Yesterday we were informed that we'd be moving into our new offices on Wednesday. We needed have all our office/desk supplies packed up in a box by Wednesday for easy transport. (Our current offices will be turned into a parking lot and the current school parking lot will become a bank.) We were also advised to have our materials for one week printed out, organized, and prepared because we most likely won't have internet for a week as it will take time to set up. Reasonable, no?
This morning we come in to work and Julia tells us that we need to have all of our stuff out of the office by tonight because they're going to start construction tomorrow. Also, we need to have all of our teaching materials for the next two weeks - we're told this with approximately three hours (tops) of available time during our work day in which this can be accomplished. We also find out (not from our bosses, but from Holly snooping about on the fifth floor) that our offices, which we thought we were moving into tomorrow, aren't even built yet; the entire fifth floor is still the abandoned Japanese restaurant it's been since I got to Korea.
By lunchtime we've heard through the grapevine that we'll need our teaching materials prepared for the next month at the very least. Completely impossible. Everyone was furious and short tempered by the end of the day. This is something our bosses should have told us about at least three weeks ago; it wouldn't be a problem if they gave us a heads-up.
At 6:30 this evening, Julia told all of the teaching partners to box up everything in the storage room (it's massive) and transport it all upstairs. Most of the TPs were about to go home and a few were supposed to be upstairs helping the teachers who were still teaching. My TP, Jeena, who was about to go home to eat dinner and spend time with her family, completely lost it and started shouting at Julia.
Apparently she was telling Julia everything she's been thinking and feeling for a while - about how the Maple Bear Suwon employers treat their employees like crap, about how disorganized they are, how they disrespect the TPs (the TPs aren't allowed a single sick day), and how they don't care that they're upsetting everyone. So basically, Jeena told Julia every single thing we teachers have been talking about ever since my second week here.
By the way, I was at work until 8:30PM along with the TPs and teachers, trying to get everything done. I'm officially off work at 5:55. Do we get paid overtime for this? Pshhhht. Of course not.
Way to win, Maple Bear. Way to win.
Brenna Farrell, Gary's niece, is an English teacher in NYC. She told us how she had to teach in a classroom for over a month without heat. One day the temperature in NYC hit -9 degrees F. I guess it doesn't always matter whether or not you have a teacher's union behind you; educators and students seem to get the short end of the stick quite often. Question: do they have any regulation of education in Korea? Any standards that both private and public schools have to teach by?
ReplyDeleteLolz, Administrative fail
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