Now that this is my third completely new workplace this year, I think I’m going make a generalization: Korean bosses and supervisors don’t feel any need or obligation to actually communicate with their underlings.
The consequence is that the learning curve at new jobs is steep. I think this must be related to the confucian-heritage “respect-your-elders” ethic, that is also so deeply embedded in the language. Because “juniors” owe respect to “seniors,” this also means that “seniors” are under no obligation to support or help “juniors.”
Nevertheless, ElBeuRitJi has definitely made an artform out of noncommunication, even compared to my previous two bosses. Yesterday – my first day – I managed to get within five minutes of my first class and no one had yet told me where the classrooms were. I had a notion they were upstairs – just based on the room numbers – but you’d think someone would have actually given me a tour or something. I had to ask.
And today, as I sat in the staff office (with almost twenty teachers, compared to RingGuAPoReom’s five), and my last class had ended, I looked around uneasily realizing everyone was busy as a little bee at his or her desk. No one was leaving, but classes were over. And my instinct (fed by a careful watching of various contemporary-setting Korean dramas) kicked in: there was a rule about staying. This is standard in most work places, of course – but my last two work environments had had a very casual attitude about departure times, because of the late hours these schools keep. If you were done with classes and paperwork, you were free to leave. And so, although I wasn’t really surprised that this new place had stricter rules, it was nevertheless odd, to me, that no one had ever bothered to enunciate those rules to me. My worry is that there are other unenunciated rules that everyone thinks obvious but that I won’t have any instinct to recognize.
Basically, I have received zero orientation of any kind to this place. Is this standard? What does it mean, for example, that I’m working there, but they haven’t given me a time card? I noticed all the other teachers using electronic time cards, but I hadn’t even been told about them. So I asked my boss, and he said something like, “oh, I should get you one.” Does this mean I’m going to have problems with pay at the end of the month? The last two places had no such things as time cards.
Maybe I’m just over-reacting because of my grudges over how the merger was handled, and over my perception that there was disrespectful treatment of the students and staff at RingGuAPoReom by the incoming people at ElBeuRitJi.
On the positive side, I like the students. And the curriculum is pretty good, although the grading scheme is byzantine and the syllabus is brutal.
Here is a picture of something random.
