...until that night. My old supervisor called me and told me the good news. She'd gotten the money, not all of it but most of it, from the bank after the school sold in an auction. She would put it in my account the next day, she said, unless she decided to skip town and keep it. I told her I wouldn't blame her if she did. The thought must have been tempting for a newlywed.

That night many phone calls were made with my friends in Seoul who were at that job with me and had also seen money roll on in. There were sounds of yelling, bottles, music, and just overall friendly abuse being spat back across the phones. I wished I could have been there to have that big release and closure with the people that I'd shared that experience with but as it was I found myself 5 hours south bowling a 165 and drinking beers of my own with a grin on my face.

More than anything it just feels good to have the whole process beind me. 2 1/2 years is a long time to wait for a paycheck and I'm glad that the owner of the business, Richard, or Dick as he quickly became known, was held somewhat accountable and lost his business. We weren't the first people he screwed over but I think we were the first to actually fight him long enough to get his money.

I think he felt that since most of us were Westerners, he could just sit back and wait for us to return to our home countries and then he'd never hear from us again but we stuck it out. I bet he'd never thought we'd all be hear 3 years later because of the lack of good work near our homes.

We were lucky though, I don't think we would have ever gotten our money if it wasn't for our Korean co-workers. They were also owed money, most of them were owed more than any of us and they fought and fought, keeping us all informed on the papers we had to sign and the meetings we had to attend in order to complete the process.

So, if anybody takes a hagwon job in Korea and a skinny, grinning, middle-aged man with a wife that resembles a bulldog great you and says, "Nice to meet you, I'm Richard." get out of there. Find another job, any job and save yourself the grief.

---