Well its been a harrowing day. I spent all morning feeling sick with nerves at the prospect of doing battle with my boss over the holiday dates then this afternoon it happened!

The showdown had been inevitable but cleverly he waited till Katrina was otherwise engaged and approached me alone using the divide and conquer method!

Luckily as the conversation began to get heated Katrina appeared to help me fight our corner, whilst the Korean teachers gathered round to fight his! No doubt they had been briefed in the staff meeting about the situation and had been instructed to back him up.

As soon as Katrina appeared and he realised that we weren’t just going to back down he started shouting like we were naughty children and turned a red in the face.

I’m sure he deliberately decided to hold the confrontation in the teachers office so the Korean teachers would witness the event and see what awful people we are. His methods worked to a point as some of the Korean teachers didn’t speak to either of us for the rest of  the day!

In Korea, culturally, you are supposed to respect you boss and this is often taken to the extreme of NEVER standing up for yourself, especially if you are a woman.

As the conversation progressed he informed us that we couldn’t have those holiday dates because the high schools weren’t finishing until the 30th and we would get the 3rd Jan off instead.

We were told it was tough that we had booked something and were going to loose money and that he only found out the actual holiday dates yesterday. When we asked him why he gave us the wrong dates he bellowed: “I’m not god!” – As if we thought he was! – “How was I supposed to know the dates before yesterday?” Which still beggars the question why did he give us dates if he wasn’t sure they were correct.

Skip to the end…….. We won – well compromised. We get the 28th and 29th Dec and the 2nd and 3rd Jan off but we have now used all our four days holiday, instead of three as originally planned. Which means I can’t get my birthday off work unless i pull a sicky and in the current climate that could put my job at risk.

Oh well, at least I’m still going to Japan for new year. Yipppeeeeee.

* Posted by j150vsc on 28/11/2006.