When my company for 12 years closed, I had job offers from 2 U.K. carriers and KoreanAir. I have read all threads available, and since the people appeared friendly at the screening in Seoul, I ignored all advices of colleagues and decided to join with an open mind, and an open heart, mostly due to the commuting contract.
It was generally ok during the first few weeks. Later on you meet some of the trainers. I got the impression they were looking down on me, but I was trying to blend with their culture.
One day, on the way to the sim for fixed base simulator, my wife calls from back home, telling me that our son will have to make an appendix operation.
Arriving at the sim centre I tell the Korean trainer about it, and that I can not do the sim session until everything with my kid was ok.
The trainer tells me not to worry, its just a tick in the box these fixed base simulators, and its not an evaluation of any kind...
Despite my unwillingness to do a sim session that day, he insisted saying that it will create problems to scheduling, and that we can repeat it tomorrow if unhappy, etc etc..
So I did the session, to a good standard given the circumstances. The trainer debriefed me on items such as not remembering a standard call, or not pointing out where the highest point on the Jep chart is. Then he picks up the phone and calls somewhere talking in korean.When he finishes the call he tells me that tomorrow some other trainer will come.
I go back to the hotel, in the mean time my kid's operation was ok, and much releived, I go the next day to the next fixed base sim session (!), to see some chief trainer on the 737 fleet.(!) We sat at the briefing room asking me all sorts of questions from the books. I even remember him asking me how much was the highest outside temperature that you can have in order to put live animals in the holds (!) I felt humiliated. I was wondering if he was trying to prove something to me, or if I had to prove to him that I knew all manuals by memory like a computer.
It was there when I realized that, all those things written about KAL are true to the last letter. Someone told me when I was there that these guys will take any opportunity to prove to them selves or to whoever else that they do a good job by chopping expat people. Never mind the human aspect, they dont care! He was 1000% right.
The session later on was a formality. The next day I received an email from the agent telling me that they are terminating my contract.
After a few seconds of reading the email, I felt relieved. I regreted not paying attention to all those saying 'do not join KAL', but I was surely relieved. So I went back home without a job. A few months later I joined a Gulf carrier, thinking that at the end of the day I was lucky to leave KAL before it really had bad impact on me.