MBC OSS Academy – Dunsan: Tanbang-dong, Daejeon

MBC-OSS Tanbang-dong

The school is named MBC-OSS. It is located in Tanbang-dong but all of their flyers say Dunsan-dong. Both of those school are the same one. There is only one MBC-OSS in Daejeon so far. The director’s English name is Mikey. His Korean name is Lee, Sang Hoon.

First off, the director here, Mikey, doesn’t know how to run a hagwon at all. He used to run a GNB and they kicked him out after letting him run that school into the ground for 1 year. Then he opened an MBC-OSS right across the street thinking that would solve all of his problems.
Once he starting marketing for MBC-OSS, he bought himself a toupee and started wearing suits and ties every day. His toupee would get old and beat up looking after a week or two and he would wear the same suit and tie every day until it got holes in the elbows.

He also hired an assistant director (Hanna) who knows even less about running a hagwon than he does. But her job was mainly to interact with the parents and answer the phones because Mikey is a little too touchy-feely with the children.

Later, Hanna’s job was also to develop the schedule for the winter camps in January. She had no idea how to do that and one of the teachers had to take over if they wanted any type of schedule. And on the very first day of winter camp, they still hadn’t figured out the schedule and had to make it up as they went along.

Hanna also tried to micromanage everything I did. She would tell me not to listen to my mp3 player at work when I had nothing else to do. She would tell me to get to work at a certain time when the real director of MBC-OSS (Mikey) didn’t care what time I got there as long as I taught my classes. She told me I had to say hello to her when I came in so she could know when I got in (when no other teachers had to). She generally made my work experience very uncomfortable.
At one point, I considered doing another year at MBC-OSS in Tanbang-dong. But after he hired Hanna, I knew there was no way I could come back there.

But back to the director. The only way he’ll pay you your monthly salary is if you ask. And even then, he may “forget” and not pay you until the next day or after the weekend. He’s the same way with the Korean teachers and they say they’ve never had to deal with that before. The director never answered the phone when I would call him unless it was during work hours. The only times I would call him would be to remind him to pay me so maybe that’s why he wouldn’t answer the phone.

He made me teach illegally at other schools when I was teaching at the GNB because he didn’t have enough students to be able to afford my salary. When I got in touch with the GNB headquarters in Daejeon, they did nothing about it. But teaching at any other school in Korea without permission from immigration will get you thrown in jail and kicked out of the country if you’re caught.

The refrigerator he left in my apartment was full of old food from the last foreigner who left before his contract finished. The refrigerator was unplugged so the food started growing mold. I asked the director about cleaning and he acted like a moldy refrigerator was normal. So I had to take care of that.

A few months later, this same refrigerator stopped working. The freezer part worked but not the refrigerator. I told my director about it twice and he did nothing. I figured he forgot so I adapted to the situation. 6 months later, he asked if the refrigerator was still broken. He then offered me a mini-fridge that he was using in his office at the GNB when we moved out. So he didn’t forget; he just didn’t want to pay to fix or replace it.

Most importantly about my director, he tried to not pay me my last check, severance, and my flight reimbursement. We discussed when my last day would be a month ahead of time. During my last week, I showed him how much my flight was and he almost had a heart attack. He then showed me flights on Korean websites for much cheaper. I told him I didn’t know about those sites and this is what I paid. He tried to get me to cancel my flight and take the one he just found. Even if I had, I/he would’ve had to pay $400 plus whatever this new flight’s price is. I ended up going with my original flight. He knew I was leaving and he should’ve taken it upon himself to suggest flights to me before the week I was leaving.

I was supposed to leave on a Sunday. I tried to get him to pay me on Thursday. He said we could discuss it Friday. We did and he said he would pay me at 3:30 on Friday. I came to his office and he said he had to check a few more things. In the end, he was going to pay me all of my money on Saturday, the day before he thought I was leaving Korea. I told him no and he ended up paying me about half Friday and was supposed to deliver the rest to my apartment on Saturday. He promised he would bring the money to my apartment in front of the other teachers.
He never showed up on Saturday. I stayed in my apartment all day waiting for him and he never showed. I took a friend to the hagwon (MBC-OSS in Tanbang-dong/Dunsan-dong) on Sunday and saw one of the other teachers there. He just happened to be waiting for the director for some meeting. We told him the whole story and he was appalled that the director didn’t pay me the money he promised me.

I ended up getting my money after a heated discussion. I also asked him why he didn’t pay me on Saturday like he said. He said the people who he had to check with didn’t get in touch with him until the afternoon. And he thought I was leaving Sunday evening so he figured he had all morning to pay me. He didn’t realize that if my flight is in the evening, I have to be out of Daejeon by the afternoon. I didn’t meet up with him until almost 3pm so I believe he had no intention of paying me anything ever.

The location is nice though. It’s in the middle of the subway line and a 5 minute cab ride from Dunsan-dong and Timeworld. But I’d rather get paid on time and be able to have working appliances.

In case you’re wondering, I would not recommend anyone teach at this school. Maybe it could work if you came knowing you wouldn’t stay the whole year anyway. Otherwise, it can be one of the most troubling years of your life.