A teacher from Ireland was turned down for a job in South Korea because of the "alcoholic nature" of her people, according to The Daily Mail.
Twenty-six-year-old Katie Mulrennan has taught English in Barcelona, Oxford and Abu Dhabi, but when the County Kerry woman applied via an agency to teach English in Seoul, she received an unexpected email.
"It's quite ridiculous, I was really taken aback," the teetotaler Mulrennan told The Daily Mail. "Coming from Ireland you get used to the stereotype that people have and you joke about it but to be refused a job because of it is most unfair. I was very frustrated by it."
Mulrennan said she has applied to jobs before using an agency and she has been told that schools often prefer an English teacher with an American accent. Instead, the email reply to her application read: "I am sorry to inform you that my client does not hire Irish people due to the alcoholism nature of your kind."
Mulrennan told The Daily Mail that she replied by writing that she does not consume alcohol or animal products.
No reply.
Mulrennan does not know what school refused her, because the recruiter she used did not provide those details. She found the listing on Korea's version of Craigslist, according to The Daily Mail.
"They don't usually give the names of the private schools, they just tell you what the job is," Mulrennan said, according to The Daily Mail. She also said she has received a flurry of job offers from around the globe since her rejection went viral.
The World Heath Organization ranked South Koreans 13th in general alcohol consumption, but first in hard liquor imbibing, according to a July 2012 article of The New York Times. "Many South Koreans, who work some of the longest hours in the world, believe that one of the quickest ways of building friendship and office camaraderie is to get drunk together," The New York Times wrote. "'He who drinks more works better,' is a common saying here."
"If they had met me in person and made a judgment on my character, I would understand, but they didn't even speak to me on the phone," Mulrennan told The Daily Mail.
"I don't think they had any right to do that at all, it's infuriating."