Okay I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. I’m an English teacher living in Tokyo. Have worked in the same school for the same company for about 4 years now. Across Japan and over 1,500 schools my school is in the top 3 for earning in the whole company. Within my school I am also the highest level amongst the teachers, only my school director being above me and of course, all the kids love me. To my eyes, I’m doing my job very well.
I expressed some discomfort earlier this year and a request to change school. (School is too small, too many kids and I need to do training of new staff members, I didn’t believe that school or environment could facilitate training).
I was told a report was made about it and someone would be in contact with me soon to discuss the matter. (Let’s call this man JOHN)
My colleague and school director have a fight and she reports it, she is awarded 2 weeks of paid leave to recoup, contacted immediately by HR and JOHN and then given different career opportunities inside the company. I have still not yet been contacted.
She returns to work and is being checked up on by HR and JOHN and tells me in one of the phone calls that JOHN is referring to me as “あのかっこいい外人”. He doesn’t even know my name. I’m still not contacted.
4 months pass by and my school director comes and tells me that two people from head quarters are coming to talk to my colleague and me. I tell him I do not wish to speak with them, that ship has sailed. They still didn’t even ask if I wanted a meeting or apologize that I’ve been neglected for 4 months waiting for any support.
They come and speak with my colleague first, this goes on for a while before she comes out and says “they said they’re ready for you now”.
They sent my colleague to fetch me, they still have not even introduced themselves. So of course I refuse to speak with them. After about 30 mins of asking my colleague to convince me and my school director to convince me to talk to them (I refused) they eventually left.
My school director has now received an email from HQ stating how terrible and disrespectful I am and have instructed him to ask me “what day I plan on quitting”. As far as I know, asking that question is illegal. Pressuring someone to quit is illegal and this is definitely power harassment.
So after this I sent an official report about it and have a zoom meeting tomorrow to discuss what’s happened (with an entirely unrelated person, but still works for the company).
Obviously they have no real reason to fire me because my school is a huge success, I could file for unfair dismissal.
Does anyone know if pressuring someone to quit is illegal in Japan? And what law that is? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long read, I hope it was somewhat entertaining.
12 comments
As far as I am aware, it’s not illegal to pressure someone to quit, at least within reason. Madogiwazoku exists for a reason, all that. I’m not a lawyer, though.
And I’m sorry, but why were you being so particularly belligerent? Yeah they took ages to get around to you, but that stuff happens. The case with the woman you were talking about was also far more urgent – if it was harrasment, as it sounds it was, they need to act as fast as possible to stop it. Both for the victim and to protect themselves. It’s not like they were snubbing you, that situation required immediate action. As far as they were aware, unless you repeatedly and vehemently called for action in your case, they likely assumed you were happy to keep on trucking until something naturally came up for you.
What upset you so much that you snubbed people from HQ like that? I’m sorry to say, but without a valid reason that was massively immature and a very, very bad decision to make.
So you refused to speak with your superiors at HQ and are surprised they want to fire you? Are you irreplaceable?
Asking you to quit isn’t illegal. Can they fire you for insubordination? Not really, but it is one step in their favor along the long path.
It sounds like you are good at your job, but not in a field that you are not irreplaceable/expendable. Could you not have swallowed your pride and met with them?
If you want to stay, tell them no and don’t sign anything. Otherwise, you can then work your mutual separation and severance.
I think what rubbed me the wrong way is that I thought I was doing things properly, then for the person who got a report from me and supposed to support me didn’t even know my name a week after getting this report. They didn’t know my reasoning, only that I wanted to change school but never bothered to check why, for all they knew my case could have been harassment from the same SD.
Why was I neglected?. We have an in company messaging system everything is done through and it’s as easy as sending me an email and I got nothing for almost half a year. I’ll follow up on the harassment anyway but thanks for your help!
> I expressed some discomfort earlier this year and a request to change school.
…
> 4 months pass by and my school director comes and tells me that two people from head quarters are coming to talk to my colleague and me.
So, what were you doing for the 4 months after initially informing them you would like a change of school? Did you follow up, and what were their responses after, say, the first week… or the second… third… fourth… sixth… eight… tenth… (?)
> I tell him I do not wish to speak with them, that ship has sailed. They still didn’t even ask if I wanted a meeting or apologize that I’ve been neglected for 4 months waiting for any support.
Sounds like, after 4 months, you now no longer wish change schools anymore?
What exactly were you hoping to achieve by not talking to them?
I really can’t quite figure out what is it that you want, or expect.
You have to remember that most eikaiwa, especially the big ones, are run like fast food joints.
You might make the best looking hamburgers in record time, but all management cares about is that the branch is making money and the customers aren’t complaining too much.
John had probably never heard of you until this incident, so it’s not surprising he never bothered to learn your name.
The people from HQ are working their hardest to not be involved in the day to day runnings of the branches. Coming out to talk to you was actually a big thing, and you snubbing them showed that you didn’t want to bother trying to rectify the situation. (Forget whether or not that’s true. In the HQ guys eyes, it’s true.)
Finally, you need to remember that in eikaiwa, the best, most popular teacher in not only the branch, but the entire company, could be replaced in a moment. Students that like you will talk for a while about how their favorite teacher is gone, but after a couple of weeks, they’ll be settled right back into their study routine with the next かっこいい外人先生.
Not trying to be harsh, but 15 years of experience in the industry has given me a good understanding of how things work.
Once you get out of teaching, you’ll look back and wonder why you put up with it for so long.
Unfortunately you seem to consider yourself as being more important than you actually are to the company. Its a big eikaiwa. You are replacable at the drop of a hat, sure the replacement may not be as good as you but the company doesnt care. Your attitude at the meeting has now alienated you unfortunately. Time to move on and if you are as good a teacher as you have stated, time to get a better teaching job where you are appreciated.
It sucks that they didn’t get back to you or take more interest in your request, but I think you need to consider that it’s an eikaiwa and no matter how good you are, you are most likely replaceable. No point being stubborn in the world of eikaiwa if you want to keep your job. Also, why didn’t you reach other again during these 4 months?
They took the time to address your concern. You didn’t take the opportunity to sell yourself or confront them. Your fault.
Honestly, read back what you wrote yourself and pretend it isn’t you. It sounds like a lot of self sabotaging and entitlement. I cannot understand why you’d be that difficult and refuse to SPEAK to people. You know you could have heard them out and then picked your battle based on that right?
No-self awareness. He has worked at a SMALL school for 4 years and is the second ranked teacher. Yet he thinks he is wonderful! Lol
You’re not a valuable and experienced educator with a long history at a school. You are literally “that cool looking foreigner” likely with no qualifications working an entry level job at a completely unregulated tutoring business.
Sounds like you severely overplayed a hand you don’t have and don’t understand that there’s no real difference between you and a younger, even more cool looking, fresh off the boat foreigner that the managers would be happy to replace you with.
Sounds like someone came to Japan with main character syndrome and is about to find out just how replaceable they actually are.