Interview with a Former GEOS Manager

When I was teaching in Chiba, I found out that one of my students was an ex-GEOS manager. There was an instant connection when I told her that I used to work for GEOS as well. We talked about our experiences and this is the result.

Lets Japan: How long did you work for GEOS?
Ayumi: I worked there for a little over a year.
LJ: Do you miss it?
A: No! Not at all.
LJ: Where did you work?
A: I worked for two schools in Chiba.
LJ: Can you tell us a little about it?
A: I started working there after I graduated from a women's college. When I went to the interview it seemed like a great place to work. They gave us apartments and many chances to travel abroad.
LJ: Did you travel abroad often?
A: I went to Hawaii for a training session once but I never left the hotel or the conference room.
LJ: But on your free time you must have hit the beach once, right?
A: No! We had to work all the time. Even our free time was spent in the conference room talking about work. After the training ended, we came back to Japan and went right back to our schools from the airport and started working.

LJ: What did you do at the training?
A: A lot of sales practice. For example, one trainer would pretend to be a customer and we would all take turns trying to sell the customer a course.
LJ: Like role playing?
A: Yes. We had to practice selling again and again. The trainers would criticize us.
LJ: Did you ever meet the president of the school?
A: Yes. All of the managers had to listen to a speech of his. He shouted at a few of the managers for not making enough money. He even took off his shoe and threw it at one of the girls.
LJ: Charming.
A: After the speech, some of us had to go to a karaoke box with him and sing songs. We sang until we had to leave to catch our flight home at 7 in the morning.
LJ: I wonder if he was on the same flight as you?
A: No! He went to his home in Hawaii and went to sleep.

LJ: So how were you at selling? Did you make your target?
A: No. I wasn't very good. The bucho (department manager) told me to copy another manager's style. The other manager was very good at sales. I visited her at her school. She told me to say anything to get a student to sign up. When a customer walks into a school, they are interested in buying a course. So we have to do anything to get the customer to sign up.
LJ: Anything? Uhhhh...
A: Tell a lie.
LJ: What kind of lie?
A: If the customer wanted a female teacher, I would promise a female teacher. I know that the female teacher at my school has a full schedule but I would tell the customer that anyway.
LJ: Wasn't the student angry when they found their teacher was a man?
A: Yes. I would tell the customer to wait a while for a spot to become available with the female teacher. I then hope the male teacher can make the customer happy.
LJ: How did you get along with the teachers in your school?
A: I think I had a good relationship with my teachers. At the training the trainers taught us an English expression: "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile" They told us to be tough, to Fight! Fight! Fight! Never let you foreign teachers tell you how to do anything. Show them who's boss.

LJ: That's funny. At the training offered us in Vancouver and even in Japan they always told us to be as flexible as possible. Never say, "no" to a manager. Always make the extra effort to understand her situation. Be sympathetic to her. I wonder why they never told you to try to understand us? "The manager's job is the most difficult in the company"
A: It's true, isn't it?
LJ: Well, I think being a teacher can be very difficult, too. You have to remember we are far from home and have very few friends here. Most of us cannot speak, read or write Japanese. There is culture shock or stress. We are expected to be salesmen too. When I was hired they hardly mentioned sales. It was something like, "Oh and your manager might expect you to help out with sales from time to time." That was it.
A: Really?
LJ: Yeah. Can you imagine how surprised I was to see my name on a sales rank list? Many teachers find it very distasteful to sell. Believe it or not, many teachers came to Japan with the noble idea of being a teacher! You said you weren't very good at sales?
A: Yes. I find it very hard to tell lies to customers. Every day a fax would come from head office with all the schools in the order of how much money they made. My school would be near the bottom. They would circle my school with a thick marker and write questions all around it like, "What are you doing there?!" "What's happening at this school?!" Then they would call me on the phone and shout at me.

LJ: Ahh yes. I seem to recall seeing a few of my managers lying in crumpled heaps on the floor of the school's office weeping.
A: Yes! You know, it made me sick.
LJ: Me too.
A: No really. I became sick. I had a terrible stomach ache. I went to the hospital once. They put a little camera in my stomach and found a hole.
LJ: You mean an ulcer?
A: It was caused by stress.
LJ: Why didn't you quit?
A: I wanted to but I felt that I had to help my school. I ordered all the posters and pamphlets. I had to pay them back.
LJ: What? I don't understand.
A: At GEOS each school has to buy it's posters and pamphlets from head office. The manager of the school has to pay for them from the school's budget.
LJ: Oh. It's perfectly clear to me now...
A: I was having such a hard time at the school that they threatened to move me.
LJ: Move you? Where?
A: To some place nobody wants to work at. Maybe Akita.
LJ: The horror, the horror.
A: At last they did move me. To another school in Chiba.
LJ: So they gave you another chance? Wiped the slate clean?
A: No! I had to take the debt I had at my first school with me to my second school. I had to pay off my debts.
LJ: Now I know why there are so many run away manager stories.
A: Yes. Many of my co-workers left their apartments at night and went away. One girl did that after just one day!
LJ: Did you ever compete with other schools for customers?
A: You mean other eikaiwas? Yes, all the time.
LJ: I mean other GEOS's. For example, many teachers believe the Kanto area has been saturated, especially Yokohama. Customers can go from school to school up and down the train line playing each GEOS off the other getting a better price.
A: Yes, I had friends who were managers at some schools like that. The price wouldn't change that much. Things like entrance fees would be dropped if the student signed up right there. Or she wouldn't collect the textbook fee to get the customer to sign up at her school. She needs the money. As much a she can get as quickly as possible.

LJ: Well I hope you're feeling better now.
A: The doctor said my stomach is getting better.
LJ: Sorry about talking to you about GEOS. I hope I didn't aggravate your condition!
A: Daijoubu.
LJ: You know what the teachers at GEOS used to call the school when I worked there?
A: No, what?
LJ: Giant Exploiting Oppressive System. Get it?
A: (laughing) That's good! What is NOVA?
LJ: "NO VAcations"
A: AEON?
LJ: Another Exploiting Oppressive Network.
A: ECC?
LJ: Ecch!
A: That's funny!
LJ: You should try it. Laughing at those bullies always made me feel better.
A: Sometimes I want to laugh and cry.