Home Sweet Home

Ok, well it's been a little over two months since I took the 14 hour flight from Korea to arrive back in the land of the loonie. I've spent my time predictably: eating cheese, drinking large Timmies and caesars, getting proper blonde highlights, binging on Twizzlers and Jujubes. Strangely, I haven't delved into my eastern experiences in any great detail. A typical how was your trip response: "Great. A really great experience." Not very verbose for an ex-journalism student. I guess part of my hesitation with talking about Korea is that I hate to have my life become a cliche... and I don't really think people truly give a rat's ass. But, since I've got the time (painfully so...) I'm going to give it a go. So here's anecdote number one.

My Totally Insane, Alcoholic, Politically Incorrect Boss

Ok, well I really hope no one from my former school reads this anytime soon because I will honest to God die of embarrassment but when I first started corresponding with the Boss back in April 2005, gauging him with questions about my upcoming job in Seoul, I developed a slight crush. He had a soothing British accent, he seemed straightforward and helpful. I guess he was the only contact I had with Korea at this stage and I was determined to be positive about it. After numerous emails and phone calls I was finally prepared to venture off. My Boss had volunteered to pick me up at the airport (something I learned he rarely does) and I asked him to send me a jpeg so I could recognize him upon arrival. I still remember logging onto Hotmail at my mother's house in the country. You should know that rural Ontario has yet to implement broadband and I had the treat of seeing his face upload pixel by pixel. He wasn't quite the Hugh Grant in a tweed blazer I had envisioned. He was pushing fifty with bleached blonde, buzzed hair. He had a gaunt face and blue-tinted eye-glasses. He had some new-age shirt with a Chinese collar and was wearing dog tags. Sadly, his appearance would be the very least of his freakish quirks.

My Boss is one of those guys who has done EVERYTHING. He got shot in the Falkan wars, he owned two Harleys and a Beemer, he could speak French, German, Korean, he could scubadive AND skydive, he made $100,000 US on the Korean stock market in 6 months, he was somehow related to the British Royal family and of course he had done time. Although his tall-tales could be exasperating at times they did allow for some otherwise unacceptable boss-bashing.

Example: The Boss took a month off of work to go and relax with his new 22-year-old Korean wifey in Argentina. Strangely, a co-worker spotted him in Seoul with half his face wrapped in gauze the day after his supposed departure. He dumbly stuttered that he had a scubadiving accident in the pacific, had come home and was returning to South America immediately. Hmmmm... It being image-conscious Korea we all knew he'd spend that stock money on plastic surgery, he was just too much of an ex-navy seal to admit it. When the month had passed and the Boss returned to work sure enough, the deep creases in his weathered face were diminished. So, a usually unresponsive staff merrily bombarded him with questions about his trip. "How was the scuba-diving?" "Let's see your pictures of Argentina!" For a person who could never shut up about himself he was surprisingly reticent.

A few noteworthly points on the Boss:

* He always speaks with his hand in front of his mouth
* He single-handedly circle-beat a group of 4 Korean men
* He's a self-proclaimed leg man
* He's a self-proclaimed homophobe
* He hopes his sister gets raped for breaking his rare egg collection
* He can do a damn good rendition of Anarchy in the UK
* His only solution to one of our problem teachers was to shoot him down like a dog.

Ok, as much as he's noticeably in an undeserved position of power the Boss was always nice to me and I had some serious laughs in his company (not exclusively at his expense). So, Boss, if you ever read this... it wasn't all bad.