Take this job and love it...or else!
who-do-you-work-with.html
not-another-one.html
I'm such a bitch. I really enjoy spying on this particular former co-worker because a) I'm a terrible voyeur, and b) because we had a bit of a falling out during the time that I worked with him.
Here's the whole story, or at least what I can remember (hopefully only the interesting parts).
Brett likes fashionable street clothes and vinl records. He likes to keep up on all the latest slang, and he uses it to admittedly hilarious effect. He is a bad speller, but he is a good teacher, I believe, since he knows how to keep his students in line and to entertain them at the same time. It doesn't take long for anyone who meets him to realize that Brett is cool.
Brett's job is to be COOL. It's what he does. So yes, he is good at it, but I have a natural disinclination for the relentlessly cool. I'm talking about those who are not willing to go out on a limb once in a while (show me the silly!), those who don't use some form of self-deprecatory humour, or at the least, those who can't laugh at themselves. Actually, that last part is only true if the individual in question persists in laughing at others, which Brett most certainly does. Dude even picks on his own girlfriend (a beautiful human being inside and out), relentlessly, in fact. And when the tables are turned I rarely heard him say something along the lines of 'ooh, got me there', or 'good one'. Brett's role is to poke fun at your expense and your job was to laugh with him about it. I'm not innocent when it comes to lampooning the culls, but this sort of thing has to be tit-for-tat, and after a while I stopped laughing. In the end I had to shut him down a couple of times with a humourless and stern response, and he stopped targeting me. It would have worked out better for our friendship, I'm sure, if I had been clever enough to riposte with a cleverer barb of my own, but what can I tell you; I have a terrible esprit d'escalier - just look in my profile. I also tend to organize my thoughts better in print than in person, which has been an egregious disadvantage at times...I digress.
The above links were the posts I was waiting for, the ones that describe his coworkers and the situation at work.
I'm a bit disappointed that there are no juicy descriptions of my personality, appearance or teaching performance. I would have expected something more about myself and Ally, especially after the way I moved out of her place. Think: screaming, yelling, profanities, two suitcases hastily packed while she bangs on the door that I locked through an ungraceful act of force. It's as close as I hope I ever get to domestic violence. After that I was positively the bad ex.
Yet, out of everyone, I got away unscathed. Is it because I am so adept at flying under the radar? Is he self-censoring out of fear of e-reprisals? I don't think he knows that I know the Savage corp. and its wicked ways. I would like to post some comments but daren't. I can't risk having this blog discovered by anyone from Y_____ hagwon lest I am blackballed, ousted or finked on. I can probably come out of the closet in six months since I won't be renewing with this outfit.
Grant from the other hagwon has agreed to take me on as his full-time foreigner when my contract ends. I'm counting the days, especially after my review today. I was basically told that I teach at the same level as a beginner, that I'm boring, my voice is too quiet and I don't use the board enough. That may all be true, (especially the voice part, and I'm working on it) and I do want to become a better teacher, but frankly, after giving this company so much of my free time, and gracefully dealing with so much inter-cultural, international bullshit, I'm choosing to stand unrepentant about my teaching performance. I may have come in late several times but I've never missed a day of work, or a single class, and that can't be said of some of my compatriots. I didn't receive any similar criticism at D____ campus; hellz, even Brett let me off easy. I ALSO got very good feedback from the adults that I taught at hagwon deux. Sorry Lynn, either fire me, or fuck right off.
The class in question - a problem class that was in fact, so bad that the previous teacher left the school after only two months, behaved very differently with a counsellor watching them. They became sullen and they clammed up. This took me by surprise, and I couldn't get any kind of a discussion or 'groove' going. I'm used to wasting time getting the class back on track, quelling the minor rebellions and squashing the deluge of irritating korean speakers, so my time management was thrown off as well. I had to pad the homework review and since I was getting nothing interesting from the reading I cut that part short. The school director was pretty harsh in her criticism, I felt, and I briefly considered just walking away. It would be easy to find a job with half the responsibilities and hours of unpaid time. That, however, would be giving up and I don't do that anymore!
Today's picture is from the 'Megabox' movie theatre in Coex mall, a vast warren of upscale shopping debauchery, a televised video game tournament hall (oh baby!) and other modern wonders that may be shown here in future installments. It is a movie display (the Koreans love their schlock horror - espcially in the summer) and you can see where the extra money from raised ticket prices is going. I gots to get me into the display design industry! I took this photo while I was entertaining my replacement at hagwon deux. Call him "Shaba Shaba". We went to go see the last Star Wars film, but it was hopelessly lined-up. Shaba seems like a decent chap, although weird in ways that I'm not familiar with. He ruthlessly negotiated the contract with Grant, awkward for me, but I guess you get what you ask for in this life. You go, my semi-semitic weiguk brother!
not-another-one.html
I'm such a bitch. I really enjoy spying on this particular former co-worker because a) I'm a terrible voyeur, and b) because we had a bit of a falling out during the time that I worked with him.
Here's the whole story, or at least what I can remember (hopefully only the interesting parts).
Brett likes fashionable street clothes and vinl records. He likes to keep up on all the latest slang, and he uses it to admittedly hilarious effect. He is a bad speller, but he is a good teacher, I believe, since he knows how to keep his students in line and to entertain them at the same time. It doesn't take long for anyone who meets him to realize that Brett is cool.
Brett's job is to be COOL. It's what he does. So yes, he is good at it, but I have a natural disinclination for the relentlessly cool. I'm talking about those who are not willing to go out on a limb once in a while (show me the silly!), those who don't use some form of self-deprecatory humour, or at the least, those who can't laugh at themselves. Actually, that last part is only true if the individual in question persists in laughing at others, which Brett most certainly does. Dude even picks on his own girlfriend (a beautiful human being inside and out), relentlessly, in fact. And when the tables are turned I rarely heard him say something along the lines of 'ooh, got me there', or 'good one'. Brett's role is to poke fun at your expense and your job was to laugh with him about it. I'm not innocent when it comes to lampooning the culls, but this sort of thing has to be tit-for-tat, and after a while I stopped laughing. In the end I had to shut him down a couple of times with a humourless and stern response, and he stopped targeting me. It would have worked out better for our friendship, I'm sure, if I had been clever enough to riposte with a cleverer barb of my own, but what can I tell you; I have a terrible esprit d'escalier - just look in my profile. I also tend to organize my thoughts better in print than in person, which has been an egregious disadvantage at times...I digress.
The above links were the posts I was waiting for, the ones that describe his coworkers and the situation at work.
I'm a bit disappointed that there are no juicy descriptions of my personality, appearance or teaching performance. I would have expected something more about myself and Ally, especially after the way I moved out of her place. Think: screaming, yelling, profanities, two suitcases hastily packed while she bangs on the door that I locked through an ungraceful act of force. It's as close as I hope I ever get to domestic violence. After that I was positively the bad ex.
Yet, out of everyone, I got away unscathed. Is it because I am so adept at flying under the radar? Is he self-censoring out of fear of e-reprisals? I don't think he knows that I know the Savage corp. and its wicked ways. I would like to post some comments but daren't. I can't risk having this blog discovered by anyone from Y_____ hagwon lest I am blackballed, ousted or finked on. I can probably come out of the closet in six months since I won't be renewing with this outfit.
Grant from the other hagwon has agreed to take me on as his full-time foreigner when my contract ends. I'm counting the days, especially after my review today. I was basically told that I teach at the same level as a beginner, that I'm boring, my voice is too quiet and I don't use the board enough. That may all be true, (especially the voice part, and I'm working on it) and I do want to become a better teacher, but frankly, after giving this company so much of my free time, and gracefully dealing with so much inter-cultural, international bullshit, I'm choosing to stand unrepentant about my teaching performance. I may have come in late several times but I've never missed a day of work, or a single class, and that can't be said of some of my compatriots. I didn't receive any similar criticism at D____ campus; hellz, even Brett let me off easy. I ALSO got very good feedback from the adults that I taught at hagwon deux. Sorry Lynn, either fire me, or fuck right off.
The class in question - a problem class that was in fact, so bad that the previous teacher left the school after only two months, behaved very differently with a counsellor watching them. They became sullen and they clammed up. This took me by surprise, and I couldn't get any kind of a discussion or 'groove' going. I'm used to wasting time getting the class back on track, quelling the minor rebellions and squashing the deluge of irritating korean speakers, so my time management was thrown off as well. I had to pad the homework review and since I was getting nothing interesting from the reading I cut that part short. The school director was pretty harsh in her criticism, I felt, and I briefly considered just walking away. It would be easy to find a job with half the responsibilities and hours of unpaid time. That, however, would be giving up and I don't do that anymore!
Today's picture is from the 'Megabox' movie theatre in Coex mall, a vast warren of upscale shopping debauchery, a televised video game tournament hall (oh baby!) and other modern wonders that may be shown here in future installments. It is a movie display (the Koreans love their schlock horror - espcially in the summer) and you can see where the extra money from raised ticket prices is going. I gots to get me into the display design industry! I took this photo while I was entertaining my replacement at hagwon deux. Call him "Shaba Shaba". We went to go see the last Star Wars film, but it was hopelessly lined-up. Shaba seems like a decent chap, although weird in ways that I'm not familiar with. He ruthlessly negotiated the contract with Grant, awkward for me, but I guess you get what you ask for in this life. You go, my semi-semitic weiguk brother!
posted by Vivec at 2:42 a.m.
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