Concrete Experience
In 2008, I signed a contract to teach English in South Korea. In the contract, any work over 20 hours a week was optional and considered overtime. A couple months after my arrival, I found myself working overtime without a choice, being vastly underpaid for my hours, and being unappreciated for my increased efforts. The president of the school would refuse to communicate with us, or give any insight on possible changes. A rival nearby school went bankrupt, so our school received an influx of students. More than what we could take on, but instead of putting a cap on the number of students to enter the school, the president opened his door to all, regardless of the new and unrealistic working environment he had created for his employees.
We were told from lower management that this was a temporary situation and that the president was already in the hiring process to lighten our load. Because I was originally promised that this situation was only temporary and would be rectified in the near future - when it didn’t, I realized that a promise made by the organization was not being fulfilled. I felt violated and lost all trust in the company and management. To make matters worse, there was a great deal of incivility going on between the Korean and English employee’s. The Korean men would continually ridicule and harass the English woman, and there would be no ramifications by the management because of major cultural differences in Korea that see Woman as a lower class on the working totem pole. Another example of incivility which that I observed during my experience at the school was constantly witnessing the older men in the company talking down to their coworkers, regardless of the level of their job.
My feelings and perceptions toward the company began to change over this period. I no longer felt loyal to the school and no longer wanted the school to achieve success. All trust was lost and I no longer had any desire to be...