I was visiting your site and was not suprised to see SOT (School of
Tommorow) on your grey list. I would like to contribute my story.
There are now two SOT schools in Pusan. One is located in Hadan, the other
in Alock-dong. I worked in the latter. The school owner's name is Kim
Do-Oon.
The treatment I received was generally good. On occasion, he invited me to
have dinner with his family or friends (I am not trying to be vengeful by
sending this lettre). However, the problems began on the first day.
He failed to provide a furnished apartment. He attempted to have me as his
roommate to save money (I quick and firm no ended that). He tried to avoid
paying my airfare as stipulated in my contract (again, solved with a firm
conversation). He was unable to provide the agreed 1.6mil/month due to a
lack of students, which led to other problems. I had to find a second job to
bring up my income and he ordered me constantly to change the hours of that
job (which were only 3 hours/week!) to fit some early morning classes that
he wanted to add. He insisted on me doing extra work to help bring in new
business (unpaid of course) and he outright shot down all my ideas about how
a class should be run and activities to help children learn. Instead, opting
for a strict oral memorisation method.
I understand that these are fairly common problems associated with teaching
english in Korea and I accept that. The real problems came when I gave him 4
weeks notice to find a replacement.
Why did I leave? He started showing me signs of not having the money to pay
me. He started using the Korean equivilent of money orders to pay me and on
two occasions he payed me late. I had to scrutinise the amount and it's
calculation every time as he used a different method of calculating my work
hours. His conduct towards me became more critical and condescending. How
long can a person tolerate making 2/3 of the promised income in that
atmosphere? He seemed to want an employee he could easily manipulate. So in
general, I was fed up with all the nonsense and I decided to act in my best
interest.
I gave him 4 weeks notice to find a replacement even though I believed he
wouldn't pay me for the final 2 weeks. Why? Because I knew the school was
small and I didn't want to hurt the business and because at that time I
didn't hate the guy. We spoke of my departure 3 times during the four weeks
prior and I was positive he knew everything he was required to know.
However, the day I left to go to another job outside Pusan, he called me in
the morning asking me why I wasn't at school. Understand he speaks english
very well, but I had to reiterate for 5 solid minutes what we had already
spoken about. Then he started the name calling and I hung up on him. He
called me back shortly afterwards to threaten me with calls to immigration
and he was demanding to know where I was going and he even said he was
coming down to the house, meaning to fight me (Hey, when a guy's yelling as
loudly as possible, that what he's saying).
He followed up on his threat to call immigration by having his friend call
up some summer camps, which is where I had told him I'd be before leaving.
Fortunately, I am a little wiser now and thus I spoke to the camp director
about the situation immediately afterwards. I was just surprised that he
really did try to find me. After the camp ended, he still knew where my
second job was and thus I spoke to that employer about the situation. He
then called Kim Do-Oon to try and work it out and got yelled at for his
effort. Naturally, that job was illegal so I couldn't go back to that job
knowing the first boss was still angry. Which is a shame since I really
enjoyed it. Reading stories to babies. It was like hosting an episode of
Mr.Dressup. No stress at all!
So I do not recommend the school to anyone. If you want to be manipulated,
underpaid and generally abused it's as fine a choice as any.