There is a schadenfreude in what’s been happening. When I left LBridge in 2009, it was with mixed emotions. One thing I felt was certain was that that company was in something of a downward spiral due to mismanagement.
And so… to be working for Karma, 3 years later, and have Karma take over the dregs of that LBridge business, now re-named as Woongjin but barely 6 months ago… well, one wants to mutter “I told you so.”
There is some familiarity, too. Some things aren’t that different from LBridge – including several staff members that I knew from back then, still around, and a PC on a colleague’s desk that is exactly the PC I had on my desk at LBridge – I know because there are stickers there that are too distinctive to have been coincidentally placed by someone else. Although LBridge had rebranded as Woongjin recently, a lot of the internals still bear the familiar LBridge logo.
I don’t feel a lot of confidence, right now, that this will go exceptionally smoothly. There are so many uncertainties, and I suspect (although I don’t know for certain) that there are some major financial risks involved, too, that are utterly beyond my control. Such is the churn of the Korean hagwon market, though. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. When Curt asked me how I was doing, yesterday, as if worried about the classes, I said I liked inheriting Woongjin’s (LBridge’s) rigid curriculum, and looked forward to making it work for the Karma kids.
Here’s a picture of the Woongjin building, with new “Karma Plus” signage attached (hard to see well because of the trees, the Karma sign is yellow, at the top of the building on the left: 카르마). This is LBridge’s former Hugok Middle-school campus, which is across the street from the former elementary campus where I worked in 2008-2009 (long ago closed down). So I took the photo this morning standing at the entry of my former work place.
Welcome to yesterday. Life repeats, recycles, with renewal. Karma.
