On My First Days at a Bad Job

Sadly, I don't think I've ever felt this much culture shock or disrespect in my life. Other than meeting one other new teacher, who's very friendly, this has been a bad experience.

I did get my visa on Monday. That morning I had more or less decided not to come, because the school said they wouldn't pay for a change fee from the airlines. Also, I've heard too many lectures on the virtues of not quitting. Please.

The school did say they would pick me up at the bus station. That took 5 requests from me.

When I got to the bus station after 26 hours of travel, no one was there. After about 30 minutes two people showed up: the Coordinator, and new teacher from Australia. The new teacher took my heavier bags and whispered he knew what I was going through and warned against saying what I felt. Good advice and what I normally do as I'm not as assertive as I think I should be. During that 30 minute wait, I toyed with the idea of just going back to the airport.

Anyway, when I got to my apartment I was shocked. It looked like a hovel, furnished with cast off chairs and dilapidated cupboards. It's 80 degrees here and there's no air conditioning. We didn't have any pots, pans, dishes, glasses -- nothing to cook with. Not even a cup. Unlike Jinan, where we always had some food and a clean, spacious apartment, we got the less than the minimum, which considering that I was to work the next day made settling in tough.

The other teacher's place was worse. It was filthy with dust and syrup spilled through the shelving long ago and no one wiped it up. He had to spend 7 hours when he first got here making his place inhabitable. That's after 12+ hours of travel.

There's no phone service even for on campus calls.

I know that educated fully employed Koreans don't live like this, but it's okay for us to. How demeaning.

The rest of the staff consists of 5 people who've been here for years and seem, if their own words are any indication, like a bunch of [deleted] who don't care much about teaching. If you're a sloth you'd love this job.

A lot of them smoke and do that in X's office. On his first day, he went to his desk and it was covered with ash. All the desks in that area were. In fact, under the loose ash, there was gray, ground in cigarette ash. That took a long time to clean. He's probably on the outs with his new peers since he's requested everyone stop smoking in the room where smoking is prohibited anyway.

I'd like to get a different apartment, but I heard the other teachers' apartments are worse, which is hard to believe. There's really nothing off campus that I can see nearby. Besides the school does not provide a housing allowance in lieu of their run down ones.

Tomorrow I'm going to Seoul just to avoid my squalid apartment.

I did teach today and like my students. I have three groups for writing each was split with my two colleagues each absorbing half of mine. They don't seem comfortable collaborating so I inherited two groups who learned different things. So the first few days will be spent clearing up lots of confusion.

Originally written in Sept. 2010