Despite it being a Saturday and despite me being all anti-work on the weekends unless there's mad cash involved, today I traveled out to Seoul for a work meeting and I was more than happy to do so.
Me happy to travel to Seoul and me happy to travel for a Saturday work meeting... yup. This definitely marked a first. The meeting was a meeting for the daycare position I'm starting this month.
Me arriving in Seoul for the meeting was marked with me getting a bit lost for a bit as I scrambled to recall the location of the building from memory. But when there at the corner of the street stood another lost foreign female, I had a feeling I was in the right spot, and yup, sure enough I was. We were both looking for the same place.
Walking into the daycare's head office, we were greeted with about 30 Koreans (who also work at the daycare's various locations) and three other new foreign workers. Just recently the daycare hired five of us foreigners; 2 females and 3 males. We all have F2 visas because because F2 visa females aren't exactly in high numbers in Korea, me and this other foreign female coworker of mine kind of have an upper hand. As for the Korean coworkers, they're ALL female so they eagerly waited to hear who'd score one of us two foreign females.
Turns out the vast majority of these Korean coworkers don't speak English or are very shy speaking English. When the director let it known to all that I speak Korean I then became somewhat of a hot item.
After a brief introduction, they split us into groups according to the daycare location we'll be working at. I'll be working at the Bundang location, which is quite a large facility. We all went around the room, introducing ourselves, and then we got chatting about this and that.
I'm really looking forward to starting this job and have the feeling that it just might be the best job I've had in Korea yet!!!
Oh, and get this... organic meals for every lunch!!!
As silly as this sounds, I'm super stoked about totally lucking out with the one other foreigner I'll be working with in Bundang.
My coworker is a Polack... straight from Warsaw, Poland!
He's this tiny light-haired Polack, no bigger than me but just as sarcastic as me. He's pretty cool. "Us Polacks got to stick together!" I joked with him. Funny thing is, my dad is going to laugh his head off when I tell him I'll be working with a fellow Polack... hahaha. So in addition to being able to practice my Korean in the staff room with my Korean coworkers, I'll be able to polish up my Polish, no pun intended... hahaha.
I'm such a geek, you can say it. The highlight of my day was learning that I'd be working with a Polack. I've never met another Polack in Korea... and I'm sure you've never met someone so proud to be working with a fellow Polack... hahaha.
Today's meeting was very productive. I got to meet many of my coworkers, landed a sweet spot working with a fellow Polack, learned more about the daycare, and signed my contract.
Me and my new Polack coworker left together after the meeting, joking and chatting as we walked down the street. We'll be meeting up again on Monday for training and a couple of days of orientation, and I'm stoked about officially starting this job on the 14th.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Do you do what you love?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
-- Herman Cain
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
No comments:
Post a Comment