I had to leave my first teaching job in Japan because it was 46 hours a week (including breaks, 46 hours total that you have to be at or near the building) and just not enough time to meet basic needs like grocery/school supply shopping, laundry, learning Japanese, reading a book etc. I was literally spending no time at my apartment whatsoever. I held out for 6 months and tried and begged my bosses to give me just 5 less hours per week. They finally relented, but then they completely changed their attitude towards me, so I just resigned.
I know all about the work ethic of Japan, but there’s no way a teaching job that’s 40 hours a week or less could be a rare thing right?
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Depends what you do? When I was an ALT I worked 8:45-16:30, the “lunch break” was eating with kids so not really a break but ending so early was awesome. In eikaiwa I had a minimum availability but I often had myself available in the morning and evening so I could do everything I needed during the day
Generally less money as an ALT but more free time depending on the contract. I was really busy when I worked at AEON over 10 years ago. 46 hours sounds terrible and good you got out of it.
Pretty standard for most teaching jobs. I work at an international school. Same hours. Before eikaiwa and after school also 45h.
I work at an international school, my hours are generally longer, but I get long breaks in the summer and winter to balance it out.
Isn’t that just a normal work week?
8 hours working + 1 hour break x 5 = 45
If you work 8-17 then you’ve got plenty of time for basic needs. If you have a 1 hour commute each way and sleep for 8 hours then that’s still 5 hours a day if my math is right
Hope you don’t aim to work at a Japanese company outside teaching where they expect overtime….
Have you tried GABBA? I hear they have flexible hours. /s
That’s more than manageable.
Maybe re-think how you are allocating your off-days and your planning/time management skills.
I work an average of 44 hours a week (NOT including breaks) and still have plenty of time to do chores, look after my wife and do my hobbies even with 8 hours of sleep a night.
This has to be a troll post i refuse to believe this is a real person
I have my opinion, some or all may make sense for your situation:
Single living, FT, in a foreign country it is *hard* to stay on top of your basic needs across the board, practical, social, emotional, etc. Something gets deprioritized constantly. I have to say, I think that’s just a reality. I’m not advocating a return to the gender norms of our parents generation, but let’s be real, there’s a reason they reached an equilibrium with 1 worker, 1 homemaker. It takes 2 people delegating to make the money and keep up with everything for 1 home. If you can afford to delegate some things like ordering groceries and paying for a cleaner, I think you should consider that.
Aight, so jobbing. I’m not sure exactly how your 46 hours are delegated, nor do I know how well compensated you were relative to the local economy. So, I’ll break my own schedule down instead (Taiwan). My contract hours are 1030 AM – 630 PM. My boss is pretty chill about arriving late and leaving early, so that’s a plus – the downside is that my lunch hour is 12-1 and I’m rarely prepped for a full day of teaching by 12 nor am I particularly hungry 90 minutes (at most) after arriving at work. As a result, I either work through lunch or take a quick break to get a snack 90% of the time. I’m also literally on campus that whole time (except breaks) and if I’m not working*, I’m with the kids.
*Reclaim some of your time. I’m paid to handle my business, and then beyond that, basically be on call. I don’t go above and beyond my expected duties simply because I have to *be* at the school. If I’m ready for class, and my shit is marked and graded, I’m doing my own shit, and being on the job keeps me honest (with myself) about screwing around and watching netflix or playing baldur’s gate. If my boss needs me to do something, cool, she’s paying to have me there for that. If she doesn’t, mums the word.
When you are working 40+ hours, the time you are at work and not at work matters a lot more. I’ve worked 730-430 before (9 hr work day with a lunch) but TBH it was kind of a cake walk. No heavy lifting happened before 9 or 10 and you’re out the door with tons of daylight. On the flipside, I’ve worked jobs where I’m leaving at 11 PM and it fucking blows. Same NUMBER of hours, but way worse across the board in all other aspects. So something to consider, if you’re in cram schools, is literally weigh the practical value of the time you are at work – 6 PM is worth more to me than 1 PM.
Once you’ve been around the block a bit, you sort of know the different options you have available to you, re:time. Like I said, while I’m forced to be at school to do my prep and marking etc. I’m not doing anything I wouldn’t be doing if I wasn’t a salaryman (on a daily basis). This is the biggest hair in the soup when it comes to your time. *I’m basically not doing anything that wouldn’t be expected of me if I was part time teaching.* I get more money for nothing, save that I have to do it at school instead of in my underwear at home. Consider this when trying to compute your working hours with your true working hours.
You gotta set your priorities and commit to them. If you wanna work less, kudos for figuring that out, find a school that needs less and pays less and live within your means – lots of people do it (IDK specifically how easy or difficult that is to do in Japan but I would guess if you were willing to work in the country or the north, you would have options). It might mean going to a different TEFL climate than Japan, again, IDK.
FOR ME, I chose the life of the salaryman, because again, stacking all the pros and cons against one another its what made the most sense to me: more money, same amount of work, less time at home. It is not a consequenceless choice. It just made sense to me, for me. I know lots of free spirits living in 10 person shared housing working 15 hours/week.
Surely a joke? I work 8:15-6:15 five days a week, with an hour for lunch (usually) and have plenty of time to do all I need (and more) Doesn’t show much ambition. Try France. You might only legally have to work 38 hours a week there apparently. Sorry, I have so little sympathy with posts like this when so many people would happily take work.
A standard work week?! OMG, how did you ever survive 6 months?
It’s not rare, but it’s usually not gonna come with full benefits. If you’re cool with hourly pay, you can cobble together a few jobs that pay 4,000+ per hour and make an okay living. Just make sure you budget for unpaid holidays.
I used to have a contract with a juku that paid me the standard ALT wage (25万/month) for 17 hours per week, 3 weeks per month. I added on a once-per week kindergarten gig and some freelance babysitting and did pretty well and had tons of time for my kids. The lack of structure sucked, though.
Hm. Full-time (40 hours of working) tends to be 45 hours at school – as there are 8 hours of work and 1 hour of unpaid lunch.
Is your commute that long? A previous school I was at: awake at 7am, get ready, commute, arrive at 8.15. Workday 8.30-5.30 ~ 8 hours work, 1 hour lunch.
I hit the door at 5.40 and was at home by 7.15pm for grocery shopping, laundry, relaxing. Sleep at midnight. Or I hit the door at 5.40 and was meeting friends at 6.30 for drinks, dinner, etc.
Saturday and Sunday free. All day.
I also worked an office job for a year that was 8-5, so also 8 hrs work, 1 hour lunch. 45 hours at/near the site.
So with the time of 6pm ~ bedtime free each weeknight and 2 weekend days open, I’m unclear as to how a 40 hour a week job is infringing on your life.
Do you live 2+ hours from work?
That’s not even mentioning so far, that I was working a highly traumatic, totally misleading job for a black company that tried pulling illegal shenanigans at one point where I had to stand my ground against them. Eating at the building was very difficult, because you could not throw away food trash in the bins (normal, I know) and if you just hid the trash until you left, they’d smell it and complain. It was really crucial to bring your own lunch to have enough time to prepare for lessons. I can’t even type any more than that because it’s painful to even think about, but that’s not even coming close to scratching the surface of some of the stuff I had to endure at this place. I don’t want to repeat the same type of work environment. I cannot
It is definitely possible, but those jobs aren’t many and you’ll need good qualifications, possibly even being a real teacher 😀
I worked the same schedule before at an Eikaiwa when I first came to Japan. Despite the working hours being fairly normal (40-45 per wek) I also felt totally burned out, and like I had no time for anything. Hell, even when I reduced it to 4 days a week, I still couldnt completely recover from burnout.
I think in all honestly, it can also be the work itself. Some people seem built for Eikaiwa, but if you’re slightly introverted or whatever, it can be even more exhausting putting on an extroverted mask all day. All your time gets used recovering mentally.
So whether it’s the working hours, or the work itself, don’t feel guilty about putting your needs first. These jobs are often completely taking advantage of their foreign workers anyway.
That’s not much. With commuting, including my lunch break, I’m out of the house a total 50 hours a week. That doesn’t include any OT or traffic.
Oh my. 46 hours a week. You’ve gotta be doing slave labor, yeah? I’m working 10- 12 hours a day as a JTE. A job is a job and 40 hours+ is more than normal.
People are probably gonna come in here with their nose up and brag about how they work more or how that’s just the norm here. Don’t let them get to you.
Sadly in 2 years here I’ve just been at work for 48+ hours a week on the low end. I think if you’re gonna make a livable wage, that’s just how it’s gonna be. Your options are limited as a foreigner and it sucks.
By the time I finish work and hit the gym, I’ve got 2 hours or so to eat, play some games and see my hot girlfriend .
Life’s been worse since I changed jobs. I work nights now, my old friends work day shifts. It’s 10 times harder to see people and socialize. I work on saturday until about 9 and that sucks even more.
Make sure you value your free days and socialize enough to not go crazy. Youll probably lose out on sleep to keep up with life, but that might just be the way it goes. dont ever feel guilty about enjoying whatever pleasures in life that make you happy, they are a necessity.
Japan loves overtime. It’s ingrained in the culture, sure. But I think it’s mostly just a case of business owners taking advantage of the Japanese tendency to want to fit in with the group and appear to be a good worker. Pretty messed up if you ask me.
Anything more than 40 is unacceptable but it is true that many people work much more. People at my current non teaching job regularly pull 50+ hour weeks which is just ridiculous. I always say no to overtime and I don’t care if they hate me for it or not.
Why not work as a part timer? When applying for a new job, I told a company that I only wanted to work 3 days a week so I could have enough time for studying. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be hired since the ad said they were looking for a full-timer, but to my surprise they did. They did try to get me to agree to working 4 days a week, but when I said I couldn’t they relented. So I would recommend just be very upfront with what you want. Also, they are going to try to push so definitely give them a lowball number at first like 30 hours or something like that.
I sincerely don’t understand how nearly every single person in this subreddit are apparently just stuck at terrible jobs and then complain as if they were/are forced to work there. I am sure you read the contracts with everything that is stipulated inside, I am sure every single person goes to the same websites to look for work, I am very sure there are much more options with higher wages and better benefits available. But for some reason, its the companies fault because you accepted their terms. I just don’t understand, if you hate the job, look for another job and go there. It really isn’t that hard, I have friends that have been doing that for years; they don’t like an international school or place they are working, they just find another job and go there. “But what about the apartment the company pays for me to live in?” Get your own apartment or just keep working at a place you don’t like until you go back to your country.
There’s 168 hours in a week. You spend 46 at or near work. That leaves 122 hours left in the week.Assume you sleep 8 hours a day, 56 hours a week, That leaves you with 66 hours a week.
What are you doing with your 66 hours a week that its not enough time to at least take care of the basics?
The 40-45 hour workweek, not including a break, is the norm pretty much around the world. You’re not finding too much sympathy in this thread because your workweek looks like a lot of people’s. If you live in an inconvenient place, or if you work for an unethical company, that really does suck, and it sounds a bit like you live in an area that really needs a car to function well. But your work isn’t going to adjust your (pretty standard) work hours because your living conditions are inconvenient.
My recommendation to others reading this thread is to be sure you understand what you’re getting into, and to thoroughly research where a company plans to send you, before accepting a job. There are so many tools to check out an area before moving that there’s just no reason to be surprised about a lack of services in the area your company is sending you to.
I don’t know where you are located but I find the “work culture” lets up a good bit the more rural you get.
Hey dude, lemme tell you a crucial fact, South East Asia Foreign Students work 60 hours or more, but they told me that was not enough tho.
I am an SEAsian too, and to be honest, I used to work 60-70hours per week for live-survival and saving enough cash to prepare for my next semesters.
You are living in Japan you have to follow their culture, work-until-death or just open a company and work as you wished.
I used to live in Japan and trust me, people like you will be isolated. Even a Japanese will look down another Japanese that don’t work-until-death.
You have 2 choices, work or leave! I chose leave cause I want to be different. My 5-year Japanese Experienced was great and terrible at the same time!
So, make your choice bruhh. Good-luck with your journey.
Idk dawg, you’re working in an unskilled industry and 46 hours isn’t that much for Japan’s standards.
Granted. This Thursday is a holiday. This week you get a 40 hour work week.
Lots of people are being quite harsh to the OP, but it’s possible the OP is either very young, or has some other kind of impairment. Nobody counts their lunch time as working time (which the OP is doing), which I think is a strong indication of OP’s naïveté or mental impairment.
OP- if you want to work fewer than 40 hours per week I recommend working as a teaching assistant in a school or as a lecturer in a university. The other alternative is to work part time (i.e. fewer than 40 hours a week). It can be possible to find part time alt/eikaiwa/uni gigs.
The other thing you could consider to improve the amount of free time you have is to try to reduce your commute.
EDIT- OP, do you have a carer in Japan? If so, it’s possible you could get them to help with some of those difficult tasks (shopping, laundry, cleaning, etc) while you’re at work.
Those hours are literally what a full time 8hr day employee puts in. What are you talking about? No wonder they wanted to phase you out.
Most companies in Asian countries don’t count the hour lunch break as part of the working hours, so 45 hour week is the standard most places. I’m sorry but unless you consider part time or a ALT dispatch job, you’re going to have a tough time anywhere.
Switch to ALT, at least you get free time. Eikawa goes nowhere
I don’t know how you guys handle 45 hours .
I work 16 hours , remotely and it drains me. In the last three years I have not worked more than 20 hours . That’s the max, mentally.
That said I’m also a single parent . That’s tough on its own .
This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I think people are getting tired of working for someone 40-45 hours a week and getting paid peanuts. People are freelancing, setting up their own businesses, hustling any way they legally can. The seisha in as we know it will be a thing of the past….
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8 hours of paid work + 1 hour unpaid lunch is pretty standard and is considered to be 40 hours of work, even outside of teaching.
8.30 – 5.30 or 9-6 is what I tend to do and that’s fine. I found when I was teaching that the killer was the late start and finish time of 11.00 – 8.00.
Same number of hours but the timing makes life difficult.
What can you really do in the morning before 11 from a fun perspective? Your friends are all at work, and after work you can hang out for maybe 2 hours once you meet up? No thank you.
its all about context. each country had different atandards.
I think a 35 hour work week is a pretty good balance.
Can you have that in Japan…. 🤔 probably not
Welcome to Japan.
That’s only 6 hours of OT. Hate to break it to you, but that’s working life in general wherever you go.
As other people have said 45 hours in the office is very standard here. Many or maybe even most positions even expect some overtime in addition to that…
But I will go against the grain here and say I also think that it’s a really depressing lifestyle unless you love your job. 45 hours in office plus some 10 hours commuting per week means…well, enjoying life is limited mostly to weekends. And yeah, that sucks. I feel you. The American 9-5 sounds pretty good when I think of it that way.
I’m a parent though so time is so limited for me and I see spending so much time at the office/commuting as such a waste sometimes..
So, like we used to say in high school back in the states…life sucks and then you die, I guess? 😂
yyou may want to move somewhere like Spain if a standard 40 workng week is too much for you or start your own gig to work any hours you want
I think you’re onto something in terms of the creep. There’s ’40 hours’ and then there’s ’40 hours’. FWIW 37.5 is what I’m used to in Australia (7.5 hours a day, which is essentially 40 once you factor in a lunch hour).
Eikaiwa’s good at cramping your personal time though. Dunno how to quantify it but if (for example) you’re required to be there 15-30 minutes early, your ‘lunch’ (or dinner) is a 30min gap (which your hours encroach upon) and there’s a lot of travel then it’s not like ‘9-5 in an office, with the occasional meeting, walk around the block, coffee chat…etc’. It can feel much more like a 50-60 hour week. Particularly when you work until 9pm one night, then work from 9am the next morning with no rest between any of your classes (for example).
It’s tiring work and IMO this is why it’s best suited for gap years. You can only be young and energetic for so long.
please do not call this work ethic. It is not. It is employer wanting to control you for most of the time, and that is it.
dude, 40 hours is reasonable, gotta have time for life outside work, ya know?
Are you single? If so this is nonsense.
I work full time with two kids and do just fine. I certainly have less free time, but it’s not nearly as dire as you make it out to be.
I’m gonna just say you have poor time management skills.