Friday, April 8, 2011

Contract Week part 5 (Wages and training)

Hello,
Wintermute here and today we will be talking about wages and training. Your teacher contract will outline how much money you will make a month, plus it will mention the one month bonus pay at the end of your contract. Say you make $2,000 a month, when you complete your contract you will make $4,000, very nice.

Wages are very straight forward and very rarely change between schools. Starting off you will be making 2.1 million won, that’s $2,000. The more years you work, the more you get paid, regardless of how good you are at the job. If you have a teaching certificate, you can maybe start off at around 2.5 million won.  If you work one year at one school and then transfer to a new school it is still your 2nd year teaching and you will get the pay increase. You do not have to serve every year at the same school.

            True story, I read a contract, the wage portion was left blank. I asked why. They said that I will be evaluated on my first week and based off my performance they will determine my salary. Lawls, I said. Had I signed that contract, they could have written in $1,000 and well, I would have already agreed to accept. They told me they would never do that, regardless of how sincere their word was, I asked to at least put a range such as 2.1 to 2.2. The school declined my request.

Some schools offer over time, and usually at very good rates, however it’s hard to find a school that honors its’ over time. In Korea in order to get paid over time you generally have to keep track of your hours by yourself, no problem there, and then at the end of the month, after the school gives you your pay stub, that is when you request to get paid for the over time you worked. If you wait 10 days from receiving your pay stub, the school does not have to honor the over time, if you ask too soon they will deny you. If you don’t mention it, they won’t mention it, do not trust them to just magically add in your over time hours on your months pay, it won’t happen. 

It is your schools responsibility to provide you with training. Some will force you to go, some will wait until you ask, however they must provide it and pay you to go as it is over time.  I was never given training but I do recommend going for first timers. Don’t be afraid to ask for training, it doesn’t make you look bad and it’s a great way to meet a lot of new people like you, as there will be people from all over Korea who have just started teaching.

Thanks for showing up to day 5, please ask questions, it lets me know you were paying attention. Next week will be “In the Class Room”. I’ll go over discipline, activities, and basics on how to conduct class. So be sure to come back every day, spread the word of how amazing this blog is, make trending topics on twitter, share it on fb, do what you do. I will see tomorrow!

Your friend,
Wintermute 

20 comments:

  1. Interesting, It would be awesome if you'd take some pictures too. I'm a bit worried for when I start working, how do I evaluate my own worth when working?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another very useful and interesting post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks for the post.

    what's the conversion rate between dollar to won? it would be useful to put that up with your post. :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like your effort and dedication. Every post is really well written. I admit you are a much better writer than me.

    Did you already graduate from college?

    Keep up the great work and don't forget to come visit moby!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the blog man! Keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our overtime used to be cash. I was talking with a man that had the money taken out, he said he worked an extra week but only gained a small portion more, say 400 dollars a week became 600.

    I told him someone threaten'd to rat us out to the government. All computers were scrapped, cash evaporated. Blank contract, this is a legitimate school? Sounds like they are into Sadism. Creepy administration.

    Be well, very interesting read

    ReplyDelete
  7. Man the overtime hours seems like a game. You have to time it perfectly or they'll screw you over!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Man, these hour laws seem like a hurtle to jump over. make sure you don't get messed with on overtime!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Blank wages on a contract? WOW... What dicks.

    ReplyDelete
  11. A blank wage on a contract seems ridiculous to me. And that sucks that you have to do all of that just to get the overtime pay you've earned.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Good one, keep it up South Korea is great!

    ReplyDelete
  13. 4k a month sounds pretty good

    ReplyDelete
  14. A good friend you are indeed, thanks for all of the great info.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I always felt that I was forced to go to school.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I always felt that I was forced to go to school.

    ReplyDelete
  17. have you taken the that job with the blank check? if yes, how well did you do?

    ReplyDelete
  18. That seems sketchy, anyone to speak more on that? maybe culture?

    ReplyDelete