Details of the job

I just finished reading over the contract and rules and regulations. OK, so here's what WinBe entails and how it compares to NOVA:

My paychecks at NOVA were all over the place. The last three months I was in Japan I worked a ton of overtime and my paychecks reflected that. For the first 9 months I was there, I think I missed at least one day of work each month though, so those paychecks also reflected that. When all was said and done I made 2,623,605 yen that year. Because I left NOVA halfway through January and only started getting paid on the 9th or 10th of February 2006, I was almost a full month short of a year in days actually worked. OK, so if I count that 2,623,605 as 11 months it's about 238,500 yen a month. That's the number I'll use for comparison.

So WinBe pays 250,000 each month, but the hours are worse. I was only on a 34 hour week at NOVA and it'll be a full 40 at WinBe. Not actually 40 though since I think an hour for lunch is included in that 40. On the positive side, I'll either get Saturday/Sunday or Sunday/Monday off instead of Wednesday/Thursday like I had at NOVA. Having Friday and Saturday night off makes a huge difference in your options.

The school I get assigned to will pay 20,000 for my moving costs and if I stay until the end of my contract, I'll get a 100,000 yen bonus (assuming I don't miss more than 7 days of work outside of regular holidays).

At NOVA, I got two weeks of vacation time. That sucked cock. Big hard cock. I'll get somewhere around 5 weeks at WinBe, but I can't choose the time off. I get Christmas/New Year's off, Golden Week (a Japanese holiday in May) and Obon (in August).

Unlike at NOVA, I'll be expected to contribute to sales. This may be one of the worst parts of this new job. Plus, WinBe has a lame incentive thing where if you get 30 new students to sign up, they give you another bonus of 100,000 yen. I can already see how lame that's going to be. Acting like I really want these timid Japanese house wives to sign a contract because English is fun. Shit like that. Oh man I don't want to do that.


Actually, the more I look over this contract the more it looks just like NOVA and the more I don't want to say 'yes.' I recently gave Bruce good advice which was to go ahead and say 'yes' to NOVA and then if he hears back from a better company, just write them an email saying you changed your mind. I think that's how I might handle this. Write WinBe back, say I would love to work there, and then just pretend like that didn't happen if Interac calls me back. Hmmmm....

Hmmmm... do I go back to Japan?

I received the following email this morning:

Dear Mr.Egan,

I enjoyed speaking with you and believe that you would be quite successful
as an instructor at WinBe. Therefore, we would like to offer you a teaching
position.

I have attached a copy of a sample contract, along with a copy of our rules
and regulations. Please read over them carefully and provide us with an
answer by September 3rd.

If you have any questions or concerns, you may call us at ## #### #### or
send me an email to this address.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
----- ---------
Human Resources
WinBe English School

Sooooooo... return to Japan or not? If anyone has any advice one way or the other feel free to let me know. I changed the settings for this blog and now you don't have to be a registered member to post comments. I think.

Is 10:30 AM JST good for you?

I applied to the WinBe School in Japan at some point before August 20th. I think I submitted a resume through Gaijinpot, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I got an email on the 20th from someone at WinBe asking me when would be a good time to call for a quick chat on the phone. I told her any weekday between 2 and 6pm would be best. She wrote me back informing me that in Japan that's between 3 and 7am and their school wasn't open during those hours. Ah. I asked when the school WAS open. She said between 9:00pm and 6:30am, EST. I'm usually asleep by 9:30 now (the payoff is that I get to watch the sunrise), but I figured I could tough it out for one night. So I got an email from WinBe on Sunday night (Monday morning in Japan) telling me to expect a call on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning in Japan).

Not much to report really. The phone call went fine, much like the one with Geos did. The woman I spoke with obviously hadn't seen my resume. She wanted to know, in three adjectives, what my old students in Japan would say about me. I went with 'patient, dedicated, and kind' instead of 'sex-driven, alcoholic, and fueled by rage.' I thought using 'kind' was a good choice since most students I had in Japan described everything as 'kind' thanks to their limited vocabularies. She asked me to scan and forward her a letter of recommendation which isn't a problem. The earliest I can be in Japan through them is late November. It takes a minimum of 2 to 3 months to get my visa paperwork sorted out. When asked for a location preference (this school has branches throughout Japan and will probably look a lot like NOVA did) I gave southern Honshu or Kyushu as an answer. She told me that the only branch they were hiring for right now was Saitama and I told her Saitama sounded magical.


I don't know much about Saitama but it's a large city and about 45 minutes from Tokyo. It would put me closer to my old roommate David, who has returned to Japan and now works in Tochigi. The picture above is a view of Mt. Fuji from the area.

I don't know if this is going to lead to anything but unless Interac calls me back soon, it looks like my only serious lead.

Confrontation online and disheartening results

So I was a little hurt after receiving that email from Geos. Getting rejected by the two least competitive schools in Japan doesn't do wonders for your confidence. I mean, I did a bang-up job in Japan, so why the lack of love now? I was determined to at least get an honest answer out of Geos so I wrote them the following email:

Dear Mr. Avoine:

While I understand the need for a non-specific rejection, I simply refuse to believe that you wouldn't be interested in additional teachers. I am aware of the problems that all of the English conversation schools have in keeping fully staffed. Given the demand in Japan for native speakers and the unfortunate insufficient supply, it would make sense to at least keep my application on file for a time when positions became available.

I have just received a similar rejection from NOVA, for whom I worked for a year. I believe that someone from Geos called NOVA to inquire about my employment there and someone from NOVA said something untrue. I state it again: untrue.

I had a wonderful working relationship with everyone at NOVA, none more so than the students, but for one incident with a superior who was very rude to me, repeatedly, and who received similar treatment from me on one occasion. I refuse to believe that someone as qualified as I am (with a year of experience in Japan already) wouldn't be able to make your final cut.

I would love the opportunity to explain the situation that I was unfortunately a part of in Japan, especially as... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

To which Mr. Avoine promptly responded:

Dear Mr Egan

Thank you for your message.

No-one from the GEOS office contacted Nova regarding your application or history with them. That is something we reserve for the final stages of the hiring process, not at this stage of screening. And, I almost hate to add, they would not be a source we would take very seriously anyway.

Once again, thank you for your interest in GEOS. I wish you the best in securing a suitable position in Japan.

Sincerely,

Michel Avoine
Recruitment/Training Coordinator
GEOS Language Corporation, Vancouver

Ouch. I made sure to follow-up with an apology for my accusation and thanked him like a good little applicant. Damn. I guess I just got rejected. Daniela and I came up with a bunch of great reasons why they might not have wanted me, but it doesn't really matter.

So! I've been applying to other jobs in Japan (there is no lack of schools looking for teachers) but I feel very underwhelming as an applicant. I asked my friend Sunshine (a NOVA co-worker) who she returned to Japan through and she gave me the names of two companies that place ALTs: Altia and Interac. I applied to Interac and got an encouraging response. In addition, I've been applying to jobs through Gaijinpot, which feels like the English teacher's Monster.com. And just like Monster.com I expect a whole lotta nothing from them. One nice part of applying through Gaijinpot is that they send you an automatically-generated email after you send your online resume to someone. It confirms that you applied for job #12345 and it tells you how many other resumes have been sent for that same job. I found four jobs that sounded good and found out that 7, 159, 20, and 57 other resumes had already been sent. SIGH. Looking for a job sucks.

A conspiracy!

Dear Mr Egan

Thank you for your interest in a position with GEOS in Japan.

Your application was reviewed by the hiring officer for your area. I regret that the application was unsuccessful and the officer declined to proceed with a formal interview. Please understand that we receive nearly 5,000 applications every year for about 200-250 positions, so competition for these positions can be very severe.

Once again, thank you for considering GEOS. I wish you the best in your future endeavours.

Sincerely,

Michel Avoine
Personnel Coordinator
GEOS Language Corporation, Vancouver

What a bunch of bitter little bitches they have at NOVA! I had a phone interview yesterday with someone at Geos and today they sent me this email. I'm still interested in returning to Japan but now I have be a little bit more clever about it. I have to either pretend like I never worked for NOVA or I have to apply to a place that's not gonna call them and check up on me.

It's a challenge!

oooOOOh SNAP!

NOVA was taking its sweet time in getting back to me, so last night I thought I'd confront them with an email. I mailed the Boston office this:


NOVA Recruiting Group:

I haven't heard back from anyone and I was wondering where we were in the application process. Is there any additional information you need from me?

Hope all is well,

Benjamin Egan


They replied by early this morning with:


August 8, 2007

Dear Mr.Egan,

Thank you for your re-application with Nova Corporation. Re-employment is based on previous work evaluations. Your personnel file was reviewed in Japan and the Boston Office was informed that we are unable to consider you for re-employment.

The Nova Corporation Boston Office team would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best in your job search in the future.


Sincerely,


Nova Group Boston
535 Boylston St, Ste 204
Boston, MA 02116
617-437-7977


OH!! I had no real desire to return to NOVA but now, with a Geos application in the works, I'm worried that someone is gonna call NOVA and they're gonna badmouth me. I have no doubt that I got rejected thanks to this conversation. Oh well. I sent another email to the Boston office just a minute ago asking for an explanation. Honesty would be awesome. I'd love to post it.

Housekeeping on a Tuesday

I uploaded the rest of the pictures that Luke and I took in Nepal and India. It took me 2 months, but I got around to it.

I'm also putting them in chronological order and adding comments so they make a little bit more sense.

Important Anniversaries

Where were you 62 years ago? I've given it a lot of thought and we were wrong. We never should have dropped those bombs. Conventional wisdom aside, Japan wasn't prepared to fight any longer. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey corroborates this. According to McClain, the army estimates of a 1,000,000 US casualties upon invasion were completely made up. The real estimates produced put the number closer to 30,000.

Some also defend Hiroshima on the grounds that between 80,000 and 200,000 died in the Tokyo fire bombings of the previous year. Those were conventional weapons and the number killed was significantly larger than Hiroshima's 140,000. Far more than Nagasaki's 74,000. They were unnecessary deaths. That's why it was wrong.

Japanese gameshows are brilliant

Game show clips of Silent Library, Human Tetris 1, Human Tetris 2, and the Hot Water/Tits Game.

In the Hot Water/Tits Game they announce that the water is 51 degrees Celsius, which is about 124 in Fahrenheit.

Having kids? Teach 'em self-control for the best results

Found this article online. Since a lot of my friends are getting engaged, married, and knocked up now, let me weigh in with some child-rearing advice. According to the link above, children who are able to exercise self-control are more likely to get better SAT scores in high school, be less likely to have drug addiction problems at 32 and be less likely to become bullies.

GEOS' reply on August 1, 2007

I got this today from GEOS:

Dear Mr Egan

Thank you for your interest in GEOS.

We need to collect a little more information to complete your application before forwarding it for final review. Please call between 9am and 5 pm (Pacific Time) by August 7th (Tuesday). Please note that our office will be closed for a public holiday on August 6th. The call will take approximately 5-10 minutes. Our toll-free number is 1-877-584-4367.

I have also attached a document which may answer some of your questions about working for GEOS in Japan. Please take the time to read it before placing the call. Your Application ID number is ##-###. Finally, please note that the four main recruitment centers in North America are New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, and Vancouver. We will also be recruiting in Dallas in October. We regret that no interviews are held outside of these locations.

We look forward to hearing from you.

I'll make the call when I'm good and ready. Am I really ready to return to Japan?