KMK: Avalon

I have breaking news, or rather it’s breaking for me, about my old stomping grounds Avalon English. I just read on two different blogs about Avalon’s new “guidelines” concerning Swine Flu. Leave it to my ex to give swine flu hysteria fertile ground to flower.

The scoop on both TheMetropolitician and Brian in Jellanam-doportrays Avalon as a budding draconian police state. I’m sorry to say though that from my own experience there I can’t say that I’m surprised. During my time with the big A the foreign teachers were constantly beset with “guidelines” and new “policy” that just so happened to be absent from our contracts.

For instance, one day we arrive at work to learn that the new “policy” prevents us from leaving the building for any reason during working hours. We worked seven hour days. You can imagine how well that went over. We balked at the silliness and ignored it. Then, we came in on another day to learn that the new “guideline” prevented teachers from eating in the teacher’s room. Now combine that brilliant new rule with the previous one and you have yourself some pretty hungry, disgruntled, and unhappy teachers.

So after reading both blog posts I never doubted for a second that such a thing could be going down at Avalon. Still, I did my due diligence and questioned a former co-worker to confirm everything. Sadly, it’s all true but hopefully someone with some sense will be backpedalling on some of the more egregious “guidelines” like seizing passports, forbidding overseas travel, and avoiding public places.

How exactly does one get to school if you’re avoiding public places? Will Avalon put you in an air tight bubble and roll you to school? And what’s up with the daily temperature taking? Though I do admit I wouldn’t mind bending over for one of my former Co-teachers (hi John) for a physical though I doubt that’s in his contract either.

Avalon needs to get their act together and stop blurring the lines between North and South Korea.