It’s been 6 months since I came home from Japan. It’s probably safe now to announce the semi-obvious: yes, I worked for NOVA. I didn’t have a pleasant time. This wasn’t because of the students, I might add. I had a great time getting to know them and befriending them, and I still keep in contact with a group of them.

No, what gave me the irrits was the extremely corporate nature of NOVA. And yes, it’s a corporation, with an aim to make profit. But there is such a thing as ethical profiteering, as well as corporate social behaviour. NOVA is an example of why the stock exchange is evil. Before I even arrived in Japan, the share price for NOVA had been dropping. Then in May this year, it was announced that NOVA was expecting a net loss of 3 billion yen (about US$30,000,000) due to expanding the number of branches to the point where each school was fighting not to lose students to another NOVA branch. All this resulted in NOVA trying to save money and make money any way it could, just to make the shareholders happy.

It was simply stupid business management. NOVA had a number of “satellite” schools that were staffed by teachers and admin from the main school in the area. These satellite schools would have a very small number of students, be open only a few days a week and would cost more in rent and overheads than the income received from the students.

Did you ever hear that story about how McDonalds refuses to close any stores? At best, they will relocate them, but never close them down, because it looks “bad” to the general public. Well, NOVA seemed to have much the same policy, despite the obvious losses they were incurring.

The large number of schools meant that they were always understaffed, and would basically hire any monkey who had scrapped through a year of college. The teachers were often disgruntled, due to some of the illegal activities and bizarre policies that NOVA perpetuated, as well as the constant overtime pushed onto them, whatever personal gripes they had with Japan and finally the stress that radiated off the Japanese staff.

My gods, I felt sorry for the Japanese staff. They would sometimes receive the treatment that some students received and get heckled by some teachers. They were under a huge amount of stress to get the numbers of sales up, keep the teachers well informed and the student customers happy. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with them for the world.

At one point, NOVA announced it was cutting back on all expenses in branches except paper, cleaning products and light fixtures. It went one step further at my school, where the Japanese staff were desperate to get some savings on the books - they stopped providing plastic garbage bags for the bin lining. The teachers were asked to fork up 1000 yen of their own money, per month, to cover the things like garbage bags, pens, paper and whiteboard markers that NOVA would no longer supply.

We told them to go stuff themselves.

One of the Japanese staff ended up paying for it all out of her own pocket.

NOVA did not give a shit about it’s stakeholders: the staff, teachers and students - the people who actually made it operate and turn a dollar. Instead, NOVA milked them all dry to appease the shareholder. Even to the point of illegal activities that are now being fought by the General Workers Union.

Another well-known example is NOVA accomodation. Oh gods. If it wasn’t for the Accomodation section, I would’ve perhaps worked there for longer. Lies, lack of answers, refusal to answer calls, rudeness, avoiding all the issues that tenants may bring up. THEN overcharging them. If you ever choose to work for NOVA, fine. But don’t live in their apartments. It will save you untold amounts of stress and frustration.

I completely understand that NOVA exists only to make a profit, not to provide gaijin with a cheap holiday. But anyone with basic business knowledge can tell you that their methods of operation were on the extremely dodgy side. If you want students to buy more tickets, then make sure that they can use the ones they already have, at the times that they want. What’s that? Don’t have enough teachers to fill the demand of lessons? They all seem to be quitting? Well, maybe you should try and keep your teachers happy with their jobs, by giving them the basic tools and training that they need. Don’t throw them in the deep end. Don’t make life difficult for them back in their apartments. And don’t tell them that they lack company spirit and threaten them with degrading their reports when instead you could be listening to their gripes and trying to fix them.

I’m convinced that the shareholder-over-stockholder nature of NOVA was what caused the awful behaviour I witnessed in some teachers. I met a large number of assholes whilst working for NOVA. But I did also meet the loveliest people. Teachers and students. There are good guys in NOVA and you don’t always have to look hard for them. I’d say that they’re better people than me, because they have more patience and will take being raped anally repeatedly without any lubricant.

When I announed to the students that I was leaving Japan and heading home, they threw me a great farewell party. I was given gifts and told that I was the favourite teacher of many students in the branch.

Damn, that made me feel vindicated. For the last 10 months, NOVA had been telling me that I wasn’t doing enough and had to put up, shut up and get on with it. Keep complaining and they’ll have to downgrade my “company spirit” mark, as if I were still in freaking high school. But I was a good teacher. I knew I was a damn good teacher. That’s why all the people I keep in touch with from Japan are my old students, and none of my old work colleagues.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to say that I will no longer be writing for the Teach section of 3yen. There’s not a lot for me to write now that I’m home, and most of what I could write would be secondhand anyway. I’ll still be around on other sections of the site, so please keep reading. There’ll be a new blogger here before long, with all the latest news, gossip and advice for teaching in Japan, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope I was entertaining and informative for you.

Ja ne.

EDIT: Unfortunately I deleted the original post, so this is a rewrite from memory. I don’t think I’ve left any information out. Sorry for the inconvenience.

CASH!

You’ll need quite a lot of cash on you when you arrive in Japan so you can survive to see your first paycheck. Eikaiwa won’t pay you for your month’s work until the next month. Personally, I think this is to avoid people taking a week’s salary and running away to get a better job. You will need at least ¥120,000 but that might not be enough, depending on the accomodation you’ll have.

Eikaiwa often lease out apartments to their teachers and don’t require upfront rent or key money. Some will require a deposit (which is like a bond) which is refunded if you can meet all the rules and leave the apartment in the same condition as you arrived. These apartments are fairly well furnished and rent is automatically deducted from your salary, so these are an easy way to start life in Japan.

Privately owned apartments, on the other hand, aren’t so flexible. You will need to pay up to two months’ rent in advance, a deposit which is usually 1-2 months’ worth of rent and finally, if you live in Tokyo, you’ll have to pay what is called “key money”. This can be yet another 2 months’ worth of rent and isn’t refundable. In some cases key money can be negotiated or not payable at all, but as a newcomer to Japan, you might not too successful swaying your landlord.

Alternatively, you may be in a gaijin house, which is essentially a boarding house for foreigners. These will require a deposit and sometimes rent up-front. The rent can be slightly higher than a private apartment but they are basically furnished and might have some bonuses like free internet and cable TV.

In the above two cases, you may need closer to ¥240,000. It is best to take this money in Yen cash or travellers cheques in Yen currency. Travellers cheques are hard for banks to exchange in any other currency, although you may be able to change the cheques as soon as you touch down in Japan.

Using credit cards may prove frustrating until you settle down. This is because not all ATMs accept international credit cards. The ones that do only exist in large cities. So, make sure you have cash to live on when yuo touch down. Yes, this means that you’ll be carrying around large quantities of money. Get used to it, it happens in Japan all the time. Just as well there’s a low crime rate, eh?

The rest of your money will be spent on food and groceries for your first month to six weeks, a rail pass, a mobile phone, the items you forgot to pack or couldn’t carry, and so on. You will probably be living to a very tight budget in your first few months, but it is possible to survive. Obviously, the more you take with you, the easier the living.

This post will be an ongoing work in progress, because I’m sure I’ll learn more about just how much is needed in your first month in Japan as I actually go through that first month.

Firstly, though, I should mention costs you may experience in your home country while you are overseas. I have a few of them, unfortunately. You have two options when you leave: you can sell all your wordly belongings minus the suitcase or two full you’ll take with you to Japan. Or, more likely if you plan on staying only a year, you can leave your belongings somewhere safe. If you have a nice friend or family member to look after your things, great! Just be sure to catalogue your items and get the babysitter something nice as a thankyou gift.

If you don’t have someone lovely to help you out, you’ll have consider secure storage. This can vary in price depending on how big a space you require and whether you want additional insurance on your belongings (recommended). I’ve been quoted on a space 2m x 2m x 2m at $150 per calendar month. Keep in mind that is an Australian quote. I’ve had to cull a lot of my belongings to fit into that space, too. My poor DVD collevction was sold at less than half what I bought it for *sob* and most of my electronics are gone too.

Other things you may need to pay for (and therefore need to budget for) while you are in Japan include: car registration and insurance (you never know if may tree land on your car while you’re gone!), loan repayments, your mortgage (if you have one), home security and so on. If you want to return to your life in your home country just as you left it, you may be paying two sets of monthly expenses. One for your life in Japan, and one to maintain your life at home.

If you want your family and friends to be able to contact you easily and cheaply while you’re gone, you can introduce them to the internet! But it’s possible that you won’t have easy access to the internet while in Japan, or your family and friends don’t have internet access at home. In that case, a mobile (or cell) phone will help you out. Many providers will set up a system where people in your home country can call your mobile phone in Japan for the same cost as if you were still at home. The difference would be payable by you in Japan. Quite often though, if anyone in Japan rang your mobile, they would pay for a call to your home country, even though you and your mobile is in Japan! It’s an expensive system and not efficient if you want to be contactable by people in Japan, but it can provide ease of mind to your family and friends back home. Just make sure that they don’t call you evertime they have a flat tyre or when the pet budgie dies.

Alternatively, if you have the internet in Japan but your family and friends don’t, you can set up a Skype In account. For a fixed annual fee (30 Euro at time of publishing), Skype will set up a phone number in your home area. Whenever somebody calls it (for the cost of a local call, presuming they are in the same area code) then you can answer the call at your computer in Japan. If you’re not at your computer, the caller can leave a voicemail message.

Next time, I’ll post about the things you’ll have to pay for in Japan before you start receiving your salary.