An Update

Ok. So the last time I updated this, I had recently been laid off from my hagwon because the school was going bankrupt. Since then, I have been applying for jobs like crazy. I’ve even been working with a bunch of recruiters. What I love about this, is that I have worked with over 9 recruiters at this point and have interviewed for about 8 positions. I received offers from 2 of them, one of which I have declined, and the other I have been stalling on trying to find a position closer to Seoul. I think I can get them to wait until next Tuesday (4/27) but that is it. The job sounds fine and all, but it is so damn far away from Seoul and Jeonju, it almost doesn’t seem worth it to me. Of those 9 recruiters, only one of them is still working for me. Mostly what it has been is that I fill out an application, they put me up for a job, I get rejected, and then I never hear from them again and my emails/calls are never returned. The only recruiter I still have working for me is a guy who goes by the English name Kevin, who really is a Saint. He has stuck with me so far through several jobs. He seems confident he can help me find a job, but you can tell he is getting frustrated. The kicker though, is that he isn’t getting frustrated with me…but with the schools.

So this is how a typical scenario goes. Kevin gets a school that needs a native English speaker ASAP, so he tells them my story, about how I am already in country and would only need a visa run to Japan, which costs almost nothing compared to flying someone over from the States. They usually request to speak to my former boss, so they call Charlie…who gives me an EXCELLENT reference every time. They are usually impressed at this point and would like to speak to me, so Kevin sets up an interview. They call and ask me a bunch of questions and I kill in the interview. You can tell you have done a good job because they start asking how quickly you can start and ask about Visa documents. Then they contact Kevin to start the visa paperwork, of which one of the required documents is a picture. This is where it all falls apart. I shit you not, but I have been rejected from 5 positions so far because I am “too fat” and that I will “scare the children”. So I can already hear those of you in the background laughing…especially about the scaring children line…but screw you. I swear to God, it’s like Korea is actively trying to get me to hate the Korean people. It’s hard to not start hating every Korean I see where I get stared at everywhere I go, pointed at, laughed at, and now I get rejected from jobs all because of my size. Korea liked to talk about how they are striving to become a “Most Developed Country” and surpass Japan, but you know what Korea? Step one…cutting down on the discrimination would be a huge step towards that goal. My good friend Maya has been rejected from positions because she is black. The only positive part of this, is that at least in Korea you know you aren’t getting hired because of discrimination…they are at least nice enough to tell you. It’s ridiculous to me to think that I could be hired right now, and that most of the schools I have been interviewing with have loved me…except they changed their mind for something as arbitrary as my size (of course my mature response to this has been depressed eating, so I am sure I have put back on a few of the 70+ pounds I have lost since coming here).

A few days ago my former boss called me down to the school because we “needed to have a talk”. He asked me if I had been looking for a job, which really pissed me off because how could I not be? He then felt he needed to remind me that I would have to vacate the apartment before the end of the month. I told him that I had been doing everything in my power to find another job, but that if I were unable to find another job before then, under no circumstance would I be leaving the apartment. He then told me I should buy a place ticket back to the United States immediately since because he “was nice enough to let me work an extra week” that I should have enough to buy a plane ticket. I informed him that he should be buying me a plane ticket since he was the one who hired me, and that I had done nothing to break the contract, and rather he was breaking contract by letting me go since my contract only allows him to fire me if I break contract. He told me that since the school was going bankrupt that he could get away with not flying me back to the US and that it was my gamble to take. I asked him what he meant and he said that staying in Korea was a gamble. He said that he was going to pay for my last check that week and that I had enough to fly home. If I chose to stay in Korea and try to find another job, it was my gamble to make because it wasn’t any of concern what happened to me after that night. This really pissed me off and I told him that he was a pathetic little man who had no common decency to bring me over to this country and then leave me stranded. He felt the need to remind me that this same scenario could easily happen in the US, and that point I exploded. I told him that what he said was “horseshit because if I was let go in the US I could file for unemployment, I could move back in with family, and I would have a support network to ensure I wasn’t homeless”. That instead, I was in Korea…a “piece of shit country where I have no rights”. He said that there was nothing he could do, that the school was going bankrupt, and had been for over a year. To this I screamed at him, “Then you shouldn’t have brought me over here, you fucking moron!”. I then reminded him that I had done nothing to break contract that he was contractually obligated to keep paying me or at least send me home. I reminded him that “this is how business works, I, as the employee accept a guaranteed paycheck in exchange for stability. You, as the owner, accept the risk that your business might fail in exchange for much larger profit…this is something you should have learned before earning your MBA from Boston College.” He told me that there was nothing I could do about it and that the way I was speaking to him was “very rude”. I then told him that what he was doing to me was really rude, and that if the way I was speaking to him before was rude that he could “go fuck himself you stupid piece of shit”.

All in all, he was completely unwilling to budge on paying for my place ticket back home (which he is legally obligated to do according to Korean labor law) and completely unsympathetic. To be honest though, even though I didn’t get what I want…I do take quite a bit of satisfaction in telling him exactly what I thought of him. I just feel bad for Spencer who still has to work for the idiot…at least until his next school closes…which it will.