Off the Rails

Aren't we suppose to apply for our backpay in person when we do get the forms from the trustees? Also this will mean a change in address for many again?

The appartment of Saruhashi on the 20th floor has been plundered with the trustee and G com approbation. Very strange manners for a layer.

You'll find that most of those people that have been cut would have been the Option B people... If they REALLY wanted to work they would have chosen option A. They'll be support for those that can't find employment and wish to return home. Contact your FP office on Monday/Tuesday.

Yes, option B was presented as 'we don't really need you cluttering up the place so by all means stay out of our hair... we will have work for you later'.

Many chose B because they were in desperate need of money for food and rent (which the option A would not cover) 150,000 vs 50,000 makes a huge difference in what you can pay for. I certainly needed to pay rent and would not have been able to do that with A, which was annoying as I was bored and lugging boxes around sounded better than doing nothing - but I couldn't afford to do that because of short term problems.

J-P, you are lucky to have had so many offers and any info you can provide would be appreciated. Many people were relying heavily on re-employment with this company. Certainly in Osaka, there are many more people needing jobs than there are positions to fill. I have been looking as have many other people.

If anyone is aware of any large numbers of vacancies please, please, post. 3 Months down the line, a lot of people have just been let down again. If people had been given the correct information then unemployment would be about ready by now (not that anyone actually wants to be claiming that, but it is a little better than nothing).

has any option b people been rehired?

are there anymore option a people out there who are on standby (not working at all)?

There are many who haven't been called back, yet they didn't get the email Option B'ers got.

I thought this site was all about debunking eikaiwas and not just Nova/G.comm? It's getting downright boring.

Well, I had been feeling a bit guilty about taking option B and using the money to buy a one-way ticket home, but not anymore. We probably should have known something like this was coming when g.comm was so surprised by the number of people seeking reemployment that they didn't have enough room for all of us at the information session on Nov 10. Good luck to everyone who took option B!

Bullshit, the AM I talked to said that if there wasn't anything available in January we would start making 60 percent of our salary until there was something available. There was no talk about it maybe being redundancy pay. I guess what she meant to say was if there was nothing available, I would be fired and then unemployment would pay me 60 percent of my salary. Wish she would have spoken more clearly about the facts.

My AM said the same thing, in fact was told option B was a better move financially and that there would be a job waiting in Jan. I dont know which meeting Anonymous@8.28 went to, but it certainly wasn't mine, nothing so honest was discussed.

However, those who took Option A-- be very, very careul. They have too many staff in the branches as it is, and are looking to cut back there. You don't have a contract, so be prepared for the same sort of treatment.

G-spot mentioned assistance with flights home in the email. Use that email address to register your interest. They haven't yet decided whether it will be a percentage or if they will buy the ticket for you or what. Whether they follow through with this is another thing altogether.

This is just the start people. Wait until instructors' contracts (the old Nova ones) expire and Gcomm offers them a new contract at a much lower salary. Legally, they would be justified because instructors are now working without contracts so if the first Gcomm contract was for say 260000/month instead of 350000/month there's nothing the instructor can do. They won't jump ship as we already know. Finding another job would net them the same conditions. Throw in the fact that I'd say a lot of the instructors are losers that have been here for a dozen or so years and didn't save anything and will continue to not save money. So they would be forced to accept the terms of the contract or have their wives support them again. Thats when you know you are a loser, your wife supports you and then you run back to the same crappy conditions and bitch and moan about the company.
For those that went back to Nova and are on here complaining about things and saying how horrible gcomm is should just shut up. What did you expect? You are like an abused wife that runs to her friend's house for a few nights then returns and gets an even bigger beating for trying to escape. That's what is coming for those that returned. Either you will get crappy conditions or you will be let go when your contract expires. Those last 14 years that you didn't learn Japanese or save money or get any qualifications are gonna catch up with you very quickly.

DUDE. You did NOT just compare this situation to the Holocaust.

Time for a nice tall glass of perspective and soda...

well 40% of the workforce - maybe more have been cut already mate ! optin B people are gone....and "the management system will disappear" is great !! No more former A.A.Ms or A.Ts who caused alot of the harm to teachers..

Basically if you've received a pay slip from g-comm then its gonna be hard to get rid of you.

The news I heard from some of the Japanese G-com staff is that G-com are looking to cut back on the number of teachers.. even those that have started working again are not safe as we havent signed any legal contract.. The next few months are going to be pretty rough on all involved.. Whatever people decide to do, good luck to you all

I like the idea of class action, but you can't get blood from a stone.

Management didn't even have the balls to phone people, no wonder they're working here in Japan, they wouldn't make street sweepers back home. Dirty brown nosed buggers!

Did you really think it was going to change with the same incompetent people steering the ship? I for one had a hope that it would, but maybe the lure of easy money was all I cared about.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all. See you down the dole queue!

>>DUDE. You did NOT just compare this situation to the Holocaust.

>>Time for a nice tall glass of perspective and soda...

Facts are indeed quite different but human behaviours are quite similar.

What's wrong with scoring with "dumb-ass chicks"? Not everyone's married you know.

I think its about 13,000 out of about 20,000 who made enquiries/came in to reopened branches to check things out.

I cant believe people sat around to get suckered twice. As an ex-Nova teacher myself who waited for the proverbial to really hit the fan in October, I vowed that I would never darken usagi doors again. If the fact that everything is still being run under the Nova logo didnt set alarm bells pealing madly in people's heads, then I dont know what would. People should just stop worrying about Nova and move on with their lives, because that ship has had its Titanic moment. Go home, get a job, make some money and then come back if Japan is your thing, but take some responsibility for your own life and get on with it.

Hi buddy.
i saw the official lists and was there wen they were being picked over and it was being decided who was going to be called.
i dont want to give away who i am or what position i am in but i think the way g.com are dealing with stuff is awful. they have zero regard for any teacher regardless of how many or little complaints they got.
working for them is not bad in the sense that they pay decently and on time and the work is the same as any other school. but it has the same feeling of being mildly disliked and constantly under scrutiny. they are going through major changes and may do well but i persoanlly think they are going to go under in a year or so. they bit off more than they could chew wih nova and it isnt working out. id advise getting a job and immediatly starting to look for other things.
good luck, feel free to ask any questions.

Once upon a time, in a small asian country, There was a big big language company, with thousand of gaijin workers.
One day this company collapse with the active help of the gouvernement which cut subvention etc...
Those thousand of gaijin start to flow in unemployement office asking for unemployement money, 3 month, 6 month of salary. Gouvernement starts sweating but then come a company who propose to rehire everybody! Yahoo
People relax, wait at home, time pass. One day the company come out with a plan, well, two exactly, plan A and plan B. Nice and simple, you start working moving boxes but we don't need that much people and chrimas is coming, don't u want to spend it with your familly? So maybe you should take plan B, you take 150.000, that's less than plan A but still pretty good, you come back home, get to eat the turkey with grandpa and mummy and you come back on the 10th of january because man! on the 10th it's gonna be huge and we will need teachers!
Many people thought, those guys are recommended by a guy from the gouvernement. They can't mess with us twice... And I want to see grandpa.
So they go home, they are happy, every things here is familiar. And on the 24th december, when most of those people are surely at home with there familly, fare fare away, as they are preparing the turkey with grandma they check there e-mail, see if their friends sent some merry chrismas messages, and they find this:

...In the current business situation, it is only possible for G.education to employ a limited number of instructors in January and while we appreciate your request for re-employment from January 10, 2008, it is with great regret that we inform you that we are not able to offer you a position at G.education at this time...

It's a choke! They are furious! Those people had told lies again! We can't trust them anymore! Never put a foot on this damned country again, no matter unemployement money or any thing, I won't go back there.

The gouvernement of this country is very sorry that its image had been tarnished by this story... But they don't rely on tourism so much anyway, and all that unemployement money they won't have to pay, all those gaijin they won't have to help in every single things they do, that's a relief.

People will forget.

The end

oops i should have mentioned that i was reffering to the post "Yeah ... not so boring for" - those that know me will know my initials

sorry bout that, but ya know life is more than nova/g.comm. I have friends who are in deep shit due to the nova collapse so i know the pain you are in, but i was wondering if this site would report on other schools as well? selfish of me maybe but it would be nice if it did from time to time. But please i want it to be known that i wish you all the best of luck.

Hey Deep,

Thanks for the reply. I am assuming you are still working for Nova/G-Comm and are probably in head office. Please provide anymore info that you "come across" for the rest of us who are kept out of the loop.

Thanx...

I like the guys who come on this blog telling how they have been so clever to move on to a new job and how they are happy now. If every body was like you companies/groups/gouvernements/administrations like G-com would be very happy too. You work for them, taking all you can, not really caring for this company who use you any way and when you get screwed you don't fight and just move on to the next job. As bosses are not stupid they quickly understand they can screw you easly and so they do. So you keep on been screwed and when eventually you'll get sick of it, you'll open your own business and start screwing others because HEY You've got the right! It's your turn.
Man, you prepare a nice society for your kids.

Basically Gcom/NOVA just messed up my current job by retracting the job placements. They called me and offered me a job and I gave notice to my current part-time employer. However this employer can't reverse the ending of my contract and I am now in limbo, waiting until perhaps the next pay period (Jan 11) to see if I will get a new part-time contract!

NOVA be damned. Whether post or pre G-Com, they are still out to fuck us all.

Hey guys,

This is my first message on the blog although I have read it for months, anyway, I just got a call on boxing day from g-comm-unistas informing me that my time on standby at 60% salary is no longer needed and that I am fired as of january 10 which is the day I was told to standby until. This left me with a visa problem so I went to the visa office today and they gave me a visa extension no problems until I find a new job, the officer also gave me a lot of information regarding this situation. She said people are getting fired left, right and center, not just standbys of A option or 150,000ers of B option..but also teachers already in branches whose salary is much higher than of someone who can replace them on standby! anyway, if you are lucky enough to be in a branch with the neo novas watch your back cause they are looking for any reasons to scale down the already overpopulated branches that they have managed to open, also dont believe what they tell you about visas, cause the immigration officer honestly confessed her disgust about the old and new companies and said they are always open to special situations and feel ashamed that G-Comm has tarnished their reputation so they are trying to help as many people who want to stay in japan as much as possible. Anyway peace in the east, keep your chip up and dont let the g-comm`s get you down.

Someone has gotta say this and put things in perspective.

1. What did you fucking expect! The Ekaiawa industry is a joke and it is basically factory work. Go back home and get a job packing bananas. At least your union will look after you if you get shafted.
2. The Japanese don't want you in this country anyway. Most companies see you as a way to make an easy profit and are laughing at you behind your back as they rake in huge salaries at your naive expense.
3. Your pathetic promotions are also a laughing stock. You will never be accepted in this culture so do what the Japanese do to you - get your own business and fleece them.
4. Unless you have qualifications and skills the Japanese don't, you are fucked in this culture. Staying here to hang on to your Japanese bird are you? Guess what unless you have the means of attracting successful bilingual girls in this country, it will lead to awful communication and sheer frustration.
5. Give it up! Go home and sort your life out. Most of you haven't the drive or ambition to have an easy life with no money worries.

Well they called me today and asked what my intentions were regarding January 10th and if i was still interested in starting back at nova. I said yeah, sure. They said thanks very much, told me the branch and said they will get back to me with schedule details. I guess it just comes down to the area you live in, If they dont need more teachers there then your out of luck. Just the reality of business, nobody owes us a job. Fair enough I think. I was just lucky, end of story.

Not everyone who got shafted by Nova/G.comm has been here ten years and doesn't speak Japanese. Some of us came to have a year or two of exposure to a foreign culture and try to save some money before we go back home and settle down. We worked hard at our jobs and tried to do the best we could despite Nova's lousy lessons and poor treatment of its employees. I read this site because it often has useful news, but all the judgmental attacks some of you make are really disheartening. Can't we at least be civil to each other? Also, some of you might consider spellchecking your diatribes before you post them, it's hard to take you seriously when you can't spell in your own language.

An MA in linguistics and you still spell loser as "looser"?

I thought "The Bottom Line" & "Grow Up" made some good points.

Living and working in Japan is what you make of it and if you do want to carve out a career or have some goal in mind then like anything in life it starts with your attitude.

A few years back I worked along side a young Kiwi (straight out of university) who had come to Japan on a six month working holiday visa. Completely off her own bat she had found a DINK Japanese couple who let her stay for most of this period at their place between Tokyo and Yokohama and only paid about 20000 yen a month for rent. She ended up getting sponsored by a small eikaiwa and stayed another year.

Most weekday mornings she taught at a pre-school, in the afternoon and evening at her eikaiwa job and after that she taught private students until late or helped out at a local bar. At the bar she was able to sign up more private students or their kids to teach on weekends and learnt daily conversational Japanese.

I don't know how she did it all but in any freetime she had during summer/new years etc..she was able to go to Okinawa, Hokkaido, Fuji Rock Festival and other places.

Anyway when we parted ways around 2003 she was off for a three month holiday to Europe and she had around $40000 (kiwi dollars) in the bank back home.

Not bad for a 23 year old who came here with about $2000 a backpack and a Japanese/English dictionary!

It is indeed, easy to be a bad teacher, but it requires a lot of skills to be a good one.
Don't you remember when you went to school? There were some teachers you truly hated (and there were reasons sometimes) and others you loved. With those you liked you made progress and still today you are thankful to them. But they were teaching you a b c d... or 2 + 2 = 4, pretty easy don't you think? Once you knows it, anythings sounds easy but it doesn't mean teaching it is easy.

If you don't have respect for language teachers why would you have respect for pilot? The guy is repeating the same technique every day. And what about the baker, the taxi driver, the basket ball player, the cameraman, the printer, the ice cream seller etc...

That would be a lot of people you wouldn't respect. We are all trying to find a place in the human society, trying to be helpful, and as long as you make this effort, you should be respected (by employer, clients, collegues etc...)

The simple fact is that teaching English (as it is done in virtually all eikaiwas anyway) does not require any real skills or training. It is just like many unskilled jobs. If you are literate and have at least a tiny bit of personality, you can teach English in Japan and do just fine with the students. The university degree is only required because of Japanese law.

ya know, with an MA in Linguistics the least you could do is discern the difference between 'looser' & 'loser'!!!

Yuo aer os rghit. Sepllnig si terirbly improtant. Fi I msispel a snigle wrod, ym raeders wlil tno understnad aynthnig I wrtie...

Fine, point you. I misspelled a word. I suppose I really didn't deserve my MA after all. I guess I should be completely anal and agonize over every keystroke when I post on LetsJapan... yeah, right.

Anyway, I did learn a thing or two from getting that degree, such as the fact that 'correct' spelling is a highly superficial indicator of language proficiency. As my first sentence in this post indicates (or at least, I hope it indicates) I can misspell every word of a sentence and native speakers can still decode it with almost complete accuracy, and with hardly any additional effort. Furthermore, among native speakers who are literate, spelling accuracy says nothing about intelligence or educational achievement; doctors and lawyers are as apt to be poor spellers as cashiers.

So, do you have any thoughts on what I actually was talking about in my post? No, just snide remarks about a silly spelling error? Oh, well...

The simple fact is that teaching English (as it is done in virtually all eikaiwas anyway) does not require any real skills or training. It is just like many unskilled jobs. If you are literate and have at least a tiny bit of personality, you can teach English in Japan and do just fine with the students. The university degree is only required because of Japanese law.

Language ability is a 'skill,' and the teaching of a foreign language, by definition, is not an 'unskilled job.' An unskilled job is one which ANYBODY of normal intelligence and physical ability could do. How many Japanese off the street could 'teach' English?

Also, let's distinguish between 'getting a job as a teacher' and 'teaching English.' Most newbie eikaiwa teachers are not very good at their job (it takes some time to get good at it, like with anything), and this is generally recognized by the students. At any school I have worked for students always prefer the more experienced teachers, not simply because they are 'experienced,' but because they are better teachers. Yes, there are many schools which don't care about the distinction, and so native speakers who aren't really good at teaching can get jobs. But the teachers who never change their attitude and never really improve don't end up staying for more than a couple of years, anyway.

This is one reason there are so many poor English teachers in Japan; the teachers themselves don't see what they do as skilled, nor do they view it as beneficial to their students. These kinds of teachers, I suppose, are the ones who bitch and moan most loudly about what a joke eikaiwa is. It is whatever you make of it.

P.S. Shawn, why can't we view replies to posts in some nested format anymore? It would make it much easier to know who is replying to whom.

i agree, but in criticising spelling errors on a website for English 'teachers', you yourself made a mistake-- way to as opposed to way too....

Certainly,but so is how to read the writing on the wall.Most of you appear to be sadly deficient on that score!

I know, I said spelling didn't matter, but after reflection, could you guys spell words correctly on this blog. Because chatting with you like this might help me to improve my english. But if you write down mistakes I'll end up doing the same. So for me, please -_- eh eh eh

Notice I didn't say; "stupid", just "ignorant". Meaning you probably don't KNOW HOW to spell that word. It's common, if lazy.

Excuse me, but you are using the semicolon incorrectly in this sentence. Lists should NOT be introduced with a semicolon, but rather with a colon, although even this rule applies only to lists of three or more items. Semicolons can be used to separate items on a list, if the list is deemed long (at least three items). Semicolons are primarily used to mark important breaks in a sentence, typically between main and coordinate clauses. If a conjunction is used then the semicolon should be avoided. However, if an adverb is used in place of a conjunction use of the semicolon is permissible. I won't call you stupid, as you made the same error twice; thus 'ignorant' would be the correct term, as you say.

Also, periods after quoted words which end a sentence should be placed inside the quotation marks. That one is pretty simple, I believe.

Please refer to your Chicago Manual of Style, sections 5.87 through 5.104 on the proper usage of semicolons and colons.

Also, the use of 'ya' in place of 'you' in a previous post shows the inappropriate use of a colloquialism. Colloquialisms are acceptable in literary works or poetry in order to describe regional language or dialect. It is not considered acceptable for formal or professional writing of any non-fiction genre. You do agree with me that these boards should stick to the formal rules of writing, don't you. After all, on these very boards you have questioned my ability to teach English based on the misspelling of a single word.

Obviously, you are no more qualified to teach the English language to anyone than I am.

It's the sad bastards that spend their free time checking for spelling mistakes that irritate me. Who cares? I make spelling mistakes. Everyone does.
The person who wrote "Projecting aren't we" made some valid points.

Out of 83 posts so far on this thread, only 13 of them have no spelling, punctuation or obvious usage mistakes. Several of those are only a couple of sentences long, and some of the others have run-on sentences which many would consider mistakes, but I've given them the benefit of the doubt.

These are message boards, people. Most of you who bothered to criticize others for their mistakes made mistakes, yourselves! So in addition to being pompous, you are hypocrites, as well. Everyone makes spelling and typing mistakes; it says absolutely nothing about one's ability to teach a language.

But I suspect everyone already realizes this. Some people use this low criticism to avoid dealing with the actual arguments made in someone's post. Others just like to feel superior (until someone points out how they, too, made plenty of mistakes).

My feeling is that teaching at an eikaiwa is a totally legitimate line of work, and that there are people who have made a good and profitable career out of it. But the behavior on these boards does make me question people's character, eikaiwa teacher or not.

i'm not even there yet, but if the mentality of the eikaiwa disciples is such that their instinct is to collectively squabble at one person for a spelling mistake, seeking petty self-righteousness and self-satisfaction on a goddamn internet comment thread, it's no wonder the industry is inherently fucked. get the fuck out of japan already, you clueless pussies.

Where is Rodney King when we need him?!?! "Can't we just all, get along?"