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Cold and rainy… not the nicest start of a weekend, but enjoy it none the less.
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39 Comments
I watched the Obama race speech.
It’s basically analogous, to me explaining and justifying why it’s okay and right for a Korean adjushi to be hostile to a waegook.
It’s basically analogous, to me stating that wjk is the way, the life, and the only true option for the future.
He’s grandiose.
But, I’ll give it to him that he’s eloquent.
I change my mind.
It’s a good speech, but the content is self masturbation.
But, no one will say so, because it was about race.
This man has been running the whole campaign on race.
How ironic.
you see, a Korean adjushi is hostile to a waegook, because he grew up in a time of warfare, of poverty, and discrimination fro m the Japs and the USFK throwing him Hersheys.
In day to day interactions, the Korean adjushi is kind and considerate to the waegook,
However, in the soju table, this deep pain comes out…
See my point? LOL.
Speaking of using animals in “inappropriate” ways…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ke_vodka_7
WJK, what’s up? This will be my first and last post on your topic because I have too much work to do today.
Obama has not built his campaign on race. He has explicitly tried to run as a post-racial candidate. It’s his enemies, esp. the Clintons, who have tried to make his race an issue.
Korean men who grew up in the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War era would be harabojis not ajosshis, but perhaps that’s just splitting hairs.
In any case, I know many Korean ajosshis and even when shit drunk they are nice guys and do not hate “waegooks.” They have stood by me through thick and thin.
No matter how you try to justify racism, you’re on the losing side of a lost argument.
I suggest you come to Korea and check out the scene here before you make up your mind on the matter, because hanging out online just doesn’t cut it.
Peace, out.
I can’t get my mind off of Djamilya. Does anyone have her e-mail address? I’m thinking of inviting her to the Woodstock Festival at Chamshil Stadium.
PAWI RECOMMENDS™
here’s a recent post on the korea wave in japan written by a lady with the last name of morikawa. interesting read but those who love to see korea as evil won’t like what’s written.
http://pandahunnie.wordpress.c.....-in-japan/
just like in the states i find that a lot of addoshis are pretty cool and a lot are assholes
what category does pawi fall into???
The stud in the Blue House is righting the good ship South Korea that almost sunk during the last 10 years.
Have any of you wags come up with a name yet to describe his anti-Sunshine Policy? The Pragmatic Policy? The Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine Policy?
Margaret Cho calls 9/11 an inside job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=373rxwSspwI
(about 4:50sec in)
Here’s the problem:
Mrs. Linkd is an E7. She’s a 차장 for a big-name Korean company. The money’s alright, the benefits good, the severance worth looking forward to. But it takes so much or her time.
I’m a D8. Basically, I bought myself a job for $50K. A third of my revenues pay my outsourcers, I keep the rest, but I have no employees. My company is me. I can earn as much as Mrs. Linkd working half the hours. That time is valuable in so many ways. Lets me enjoy Baby Linkd.
But I sell professional services, and so there is a natural limit to how much I can make. There is no way I can ever earn more than the highest-paid professionals by selling my own labor. In reality I’ll earn less than them. The only way to grow beyond that limit is to sell other people’s labor. There is a name for such people. They’re called employees.
Mrs. Linkd has held her job for 2 years. They pay for lots of things besides her salary. If she left today her company would owe her many thousands of dollars in severance. There’s also no way they can get rid of her. Firing is virtually impossible. Every one of her co-workers, except the interns, coffee girls and receptionists, is equally secure. As long as they stay, their claim on the company grows. They just have to surrender a lot of time.
I know how to grow my company under its current business model. I’m not afraid of the infrastructure investment. But I am afraid of hiring someone who will basically accumulate a large claim against me as time goes on, someone whom I can’t fire without first going legally bankrupt myself. Someone who becomes so secure as soon as I hire them that they then don’t even have to perform, just like so many people that Mrs. Linkd works with every day don’t have to perform. By perform I don’t mean act, I mean deliver. Make me more money than they cost me.
This environment is rotting my wife’s soul. If I turn my company into an environment like that it’ll rot my company. But if I don’t do it I can’t surpass the natural limit of merely selling my own (ahem, highly valuable) services.
Mrs. Linkd wants to quit. I want her to quit. Can I buy back, can we buy back, my wife’s time by exploiting the labor of employees, or will those employees just suck the life out of us? The very word “employee” makes me cringe. That’s the problem.
Ground-floor capitalism.
#9, speaking of non-performers, look what oozed back in through that crack in the grout…
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/.....ent-130911
Margaret Cho is a comedienne. Enough said.
Linkd,
Your partnership sounds ideal. I know of several couples in which one spouse holds a secure public or corporate job while the other engages in more entrepreneurial work like real estate or self-employment.
The protection of deadbeats in the Korean workplace sounds very much like civil service jobs in the US. My mom worked for the state of Michigan for many years. Like your wife, she was apalled by lazy freeloading colleagues, including one who would get an unscrupulous doctor to sign off on on a medical leave form, and once she’d accrued more sick leave, she’d repeat the process.
Are you in Sweden, Slim?
You know, with both Margaret Cho and Rosie ‘ching chong’ O’Donnell on this thing like fat, ugly flies on horse shit, I can’t see how anyone can doubt that .81818… was an ‘inside job’.
San Francisco, Sonagi.
Best B-Boy in the World:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....m/Soloban1
margaret cho is about as funny as stepping in a pile of fresh dog shit with your brand new shoes on!!
#16,
“fat, ugly flies on horse shit”
Yeah, and we all know Margaret Cho is so fat and ugly.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/images/28/25/cho2.jpg
(totally being sarcastic)
#19,
Maybe, but I like the fact that she challenges the stereotypes that Americans have about Asian women.
Not sure if any of you had seen this on Korea Beat yet. Students are being punished for having naturally brown or naturally curly hair. http://koreabeat.com/?p=870 A few excerpts from the article:
The naturally brown-haired Jeon was suspected of having dyed her hair and was berated. She told the teacher that, “this is my natural hair color” but to no avail. Her mother came to the school over this problem and was told, “you must bring proof that this is her natural hair color.” As a new student Jeon does not have a student ID and has been punished from that day forward.
. . .
Recently schools have been requiring students with naturally colored or curly hair to obtain proof. Students with naturally-colored hair must get confirmation form their parents and teacher and keep the proof with them when they go to school. A large number of schools in Seoul, including Ilshin girls’ High School, Gyeonggi Girls’ High School, Daewon Girls’ High School, Dongmyeong Girls’ High School, and Seomun Girls’ High School, issue the ID cards.
. . .
The “natural hair ID cards” are a “solution” to the issue. But there are many schols which don’t have the cards yet have no problems, so there appear to be no significant results from them, because the educational authorities’ call for “curly or colored hair” as the enforcement standard exposes a cramped view of standardization. Already in our society 1 in 8 marriages are international. Perhaps in the future students will also need “natural skin color ID cards” and “natural eye color ID cards”.
Deadbeats in the Korean workplace. Tell me about it!!
We also have two in our department, their only jobs being to pass off other people’s work as their own and shoving their work to other people. They don’t have any achievements, because they didn’t do the actual work or the work went to someone else because there was no progress. Of course when the work was taken away from them they would laugh and celebrate the fact that a big weight was taken off from their shoulders. And yet they get the full salary and benefits while retaining their positions and when the time comes they get promoted.
Now the big question is why do the Korean companies and managers for that matter tolerate the deadbeats? Well the employment law for one, but IMO the main reason for this is that Korean companies haven’t mastered the art of effective HR. Korean HR managers in those companies think that their job is to hire new people, pay their salaries and benefits, and punish them if they get out of line. They don’t know or don’t attempt to implement a metric based system for measuring performance, a system for rewarding good performers while sidelining the deadbeats, etc. But of course the HR manager him/herself is taking advantage of the current system, so there is no motivation for him/her to improve the system. The CEO, well he/she has bigger things to worry about.
And so the cycle continues.
As for your expansion worries, Linkd, well, if you want to expand your business, you have to make new investments, no doubt about it. As for hiring the right person, that’s something you have to master. Yes there are not so scrupulous people out there but on the other hand there are people who will give it their all for you and the company. It’s a matter of filtering out the deadbeats.
And if you hire someone that doesn’t work out, well, learn from your mistake, and yes there are ways of letting people go without breaking the current labor law. Some of the methods used by Korean companies aren’t exactly tasteful, but…. you get the idea. Just make sure if you are letting someone go, the person being let go knows exactly why he/she is being let go. That’s something that Korean companies haven’t quite mastered, and when it is implemented the only thing that is acheived is the overall lowering of the employee morale.
#20 - I like this photo better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....lesque.jpg
Linkd, this is editing/rewriting work, no? If so, then why not pay someone by the project rather than by the month? That way, if you don’t like their work, you can always just cut ‘em loose.
In addition to what gbnjh has said, hiring contract workers is one method. They are easier to let go than the regular employees, which is why Korean companies are hiring a lot of them these days.
Although as a rice and kimchi guy, I shouldn’t be giving that advice.
Last year the Labor Standards Act was amended to require that when employers terminate employees the employees must be notified in writing of the date of termination (which shall be 30 days in the future or 30 days’ extra pay in lieu of notice shall be required) and the reason for termination (LSA Art. 27). Terminations without the written notice including both factors shall be ineffective.
This raises the bar on employers, because the reason stated in the letter is the one which must be defended in the inevitable wrongful-dismissal claim at the National Labor Relations Commission. You don’t get to pick another one later as an alternate reason for termination, as might be discovered after the employee is gone and misconduct can be investigated more thoroughly.
#27.
Yes, but how many Korean companies do follow the rule of law? And I doubt that many wrongfully laid off Korean workers will shell out the time to take their case to the NLRC, considering that they don’t want to be marked as a “troublemaker” which in turn will affect their future employment prosepects.
I agree that Korean employers, especially in the SME space, are generally lawless in their HR practices. In my experience, however, a large number of the rightfully-terminated Korean workers will take their multinational employer to the NLRC. That Art. 27 is something that hangs around the necks of the multinationals.
I’m an FDI company, I have to follow the law.
gbnhj is right on my biz model (add translation into the mix). But now my company is nearing 2 yrs old and I can see that ‘natural limit’. Now is my busiest time of year, and I can run 3 or 4 outsourcers (translators) on 2 or 3 projects simultaneously - that’s it. Either I accept that as the limit, or I hire.
But I don’t need a contract employee who doesn’t understand business. I already understand what my clients’ PR and IR teams need to say even better than they do. That lets me price myself pretty high. I’d only hire someone who can ‘walk and talk.’
Someone like that always has the option of a corporate-type job such as Mrs. Linkd’s. An iron rice-bowl. Even if I don’t offer that, I’m still competing for talent against that.
The tradeoffs between job security+lower pay vs. job insecurity+chance for higher pay is common to all labor markets. But in Korea it seems really skewed toward the security. The reward possibilities on the entrepreneurial side don’t seem to attract the best people.
So, how are custody battles between Americans and Koreans resolved when each side has the support of its own courts? An American Mom, supported by US court custody ruling, came to Korea, snuck into her son’s school and with the help of the US embassy, returned the boy to the US. The article doesn’t mention how, or if, the Korean court had ruled on the matter, although until fairly recently Korean men usally received custody after a divorce. So, is this how these cases should be resolved? Also interesting that Korean customs made no attempt to stop the fleeing mother and child.
See: “NY Mom Rescues Son from South Korea”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23836311/
Linkd, from the amplification provided in #30, I now understand the general flow of your work. Based on that info, I’d agree that the person you’d need to hire to handle the rewrites would be critically connected to your work.
It’s true that the type of person you’re looking for might be attracted to work elsewhere, especially if/when more than what you provide is being offered. And, assuming your employee would be working directly with your clients, that legitimate concern would naturally increase.
However, I don’t think that you need worry especially about the employee’s productivity as a result of that. Really, this concern is separate from the other - in the first case they’re so good that they draw the attention of other employers, and in the second, they’re so bad that they draw your attention. As you say, you need someone who can ‘walk and talk’ this line of work, so don’t hire on anyone who can’t. And don’t plan on your wife quitting her job until you’re sure that you’ve found the right employee.
I’m not versed in Korean employment law, but if your concern is one of productivity, could you not put that into some sort of a ‘best efforts’ clause of an employment contract, with failure to meet provide work of sufficient quality according to schedule explicitly stated therein as a sufficient reason for discharge?
Linkd’s problem is a common one to all professional-services businesses.
What he needs at this point is a partner — not necessarily a full partner, but someone sharing in the ownership of the company, and motivated by its success. The employee who is paid based on profitability works harder.
I recommend he take a look at the works of David Maister, the world’s leading thinker on professional services firms. His book Managing the Professional Service Firm is the best on my bookshelf (it’s also available at What The Book, but an older edition).
I also strongly recommend Maister’s “Strategy and the Fat Smoker”, also available at Amazon and What The Book. Having just finished it, I wish the other lawyers in our firm would read the Fat Smoker.
Why would they? There’s really no way they’d know.
Re. #s 9, 11, 12:
http://machinist.salon.com/fea.....index.html
Thanks for opinions and inputs, and the book recommendation. I’ll put them on my summer reading list. Partners - tough one. Looks good in theory, but a lot of disastrous outcomes with that structure.
Some decisions get made based on a clear vision, a dream. Others, based on careful analysis. And some get made based on “I just can’t fucking do this anymore”. It’s getting close to Mrs. Linkd’s annual contract renewal time…there’s been a lot to talk about this weekend. Thank god for beer.
@#31:
The boy’s name is Kobe Lee. However, the father’s name, Jeffrey Salko, doesn’t sound Korean. My guess is that he is an adoptee and does have Korean citizenship; hence, a Korean court would have no jurisdiction in determining the custody of an American boy with two American parents.
According to information published on the State Dept. website,
Thus,
http://travel.state.gov/family.....y_520.html
correction: does NOT have Korean citizenship
Kobe just made a four point play in the 4th quarter. Daymn that was sick…
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