saeng-gak bo-da... (pension woes)

I found out two things about my pension payment today: unlike what I had been told, the pension payment from Smoo will not be wired directly to my American account. Instead, it will be wired to my Shinhan bank account around May 10, which is precisely the sort of snafu I wanted to avoid. This means I need to make extra arrangements and pay extra fees to get my money.

Worse, I've learned that the pension amount will be a full thousand dollars less than anticipated. This may be my fault for not having checked the pension scheme down to the nittiest, grittiest detail, but the general expat assumption is that the government (or, in our case, the university) exactly matches whatever funds you pay into your pension plan. Was this a bad or false assumption? Is my university an exception to the rule?

What a fool I was for thinking I'd have my payments matched; I now know that such is not the case at Smoo. I paid a little over 4.4 million won into my pension plan, which meant, in principle, that I would get another 4.4 million won from the university upon leaving the country. Instead I was told by a supervisor that my total payout would be about 6.2 million won, not the 8.8 million (4.4 mil from me, 4.4 from Smoo) I would have liked to have gotten (before I knew these figures, I had been assuming a payout of 7.2 mil, roughly W200,000 per month, based on my putting about W100,000 per month into the plan, plus W100,000 from Smoo, for three years).

I've enjoyed working at Smoo-- I truly have. But the entire campus is amazingly stingy about pay. We work longer hours than at other universities, and do so for less pay. It's obviously silly to complain about this after three years of working here (and I'm again reminded of the parable of the vineyard workers, the most industrious of whom complained about being paid the same as the Johnny-come-latelies... the reply? "You knew what you were to be paid before you started the job!").

My buddy Tom keeps quietly urging me to try his university when I come back to Korea. I might think about it. While I'm eternally grateful to my bosses, my coworkers, and my students for their various kindnesses, I can't say I have much love for whatever offices or committees set the campus budgets and dole out the pay. I heartily agree that some things are far more important than money-- one's sanity, for instance-- but if one can safeguard one's sanity while also earning a bit more to live on (you'll recall that I'm not getting rich anytime soon), isn't that better than abusing one's own wallet?

It's a shame that an otherwise decent university should leave me thinking such thoughts, and while I'm normally good at viewing such problems positively, at a time like this it's hard to see the up-side. I don't blame my immediate supervisors for the situation; they're not the ones who control the salaries, the pension, etc. But someone's responsible for this. I blame them.

OK... end rant. For now.


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