It's All About The Fine Print

The "by-the-book" people at the province office are at it again. Yesterday my substitute co-teacher wanted to talk to me about reimbursing me for the plane ticket that I bought to go home. He said they would only pay 75% of the price, as per the province office. Oh, no no no no no. I reached over, got my contract out and pointed it out to him. The contract says nothing about any percentage. It says "free ticket." So, disheartened, the school is going to have to pay the full price for the ticket.

Today Mr. Yoo, my main co-teacher is telling me that the province office claims my vacation is too long and they are going to dock my pay. First, they are counting the day I leave, July 24, as a vacation day. My flight is at 8:50pm. I will be at school all day that day. So, they can just bite me. After understanding that, Mr. Yoo came back after talking to the province office to say that I'd still be getting back one day late. Out comes the contract again. I got 2 calendar weeks to visit home when I renewed my contract. No one is disputing that. However, on top of that 2 weeks, I also get my normal 14 work-day vacation for the year. That works out to 7 work-days in the summer, 7 in the winter. The contract clearly says that these 14 vacation days do not include saturdays and sundays, they are work-days only.

So, I'm taking my 2 week vacation, plus I'm taking 5 of my 7 days to visit the U.S. This gives me a grand total of 3 calendar weeks, which is how long I will be in the U.S. I still have 2 extra vacation days at my disposal. I need Mr. Yoo to understand this. I am also planning on taking those 2 last days of vacation, right when I get back. I return on a wednesday, and the semester begins on monday of the next week. So, I will probably take thursday and friday off to recoup from jet lag.

The big problem here is that my signed contract is apparently different than the blanket contract that the province office has. Mr. Yoo keeps saying "but the contract in the book says..." and I just cut him off and tell him "that doesn't matter. The signed contract is the legally binding document here, not the contract in the book at the province office." They simply don't put much stock in the signed contracts here. They will change them as they see fit. How annoying.