What the ... communication?!?!?

A common problem faced by those of us teaching English in Korea is lack of communication. For some reason they just don't think to inform us of things, sometimes important things, until the last minute.

This happened a little, but not often, at my last school. Loved working there. When it did happen it was damn frustrating though. You just prepped for your class. The bell rings. Oh you have a combined class because we are testing some of the students. Doh! Or ... oh you have no class because of , and in some cases it meant I could have been gone an hour before that if I had known.

It was much worse at the other places I worked. You are starting winter intensive and aren't told what you are teaching until the bell rings. now you have to wing it IF you can find the classroom. Once I was out having lunch and had checked to make sure there was no new schedule that morning. They had come up with 5 different schedules in a 12 hour period. There wasn't so I went to lunch in another part of the city with friends.

As I am on my way to work in a cab I get a call from the office manager asking why I am not teaching my class.

I reply "What class?"

"You are supposed to be in blah blah class 20 minutes ago teaching."

"Well I am looking at the schedule I was given this morning (had it with me) and I don't teach for another 40 minutes. I called and checked to make sure the schedule hadn't changed at 1130."

"It changed. Why aren't you in class."

"Because none of you ass clowns told me about it. If you bothered to TELL us of these changes then we wouldn't have these problems. I will be at the work in 40 minutes." And I hung up.

When I got to work I was called in to the director'd office to explain why I wasn't in class. We pretty much had the same discussion. Fucking ass clowns might have been used instead. Of course these sorts of things kept happening.

Now you are probably wondering if I am on a soju memory trip. No. Just had one of those "oops" moments happen. I am in my class ready to teach. No students. Ok, maybe a bus was late. I wait a minute, get their test papers ready. No students.

They were in another room having some kind of information class with all the other kids. No one bothered to tell me. It was sweet. Killed 20 minutes of my class time. :)