I worked at an eikaiwa for a few years before and honestly it was mostly positive. Most of my coworkers were so nice and I met so many interesting people (staff, clients, students, etc). We had such a nice team and we had teachers who were both young and old from around the world. Not only that, my schedule was quite busy too. I was almost completely booked at times and after the first two years I was bringing in over 300k a month and working 5 days a week (around 8-9 hours).
I also enjoyed the flexibility which my current job at a university no longer offers. I’d just take random unpaid holidays during the weekdays which was really nice. I friended some really interesting (and very rich) people who would take me out to drink outside of work.
There were some downsides, too. We had crappy managers from time to time. We also had some bad clients come in and sometimes it was just downright boring. One common complaint I’ve found is that the instructors are “replaceable”. While this is *often* the case, there are exceptions. We had clients who quite literally quit after their favorite instructor left. Some students would come and talk about their old instructors and ask the staff members if they’d ever return.
I think the entire eikaiwa business has some serious issues (low pay, bad management, etc). But, has anyone else had a positive experience they look fondly back on? Even though my current job pays so much better, from time to time, I still miss it and all of my old coworkers.
by [deleted]
