"You teach ESL here because you can't get a job back home."
or some variation of this.
Talking with Audience in a previous thread and thinking about an internet asshole I recently dealt with reminded me of this. My current situation actually puts the lie to it.
I am currently working part time and making as much money as I did teaching ESL in South Korea. Actually, if you look at the fluctuating rate of Won to Canadian Dollar, I am making more now than I did the last year or so that I was working in South Korea.
In a few months I will probably be full time and making more money. I will also have benefits. Some of which I had in South Korea but they were either grudgingly applied, ignored, or applied badly.
Like paid vacation time. Here, I can book the time off long in advance. I get the actual time I am supposed to get. Even with the best boss in South Korea vacation time was given last minute and it wasn't always the time that you were supposed to contractually get. At Ivy School 5 days off, around a weekend, twice a year, was screwed around with enough that it actually became 3 days and a weekend and in the end they actually tried giving 1 day plus the weekend.
Hell, I could have had a job out west making a lot more than I do now. Double it counting over time, which they get a lot of. Any Canadian teaching ESL could easily find work in Alberta even as a basic labourer making more money than they do in South Korea, and have benefits. Money isn't always the most important thing in life. I would rather have a job I am happy doing.
Guess what bitches, you were WRONG yet again. While I miss teaching I enjoy my current job a lot and it pays better part time or full time, with or without benefits than teaching ESL in South Korea. So, in the immortal words of John Stewart, I have something to say to the apologists and assholes who spout that bullshit.
Go fuck yourselves. :)
The pay is pretty shitty indeed. The wages haven't gone up in 10 years. I did the math a few years ago and concluded that you could make about as much working at a McDonalds back home. The problem is, is that the costs of living in America can be higher. Currently, I have the cream of the crop Korean ESL job - I work at a university, and I make a lot less than I did at a middle school, I also work harder, but the work is a lot more interesting.
ReplyDeleteThere is a new worker at my school who has a masters degree. She told me that she was on unemployment for about a year before coming to Korea. Saying that someone is a looser who can't find a job back home is kind of a shitty thing to say. I recently read an article that said that a big problem back in America is that there are a lot of people who lack the resolve to move to where the jobs are. They have just accepted their current state of unemployment.
Personally, I'll admit that I don't really have many skills, but I have had jobs steadily since I graduated from high school. A lot of people who lob that grenade of "you were a looser back home," probably don't have jobs themselves.
Never read the article but it sounds spot on. I guess I would have to lump myself into the category of one of those people who wouldn't move to where the jobs are, if I hadn't found my current job. I could have easily been working in the oilfields in Alberta, making more money than I am now, 2 years ago. I didn't want to move there.
ReplyDeletePeople who say "you couldn't get a job at home", or a myriad of other phrases, tend to be fucktards who are just trolling around.
Personally, I DID go to Korea because I couldn't get a job back home. It sucks but in my case it was true. Or rather, it was the difference between working 40+ hrs in a supermarket or going to Korea...
ReplyDeleteIn the end the Korea move paid off. Now I'm in China and making way more money. But I still dread returning to the West. But that's just me. I have a degree in literature - which is less than useless.
fuck u white trash. leave korea
ReplyDelete