Someone found the $200 I lost on Wednesday and returned it to me. How about that, huh? Pretty neat. So I bought a bottle of wine for them and gave them a Hawaii calendar. Yeah, it's May already, but I've already shipped most everything else and this was the only unused Hawaii thing I had left....
And now, the bad news.
It started off according to plan, but as soon as I came in my coordinator gave me one more thing to do: choose the the worksheets for next week's classes.Though I protested that you can't just give someone more stuff to do on their last day, it fell on deaf ears. It was "common sense" that I would have to do this. Grrr.
At 1:25 my day got more interesting. Although it was "Lesson Planning Time," I had to pick up pictures at Emart if I was going to give them to my afternoon class students. Disregarding the fact that I'd already done the next week's lesson plans, I knew that if I had asked if I could leave, I would only get a "No, it's lesson planning time." So I told the foreign teachers and dug out. I was gone for only twenty minutes, but at the 15 minute mark I got a call from my coordinator. It was not good.
I got back five minutes later, and Julie, the mean coordinator, came in to yell at me. Same questions as before, but with a couple new ones. "Are you crazy?" she asked. What the heck, it's my last day and I've already been paid. "Yes."
"I think you should leave," she told me. I thought for a moment, then said, "OK." As I got my things together and headed for the front door, she asked me, "Where are you going?"
"You said I should go," I replied. "I'm going." She sighed in angry frustration, just as Mr. Kim called us all into his office. There, she lied to Mr. Kim and said she never told me to leave, then had the gall to call *me* the liar. Four other teachers overheard her, but she still had the nerve to lie to the owner.
Mr. Kim wasn't really interested, though, and just urged us to get through with the day as best we could. A few minutes later, I passed Julie in the door to the teacher's room. "재수 없다," she whispered ("F-- loser" is about the best translation I can give for this). I looked around to see who she had directed that to, then realized it was me. In a sense, I was kind of excited that I actually understood it. Too late for a comeback, but maybe that was best anyway.
My afternoon classes went fine, but another blowup happened at 7:00 with my coordinator. She had to go, and didn't understand why I wasn't finished with my work. We had a circular little discussion for about five minutes, with some of my students right behind me waiting, until I finally said, "Look, I'm sorry this inconveniences you, but there's nothing I can say that can change the fact it's not done yet. So you can stand here and yell at me for as long as you like, or I can get working on it now. It's up to you." She stamped off without saying anything.
After one more hour, at about 8:10, I got everything done. All the lessons plans, homework sheets, big tests, evaluation comments, class completion forms -- everything -- was done. I completed about a week and a half's work of work in only three days, all in a week I was scheduled to work overtime.
As I told the coordinator who was still there (my boss had to leave), I'd like to be remembered for two things: 1.) I got everything done was asked of me, not matter how ridiculous the time frame, on the day after I got paid. 2.) I did not lie to Mr. Kim. Secure in my integrity, I didn't yell at anyone, call anyone names, or shirk any of my duties.
With my worst last day at a job over, I headed home.
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