I guess that's it: time to pack things up. The boss told me, when I got in to work today, that he'd be giving me a portable drive onto which to copy the contents of my office desktop computer, so it's official: we're moving out. The boss has been unable to contact the CEO, who's been actively avoiding us. The whole thing is rather childish, but this is what you get when you have a CEO who is spineless, conflict-averse, and in the thrall of certain other parties in the company. At least, that's been the boss's take all this time.
The boss also entertained some sort of fantasy that I would definitely be moving down to Suwon. Given the neighborhood of the place we looked at, I'd have to give that prospect a no. True: the apartment itself seemed nice, if a bit of a fixer-upper, and the boss argues that rent, cost of living, etc., would be cheaper in Suwon, but I'd have to go through the rigamarole of changing my address right as I'm trying to renew my passport, F4 visa, etc., and I'd also be far away from Samsung Hospital, which I still have to visit every few months. Losing this current job now is extremely poor timing. And the apartment in Suwon is, let's face it, very old.
But it's also an opportunity to acquire new skills, start up a new website where I can monetize my own content, and maybe even become my own boss, which would mean, of course, never coming back to my old team.
So I need to visit my building's real-estate office tomorrow to negotiate a rental contract directly with it. It's going to hurt to hand over a W10 million deposit, but at least I'll get it back when I move out. I'm actually going to see about handing over W20 million for the deposit to cheapen my monthly rent. One way or another, I won't be leaving my building or changing my address, at least not until after I've renewed all of my crucial documents.
More soon on how all of that goes.
UPDATE: the boss has sent off one last, desperate email to the CEO describing our progress on the book project and the profits he can expect if he should sell X number of textbooks per month (none of them has been printed yet), enough to justify keeping us on another few months to at least finish the book series. I personally have no hope that the CEO will bother responding, but practically, this means the boss is asking me to wait a few days before talking to my building's real-estate office. How many more days will I be strung along, then? Well, I guess we'll see whether anything comes of the boss's Hail Mary. I don't see this gesture having any effect if the CEO is curled up in a ball and passive-aggressively unresponsive.
In other news: I apparently get one last payday in January. That'll be nice, at least.
Well, at least this didn't take you completely by surprise.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the part where you copy the contents of your office desktop to a portable drive, though. If you are a contractor for the company, doesn't all your work also belong to the company? Or did you have a separate deal worked out where you get to retain the rights to your work?
Good question. The boss's perspective is that the things we do for the company belong to the company, but the material can still serve as a template for when we design our own, somewhat similar content. Korea's the land of copyright-ignoring copycats, anyway, so what would other people say should we publish similar material on our own?
DeleteAt some point down the line, though, when enough time has passed, we'll be generating our own completely original content. (Or maybe I will, on my own. We'll see.)
Ah, I see. That makes sense.
DeleteGlad to see you are maintaining a positive attitude. You may not have any say in the future with Golden Goose, but you do have control of your destiny. Good luck with whatever the future brings work-wise.
ReplyDelete