Today was the big meeting. It only took a matter of 25 short months for the occasion to arise but I finally met with this Snuffleuppagus known around Seogang College as Director Park. He's the director of the language department here. Kasia had told me about him many times. How she taught his kids, how his English is really good. She even assured me that at one point or another I had seen him. But I met him today and didn't recognize him at ALL!
To give you an idea how genuinely clueless I was about who this guy was, I was told to go to his office at 11. I showed up at the wrong office. I walked up to the guy who I had always assumed was Director Park, who has an office just off the new office where Peter, one of my supervisors works, shook his hand and said, "Hello, Director Park," to which he replied, "Mooyeoh? 'Recto Pak? 'Recto Pak?'" Then he led me out into the main office helpfully pointing at me and quoting me. "Recto Pak? Recto Pak?" I didn't know Director Park's full name and Peter wasn't there. I didn't know HIS full name either. It's never been necessary for me to know either. Luckily one of the other workers in the office figured out that Peter could probably help and she called him. I talked to Peter on her phone and he told me I was not only in the wrong office, I was in the wrong BUILDING! So I thanked her for her help and went to the right building.
I got to the office and Peter was there. He showed me in and took off. Things have been particularly tense around here lately due to the internet fiasco. I had a big blow-up and have completely stopped talking with Jung and Peter is now in charge of me. Everybody was expecting me to go in there and rant and rave. And to tell you the truth after the year I had last year and the way things have started off this year I really SHOULD have. Both Peter and Jung did there best to keep me from a private meeting with Director Park for as long as they could most likely for just this reason. A few weeks ago when I was trying to get permission to install my own private internet in my room in the dorm I asked Peter to set up a meeting with Director Park and me but he said he couldn't and set up a meeting with all four of us. I said it was completely unnecessary and aparently Park thought so as well cuz he cancelled it. Then I told Peter I would still like him to set up a meeting with Park and myself knowing he would conveniently forget to do so. He did. So I called Director Park and asked him for a meeting. I guess he called Peter and Peter called me into the office one day and said, "Okay I can set up a meeting Thursday at 11. That's the only time all four of us are free." I said difinitively then and there, "You and Jung don't need to be there."
So I'm SURE they were shitting their drawers expecting me to inform on them. Not so much Peter. I hadn't dealt much with him in the previous year but as you will know if you read the boring office politics I write about sometimes on this blog, Jung pretty much took the year off. And I admit to frequent insomnia and daydreaming caused by rehearsing a fire and brimstone, Jung-damning oration in the weeks leading up to the meeting knowing full well it would probably never be heard by human ears.
Sure enough when I got in there even though my compassion was undeserved I went really easy on Jung and just politicked about how when things are tough sometimes co-workers become less friendly and more competitive. It creates a palpable tension. Due to the global economic crisis things are tough all over and I sensed a tension at Seokang last year that wasn't aparent 3 years ago when I first started working here. I even mentioned how much I loved Peter and Jung and that they were the main reason I came back to Seokang and want to stay at Seokang. I oozed about how in 2006 they had made me feel welcome and appreciated and that is all I want from any employer and haven't been able to find anywhere else. But, I said, the atmosphere is different now. So in an effort to help get things back to the way they used to be I offered my services as a director of a kids camp during the summer and winter vacations. I could quite easily make it happen. I have connections. Between my connections and myself we would do virtually ALL the work and the college would make a few extra HUNDRED MILLION won a year for doing next to nothing. Pretty freakin' sweet deal for them! I put on my doe eyes and blathered on saying that if this extra money served to solidify some jobs and make people less combative and friendlier like the way they used to be around here, it would all be worth it. What a wonderful human being I am!
But I also told him that it would be a lot more convenient for me to have a camp here than to continually request permission to work at another camp; interview for jobs at several other camps; find a camp that looks like it might now rip me off; (and really there's just no way to be sure); find a camp that won't be a holiday PRISON; find a camp that looks to have some cool co-workers; move to another part of the country; stay in a strange town in strange lodgings; go through the hellish immigration for the camp etc... It would be a lot easier for me to just do a camp here every vacation. AND it would make me more money.
I continued on to say that I'm working at about 25% capacity here and I would like to maximize my earning potential for the school. I think I even said, "Put me in, Coach!" at one point. Then I said that if all of this worked out I would be responsible for making the school a considerable chunk of change and then the school would most likely appreciate me more. AAAaaaand they could show that appreciation by getting me an apartment off campus.
It was at this point that Director Park spoke for the first time. He said that there was no possibility of getting me a place off campus. Here was the first chance I had to HINT at the failings of others in the program to represent me. I said that there was no way of knowing exactly what Jung had told him as to WHY I wanted a place off campus but I said that if any reasonable man knew all of what I went through and what EVERY teacher goes through here, (all of which Jung had been informed), it would leave no question in his mind that off campus housing is mandatory. I explained all kinds of problems I had been having strategically omitting the problems that were exacerbated by Jung's negligence. Like the door key that took 18 months for him to get me. I didn't even talk about the hassles I had been having with the Idon'tcaretakers here! I should be canonized or at least knighted for my restraint!
Then I told him that I had given Jung an address of a very comfortable apartment that would cost a mere 180,000 won a month. That's about 150 bucks my American and Canadian friends. DIRT cheap. I then told him that if they replaced me with the requisite 4 students in my dorm room they would actually MAKE money by getting me a place off campus. He agreed! By that I assume Jung HADN'T told him any of this information and should be reprimanded. hoo hoo haa haaaaaa.
I then cleverly worked some extra duties I am doing into the conversation. I was EN FUEGO! I said that the dorm room was also tragic to my social life. I've never had less of a social life. I can't invite people to my apartment because it's too small. We can't watch TV because I don't have one. It stinks all the time because of a sewage anomaly whereby all the students' shit passes right under my room and if I don't smell it from my bathroom I smell it from the sewage grate outside my window. It's just not possible to entertain guests. The only friends I have nowadays are people I have to go downtown on weekends to meet with. So, (here comes the clever part), when, on Monday, Peter asked me if I could find someone to teach the President of Seokang's daughter I had to tell him I couldn't talk to any of my friends until the weekend. He wanted an answer by Wednesday but because of my social isolation caused by the dorm, I just couldn't oblige. hee hee hee.
Anyway, I think I did the best I could have at the meeting. It won't ruffle any feathers and it just MIGHT get me out of this gulag - I mean dormitory. And if we do the camp, that's fine. If not, that's okay too. I STILL think I might get outta here.
So I went out tonight to whack a few baseballs at the batting cage in celebration. I bought some new, (and ridiculously expensive), batting gloves and wanted to use them. They are the first pair I've ever owned. I never used them when I played. But teaching has made my hands soft I guess. The crazy part is I got a cut in my forearm from where the velcro strip was rubbing against it every time I swung. It was good exercise anyway.
I'll give you the results of the meeting in future posts you can be sure.
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