With a full week down at
the new job, I can safely report that I think we have hit the gold mine. As I mentioned in the previous post, our
apartment is amazing, especially for Korean standards. Rachel and I thought it appropriate to offer
Mr. Yang (our most magnificent handler) a bottle of fine imported liquor. OK, so it was a bottle of Jack, but yet it’s
a luxury here.
Now, after a week I have
gotten a good idea as to the characters that surround us. Keep in mind that we haven’t started working
yet. What we do have is around 2 months
or so to plan and write our curriculum. So
instead of classroom antics or dealing with students, we have settled into
something resembling a more traditional office setting. Allow me to take you on a journey through
the cast of characters that make up our office.
The Man with The Golden
Watch: Our owner, whom we have only seen
once, screams money. What he said was
that he wanted the best education that money could buy for his daughter, so
like anyone who has too much damn money, he did the most logical thing, and
built a goddamn school. Not that I am
complaining, but jeez, talk about pressure.
The Well-Manicured
Man: Below the owner is our man who runs
the day to day operations of the business.
Like the owner, he screams money, and style. Seriously, I envy him for dressing as well as
he does. I am fairly certain that his
cufflinks alone cost more than my car.
Clad in his finely tailored suits (no tie), magnificently wavy hair, and
more often than not a matching scarf, he screams class. Even with all his class and cash, he is a
really nice guy. His son is going to
school in Boston and he even has a driver’s license from the state of
California. Obviously, communication has
not been a problem.
The Mysterious Mr.
Kwan: In a room off to the side of the
main office is our principal. He looks
very stern and gives the impression of someone you do not want to be on the
other side of the desk from. I can’t
write too much about him, simply because he doesn’t speak too much. But from what little we have talked, he is
supportive and understanding.
The Good Witch of the
South: As many people who have kept up
with our experiences here, have some reason to fear for any new boss that we
have. Just to recap, our last boss was a
cross between Marie Antoinette, Ms. Trunchbull, and the Wicked Witch of the
West. Justine is very much not any of
these. Justine has been very nice, almost too nice. To go a little further about how different
and refreshing this has been, I want to describe a little about leadership
styles. Marie A. was a micro
manager. Everything needed her personal
OK and that was rarely given without a casual remark of “Bla bla bla,
classu. Bla bla bla however. Bla bla bla floppy (comments removed by
editor)” Justine on the other hand is more of a “do whatever you need to do”
kind of person. She gave us some tasks
and the occasional emails to check and see what we are doing and beyond that
has left us alone to do what we need to do.
Overall, she has been a wonderful manager.
Not Dr. House: NDH is far too complicated isn’t it? Well let’s just call him Jerry then. Jerry is an older man, and quite the
character. He has been having quite a
bit of trouble sleeping over the last week, and has started to show signs of
sleep insanity. No, I’m not
kidding. It was when he mentioned that
he had a stock pile of sleeping pills and may start mixing them with a large
amount of beer, was when I started getting really worried. It wasn’t so much the joke about suicide, as
it was the question I had in my mind as to why someone would have a stock pile
of sleeping pills. Don’t get me wrong,
he’s a nice guy, but even as he said himself, he isn’t very good at small talk. Basically, he is the teaching equivalent of a
computer geek. He does teaching, and
that’s about it.
Mr. Lorre: The last of the teachers (for the moment) in
our cast is a quiet guy whom is more than a little socially awkward. He is very well dressed, except for his
jackets being just a little too small. I
know because he never takes the things off during the day. He’s from San Diego, so he gets cold very
easily. I admit to laughing a little when
walking down the street with he and Rachel, and I feel very comfortable and
everyone else is looking very uncomfortable.
I am a terrible person. (The
Editor is scowling at me while I am writing this) He is very polite, and on occasion suffers
quite a bit from people like The Well-Manicured Man. Case in point what I shall call the Doughnut
Incident. Mr. Lorre mentioned that he
thought a girl at the local Dunkin’ Doughnuts was kind of cute. The Well-Manicured Man suggested that he
should go after her. It turned out that
Mr. Lorre had already tried, having found and messaged the Dunkin’ Doughnuts
girl on a dating site. She deleted her account the next day. The Well-Manicured Man then suggested that he
should try face to face communication because “You are a man!” Now, Mr. Lorre was looking increasingly
uncomfortable as time went on. The
Well-Manicured Man continued offering to come with him when he talked to the
Dunkin’ Doughnuts girl. In fact, the
Well-Manicured Man suggested, everyone from the office could come as some
completely non-terrifying, glass fogging, comitatus
of wingmen, because “you are a man!”
Well that’s all the news
from Korea. Where all the women are
strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above
average.
