When Enough's Enough

I remember arguing with my dad when I was younger and I always got in trouble for the last words I would scream out before I slammed my door. I always needed to have the last word. It always made me feel like I won. Of course, often what I ended up winning was a week or two without seeing my friends. I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut and even if I can do it, there's always a breaking point. I have a great deal of patience, but when I snap, that's it. I snap.

For as far back as I can remember I've always had problems with 'authority'. Sometimes it works out for the better and sometimes it doesn't. At sixteen when I quit Red Lobster, they quickly offered me the promotion I wanted, and a raise. At IMAX, quiting got me the pay raise I was after. I walked out on my first job in Montreal to prove a point. Told off the manager and stormed out of the store. My crappy serving job at Nickel's ended when I landed work at an expensive restaurant in the Old Port. There are few things as liberating as telling your boss that you won't be in today or ever- especially when he's fired countless people days before their three month probations were up. I stormed out of Vieux Port after a particularly disgusting display of sexual harassment. I even hit the guy. I was proud of myself. My days at the call center ended with a very honest meeting where I held nothing back in explaining exactly why I was leaving.

Friday night as I left work after an excruciatingly long week, I silently fumed about the unpaid training session I was being forced to attend on the week-end. To make matters worse, the training was being held outside of Seoul and I would be stuck spending the night there. After a long week of children crawling all over me and striving to keep my patience when I'm on the verge of losing it, I dreaded the thought of this session. I knew without a doubt that this would be the biggest waste of time I had ever experienced. And it was. We met our boss at school at 10am Saturday and piled into his mini van for the two hour drive. I slept. When I woke up, I was in a large classroom with a hundred other teachers and a very angry woman from head office was listing off the rules for the conference. 1) Room keys are to be held by head office- if you need to return to your room you need to ask permission 2) Do not leave the grounds without asking permission 3) The dorms will be locked at 10pm. No one is to be out after that. I was suddenly furious. I had resolved myself to spending the week-end at this useless meeting, but I was not about to abide by a curfew. I had calmed myself all week by believing that head office would take us all out for a big dinner, surely with plenty of wine and soju. As we headed to the cafeteria and glanced at the questionable 'fusion' of Korean and Western dishes- I realized it was not about to happen. I had rice for lunch, with a glass of water. The demeaning training session involved watching two adults bouncing around the classroom for an hour pretending that they were teaching five year olds. Equally demeaning was the fact that many of the people around me were playing into it. We had two presentations from publishers about their products- which may have been helpful if I taught any of those books and my kids were old enough for any of the suggested activities. Dinner time. More rice and water. Even the kimchee looked disgusting. As I made a move for the front gate (without permission), I found a depanneur and we stocked up on soju for what would definitely be a long night. After dinner we were subject to a three and a half hour complete and utter waste of time. Each school did a role play of a fake class for the other teachers. I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around the stupidity of the situation- a grown adult bouncing around like an idiot trying to teach phonics to seven English teachers pretending to be five year old children who are really learning the letter F for the first time. This torture, which began at noon finally ended after 10pm. We were finally released to our rooms with promises of being awoken at 7am. The teachers from my school sat and talked for a bit, drank some beer and soju and then went off to bed. The accommodations were traditional Korean style, so we slept on the floor- meaning that I didn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned until the angry woman from head office pounded on our door and ordered us to go for breakfast.

I got up, dressed and left. I couldn't take it anymore. I was supposed to head back to the conference room and be talked at for another five hours about the different Brighton schools, as though this would have a direct impact on my experience as a teacher. As though I weren't going home in two months and this training wasn't completely useless. I had hit my breaking point. After ten months of dealing with my boss's complete disregard for my contract, I just couldn't take it anymore. The health insurance guaranteed me in my contract never came through. Excuses, excuses and more excuses. The pension guaranteed me never came through. The questionable wording in the contract allowed me to believe that my vacation days were paid, but in fact they are not. My boss kept my degree from me for months, fearful that I would find another job. I finally won the argument to get it back- after three hours in his office trying to remain calm about the theft of the most expensive paper I've ever held. I should have hit my breaking point long ago, but I kept looking forward to the end and saying I could suck it up. But clearly it snapped today. I teach seven classes more a week than any other teacher. I have more baby classes to entertain than anyone else. And I've fought since I got here for one thing after another. I'm tired and ready to go home.

As I left the conference with a feeling of satisfaction, it wasn't until I got on the train to come back to Seoul that I began to wonder about the consequences of this act of defiance. In Canada I know I could talk my way out of it- I could explain myself in a way that they would understand my side. I'm good at bullshitting and usually people find it's easier to agree than to argue. Or perhaps they get confused and lost in my endless monologue. Difficult to say really. But I wonder in a culture that so values keeping up appearances and looking in control what sort of scene will result from my actions. Will there be a big blow-out with my boss tomorrow? Will he find himself thoroughly embarrassed that one of his unhappy employees jetted at the first opportunity? Will I find myself back on a plane to Canada a couple months early? I suppose these are the consequences that I perhaps should have considered before I stormed out. But really, where does it end? In spite of my job, I have had a good experience in Korea but as the end draws near I'm finding it hard to remember that. I know last week my post was also a rant about my frustrations. Don't get me wrong, I have had a really positive experience in Korea. But there are so many things that I just can't take anymore. I have never felt so trapped in my life- trapped by the prospect of being blacklisted by immigration if I bailed on my contract. Trapped by the expense of the plane ticket that would take me home. The bottom line is that a man whose business relies solely on keeping his English teachers happy should learn to do more to keep them happy. There is nothing holding me here. My family, my friends and Fred are all in Canada. I can't wait to be home and if I am fired tomorrow, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. The ticket home might be expensive, but I'm getting to the point where the money just doesn't matter anymore. I want more than anything to sleep in my bed, in my apartment with my cats and my Fred. I want to speak to people and be understood. I want to come home from work and order a pizza. I want to go for a coffee after work. I want to be surrounded by people who know me. I want to walk down a street and feel invisible. I want to see my family. I want to lie in the middle of a big grassy field and read a book. A French book. I want to get back to my life. I have learned and grown so much this year but none of it fits yet with my life. Will I go back to school? Where will I work? What will I do with theatre? The problem with taking a year off to work abroad is that your life is at a bit of a standstill. My life in Canada is on pause, but everyone else is rushing by at normal speed. I want to be on play again.