RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

My neighbours are a real piece of work.

He's a geriatric ajushi, with an attitude and she's a lying little scorpion.
They regularly cook the most God awful foods and keep their windows closed so there's a constant decaying carcass smell permeating in the hallway. Before I moved in, I heard that on 3 occasions he fell asleep while cooking and started a fire. Apparently the landlord has been unsuccessful in evicting this fossil as he stubbornly refuses to move or change his ways.   

This morning, at 5AM, for the 3rd time in as many weeks, I was woken by the banging of what sounded like a hammer or mallet (probably for cooking). Absolutely livid, I banged on his door (a bit shocked that I could bang with enough force to cause the hallway to tremor ever so slightly) and told him to stop.
So, what does a badass ajushi do when a potentially dangerous person is banging the shit out is door? He sends his little 4ft 70yr old wife to investigate.
Without skipping a beat, she straight up lies and says she can't hear anything.

The landlord, who lives above, heard the ruckus and came down. He told her to to tell her chickensh*t husband to stop and she repeated that they weren't banging anything. I'm absolutely certain it's them as our bedroom is right next to their living room and I can distinctly hear it coming from their place.

Hopefully the next bang is this old sod knocking on the gates of St Peters.

CoT: What days do you want for vacation?
Me: Not 100% sure yet.
CoT: Well we need to put them in by the end of the day. Sorry I didn't tell you before.

Guess I will just randomly pick and then work around that. 

CoT: What days do you want for vacation?
Me: Not 100% sure yet.
CoT: Well we need to put them in by the end of the day. Sorry I didn't tell you before.

Guess I will just randomly pick and then work around that. 

And I have the complete opposite. No camp dates finalised and no one can tell me when I can take vacation..... and I need to pay for air tickets now otherwise it is just going to be too expensive to go home.

CoT: What days do you want for vacation?
Me: Not 100% sure yet.
CoT: Well we need to put them in by the end of the day. Sorry I didn't tell you before.

Guess I will just randomly pick and then work around that. 

And I have the complete opposite. No camp dates finalised and no one can tell me when I can take vacation..... and I need to pay for air tickets now otherwise it is just going to be too expensive to go home.

Yeah, this is awlays my problem. I wanna book a flight to Bali, yo! NOW, finalise those goddamn dates.

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

Come on Pecan, you know that camps are never written into the yearly calendar.  The calendar just shows a month/five weeks off for January; nothing more than that.

That used to be the case, no doubt.

Our calendars that were printed last March show the dates for everything, including the camps.

Due to the 1/1 holiday falling on a Monday, camps can't start until Tuesday, which means they end on Monday, which is  a loss of the bookends of Saturday/Sunday...

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

Public school here, with my school calendar for all three schools, and no, none of the camp times are set, never in all my years here have my camp dates been pre-set for the year.  I also have to wait for all three schools to argue/lay claim to/demand my time for the camps they want when they want them so that causes a delay.

most of pecan's posts seem to revolve around the idea that "well, it hasn't happened to me, so therefore it can't have happened to anyone else, either"

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

I'm still waiting for my camp dates, too.  My school likes to keep me in suspense.  Everything is always so last-minute. 
Public school here, with my school calendar for all three schools, and no, none of the camp times are set, never in all my years here have my camp dates been pre-set for the year.  I also have to wait for all three schools to argue/lay claim to/demand my time for the camps they want when they want them so that causes a delay.

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

Come on Pecan, you know that camps are never written into the yearly calendar.  The calendar just shows a month/five weeks off for January; nothing more than that.

I think your school is the exception not the rule Pecan. This is one of the top complaints people have about camps.

I've worked at 7 schools now and none of them plan the exact camp dates at the start of the year. They usually wait until they have to, usually around a month or so.

I take it you guys don't work at public schools.

If you did, the yearly calendar would have been mapped out long ago.

I had one school a few years ago that made crazy changes to the school calendar, but that was unusual.

I feel your pain, as the cost between booking now or later is no small sum.

Come on Pecan, you know that camps are never written into the yearly calendar.  The calendar just shows a month/five weeks off for January; nothing more than that.

I think your school is the exception not the rule Pecan. This is one of the top complaints people have about camps.

I've worked at 7 schools now and none of them plan the exact camp dates at the start of the year. They usually wait until they have to, usually around a month or so.

I can piggy back onto this that, every time I have asked about camps early in the year, the answer is always, "we don't know yet." Usually I'm able to give them my preferred vacation dates and they happily work around that, when scheduling the camps. But they have never been on the calendar and never planned more than 2 months in advance.

Yeah, my current schools never seem to "know" about camp dates until right around a month before. But I can usually tell them when I want to take my vacation and they'll work with me on that.

I have friends who work or have worked for schools that have tried to keep them in the dark for as long as possible, though, sometimes because the schools didn't/don't have their shit together, but sometimes because someone higher-up decided the NET needed to be fucked with as much as possible. Because hierarchy.

This year they've altered the EPIK contracts to explicitly state: "If any requested vacation period interferes with the smooth operation of the programming of the school or institute, the Employer and the Employee shall negotiate an alternative vacation date(s) so that the requested vacation period does not interfere with the school schedule."

This must have come about because of so many EPIK teachers digging their heels in and refusing to allow their schools to break up their vacation dates (something that is completely avoidable in most cases as long as the schools create camp schedules that actually make sense with the rest of the school year). Seriously, proper management and scheduling is the solution here. Rather than creating addendums in contracts to imply that schools are allowed to be flaky, they really need to require schools to create practical camp schedules well in advance in order to avoid this kind of problem in the first place. NETs taking their vacations doesn't interrupt the "smooth operation" of a school. Piss-poor planning and a lack of consideration does.

Luckily, it's still easy enough to argue around. There's a lot that can be said about what does and does not interrupt a school's "smooth operation" at a negotiating table.

What a nightmare. Imagine getting busted by the Vice Squad. Holy shit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/comments/7bphkg/weird_question_what_is_the_lawculture_around/

So, I was working at a hagwon a couple of months ago. It seemed decent, I had some issues, but overall manageable. I was thinking it a low risk and considered returning in the future.

I catch wind of something from a well connected friend over there. Seems like the director has been badmouthing a teachers when they finished their contract, and I was no exception. Saying that I left early, bought first class plane tickets, wasn't 'respectful' enough and other random BS. Pretty confused and annoyed right now.

So, I was working at a hagwon a couple of months ago. It seemed decent, I had some issues, but overall manageable. I was thinking it a low risk and considered returning in the future.

I catch wind of something from a well connected friend over there. Seems like the director has been badmouthing a teachers when they finished their contract, and I was no exception. Saying that I left early, bought first class plane tickets, wasn't 'respectful' enough and other random BS. Pretty confused and annoyed right now.

If you can prove he said those things, the Korean defamation laws are on your side.  Those comments would harm your chances for employment by damage of character.  You could sue him for enough to think twice about opening his pie hole to bad mouth another teacher.

I remember back in grade school, a coupe of teachers would pull this trick.

They'd tell us that before each assignment/test we should look it over carefully before beginning and always read the instructions first. The class would promise to do so and then the teacher would give us some really long homework on the first day. Everyone would be so pissed and grumble about it, but the trick was that the very last question said that we didn't have to do the homework. It was just a test to see if we'd follow the instructions.

I want to do something like this to my 6th grade students. They are so loud and never listen to anything I say. I want to teach them there are consequences for not listening, as of right now my CT doesn't seem to care that they are so unruly. I'm not going to do anything like that because I'm sure it wouldn't go over well, but I sure wish these kids had to face consequences sometimes.

In big review games / quiz type games i've started to base questions off the answers of other teams. So I can ask "Please write X teams answer" or "In Korean, can you translate what Xteam said?". This has them listening a bit at least.

I remember back in grade school, a coupe of teachers would pull this trick.

They'd tell us that before each assignment/test we should look it over carefully before beginning and always read the instructions first. The class would promise to do so and then the teacher would give us some really long homework on the first day. Everyone would be so pissed and grumble about it, but the trick was that the very last question said that we didn't have to do the homework. It was just a test to see if we'd follow the instructions.

I want to do something like this to my 6th grade students. They are so loud and never listen to anything I say. I want to teach them there are consequences for not listening, as of right now my CT doesn't seem to care that they are so unruly. I'm not going to do anything like that because I'm sure it wouldn't go over well, but I sure wish these kids had to face consequences sometimes.

In big review games / quiz type games i've started to base questions off the answers of other teams. So I can ask "Please write X teams answer" or "In Korean, can you translate what Xteam said?". This has them listening a bit at least.

I did a truncated version with one of my middle school classes once.  Don't remember what the end result was but they all had a good chuckle once the test/trick was explained afterward. 

I remember back in grade school, a coupe of teachers would pull this trick.

They'd tell us that before each assignment/test we should look it over carefully before beginning and always read the instructions first. The class would promise to do so and then the teacher would give us some really long homework on the first day. Everyone would be so pissed and grumble about it, but the trick was that the very last question said that we didn't have to do the homework. It was just a test to see if we'd follow the instructions.

I want to do something like this to my 6th grade students. They are so loud and never listen to anything I say. I want to teach them there are consequences for not listening, as of right now my CT doesn't seem to care that they are so unruly. I'm not going to do anything like that because I'm sure it wouldn't go over well, but I sure wish these kids had to face consequences sometimes.

In big review games / quiz type games i've started to base questions off the answers of other teams. So I can ask "Please write X teams answer" or "In Korean, can you translate what Xteam said?". This has them listening a bit at least.

Oh nice strategy, I'm going use this. Thank you!

I was almost hit by a car two times on my walk from the bus stop to my school this morning. It's only a ten minute walk, too.

Each time I had the right of way and was within the boundaries of the zebra crossing, and each time I was lucky I was paying more attention to my surroundings than the drivers who just blast through intersections without making sure there aren't any humans occupying the space they're trying to drive through.

Seriously, what are the requirements for getting a driver's license here?

  "Do you have at least one opposable thumb?"
  "Probably?"
  "Here's your license."
   *Runs over six people*


I half wish I had been hit by a car, though, because all of my students seem to have eaten extra large bowls of Won't Shut The Hell Up for breakfast this morning. Even my usually quiet 1st grade middle school girls wouldn't stop flapping their gums.

In addition to the talking, I get to deal with my 3rd grade middle schoolers not being prepared. Well, being even more unprepared than usual. I can usually assume a few of them will come to class without their textbook or a writing utensil, but now that they've taken finals and have mentally checked out, it's become closer to 50% of the students in every class not bothering to bring their book or a pen. My coteachers' reaction is pretty much "oh well, whaddaya gonna do, amirite lol," so that's fun.

I'd really like the thank the genius who decided to have finals in October when the school year ends in February. Surely there is no other time that would make more sense.


Ugh. Okay. I'm done.