Yeah this post is going to seem like I am talking down to everyone, and I am not….this is genuine advice
I was a dispatch ALT for 5 years, and then I became a JTE (went to college in Japan, took the required courses, got a teaching license in country, got hired as a regular teacher)
However, because I used to be an ALT at the dispatch company that my local BoE uses, I have been the one put in charge of handling the shit with that company….nothing major, I just receive phone calls if there were schedule changes and so on.
Also, once in a while I go to trainings where the ALTs and JTEs mix, and because I used to be an ALT I still know a lot of the ALTs at those trainings.
Well I got a phone call Friday from the BoE, because an ALT at a local school here comes in late every single day, like 1st period starts at 8:25 and they walk into the building at 8:25.
The JTE complained and she said two things.
1. My dispatch company has never complained to me about it.
2. My official start time is listed as 8:20 on my sheet so even if I *am* late, it’s only a couple minutes.(as if that somehow makes it ok)
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Now the reason they called me to tell me about that story is that it isn’t the first time something like this has happened. So they asked me, as a former employee of said dispatch company how I feel about them, and if it might not be a bad idea to contract with a different dispatch company. (contract renewal conversations usually happen around this time of year here)
Of course I said don’t drop the contact, because at the end of the day any dispatch company out there is going to have roughly the same quality of ALTs and chances are the new company who landed the contract would just cherry pick all the ALTs who wanted to stay from the old company anyway.
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So….what is the point of this long winded post….the point is
1. Whether or not you think your salary is fair, or your work responsibilities are ‘important’ you are the one who signed the contract, took the job, and moved overseas to do it. No one forced you to be an ALT, and your compensation was no secret before you came here.
2. You were hired individually by the dispatch company, but all of the ALTs working in a BoE with the exception of 1-2 direct hires, got hired as a package by the BoE, so your dumbass actions can result in 50-60 people losing their jobs.
3. If you want to work the time that is written on your contract, exactly as it is written….that is fine, that is within your rights….but Japanese work culture is not that way…so do not expect to have a smooth experience at work. Whether or not you agree with Japanese work culture is your personal business, but your opinion is going to change nothing. If you don’t plan on having anything other than a working relationship with the JTEs at your school….cool, but if you want something more you are going to have to compromise a bit.
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Now if anyone has made it this far, I will add in one more….I am not writing this to speak down from atop the hill now….I am writing this because I never bothered learning about the business at all when I was an ALT, and if I knew that the actions of a few dipshits in my company could have potentially lost me my job I would have been furious.
I know there are tons of good ALTs, and I firmly believe that ALTs are ‘teachers’ (if they want to be) I think it is an important job, and even though I am an American I use my ALT at school as much as possible, because a quick word of praise from an ALT, or an honest reaction to something a student said in English has a much bigger impact on them then something from me, because they see me everyday and in their eyes I’m not really an American anymore.
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So yeah, even if you don’t give a shit about your own work, think about the students and other ALTs around you.
38 comments
I sort of agree – the pay sucks but you should at least show up on time. You already get more free time/less stress than 95% of workers out there. You don’t need to take ALTing seriously (because it’s not serious) – but at least do the bare minimum and use your free time to get credentials/qualifications or switch to a better career
Yeah. I have met plenty of alts that believe their job is just to be a bit of a clown. Watching their classes is embarrassing. On the other hand, I’ve met some great people who work their socks off. They tend to be the older ones.
It’s my opinion that doesn’t matter what your job is, you should aim to be the best at that job. Take it seriously.
In general, hard work pays off.
Tbf there are instances of dispatch companies completely lying about the job and switching contracts when someone arrives in Japan and a variety of overpriced services they provide. Don’t expect too much when the dispatch companies are leeching as much money as they can from ALTs.
It makes a difference on what kind of contract the BoE made with the dispatch company.
If it is a 業務委託 contract, the teachers and principal can’t say anything to the ALT. They can’t give them orders. The school has to contact the company, and the company gives the ALT orders.
A 派遣 contract is different but those are more rare. BoEs tend not to sign those contracts with companies b cause they don’t want to take any responsibility for the ALTs.
Tell the BoEs to hire directly if they want more input into what time their ALTs arrive.
Oh, and ALTS:
Join a union to fight for your rights as workers.
Tokyo: [Tozen Union](https://tozenunion.org/)
Osaka: [General Union](https://generalunion.org/)
Both unions have members all over the country.
Some good advice, I would just note that
>Whether or not you agree with Japanese work culture is your personal business, but your opinion is going to change nothing.
True. But I also think many BoEs have gotten much better about ensuring that the support staff are not expected to work outside of their contracted hours. I think any school will be happy when an ALT (or other support staff) pitches in extra, but I don’t think it is expected quite that much.
I agree.
I’m all for people going on strike and demanding higher pay etc but at the end of the day, it’s a shitty job you decided to do. Calculate whether it would be better to spend 3 years begging for (an unlikely) pay raise of 200,000 to 250,000 or whether to spend those 3 years getting solid skills that can help you seek better employment.
At the same time, you sound like you’re becoming a bootlicker OP.
Pay shit wages expect shit workers 🤷 Those of us who are competent don’t take alt positions because they pay below poverty line and dock your pay for missing classes even if you have cancer or fall into a coma. Also your post came across as absolutely condescending 👍
Don’t wholly disagree, but can’t some of these points go both ways? You can’t find the cheapest possible option available, invest no additional resources, and then complain about quality issues as if you didn’t create an environment that’s practically designed to produce the worst possible employee pool. (“You” here being the folks deciding dispatch contracts, not you OP specifically)
Prepare to get downvoted into oblivion for daring to suggest that people arrive a little early for work. I made a similar post earlier this year when someone asked for tips on working in Japan, and I got a massive number of downvotes for daring to point out that in Japan “15 minutes early is on time”.
Lots of cultures differ in perceptions of time. In many parts of the world it is quite acceptable to arrive an hour after the agreed time and still be considered “on time”. In other parts of the world “on time” is considered a little before the agreed time. It’s cultural.
I really wonder at all the people who come to live in a foreign culture, stubbornly refuse to budge an inch on basic workplace courtesy, and then wonder why they’re unsuccessful and aren’t fitting in.
>Whether or not you think your salary is fair, or your work responsibilities are ‘important’ you are the one who signed the contract, took the job, and moved overseas to do it. No one forced you to be an ALT, and your compensation was no secret before you came here.
A few years ago, I would have agreed with you, but I think that nowadays it’s easy to get demotivated under the working conditions that dispatch companies provide. Some of the things written in contracts / working regulations are so egregious that it makes me wonder who fell asleep at the Labor Standards Inspection Office. One month notice period to use your paid leave? Mandatory drug testing policy? Performing online work for your company while at your school or outside of working hours? Yeah, I don’t remember being told those things before I signed up.
The pay is simply incommensurate for the work that ALTs provide. Not all contracts are unstable. Some companies retain contracts for years thanks to the hard work of dedicated instructors, but aside from enjoying job stability in a notoriously volatile industry, what do these instructors receive?
nothing….
It’s also a bit complicated because dispatch ALTs have the ability to become indefinite term employees and have retained all of their union rights thus far. Direct hire ALTs are fiscal year appointees whose job semantically disappears and reappears every year, conveniently excluding them from ever achieving any form of permanent employment; they also no longer have the right to engage in collective bargaining or strike.
The grass isn’t always greener, and this problem is much more complicated than it seems. Should the ALT you mentioned take his or her job more seriously? Sure.
But where’s the quality training? Where’s the recognition for hard work? Where’s the government keeping these companies accountable for their unfair labor practices? Nobody expects to get rich as an ALT, but can these companies at least follow the law?
Off topic, how long does it take to get the teaching license in Japan?
I’ve tried to get the special teaching license from Hiroshima BOE but I couldn’t pass the interview. They thought someone wrote my lesson plan….. they asked me if I have any relatives working in Japan as a public school teacher…..
I felt really down after that because I wrote that lesson plan base on all the teaching techniques that I’ve learned from my friends (JTE).
Encouraging underpaid people to work for free for bloodsucking companies that shouldn’t exist is a chump move. You have some reasonable points here but all of it goes into the dumpster because, at the end of the day, you’re saying that because people know the job is shit and still signed the contract, they should be slaves to their company and to their BoE and dilute their crap pay even more by working free outside of contract hours. Ridiculous. No wonder they gave you a role dealing with all this stuff – the perfect example of a bootlicker.
Agree with the above. Thanks for writing so much.
There are things to think about:
1) The dispatch company I’m with (a really big one) literally told me to do as little as possible and to be “mercenary”. Not to show up early or stay a minute late. Along with the shit pay and other garbage, they’re actively encouraging poor behaviour directly, so some of this is on them. (They also encouraged me to break the law by working without the proper visa before the new one was issued because “everyone does it; it’s fine”.)
2) Respect goes both ways. I’m an ALT who’s always gone above and beyond my duties. And still, I’ll go weeks or months at a school without a conversation more than two sentences long because all the JTEs basically ignore the ALT who will just move on again soon. They don’t invite the ALT to events, to meetings, to school pics. They don’t listen to your input. They don’t use you in class, don’t train JTEs to work with you, don’t care if you do anything at all because you’re just the foreigner that some politician saddled them with, and they’d rather work without you. NOT ALL SCHOOLS act that way. But many are degrees of it. And when you show up feeling disrespected, I can empathize with ALTs doing less or their behaviour slipping after a while.
That said, if you’re just a lazy ass, this doesn’t apply to you.
Nah, i wouldn’t worry about the other ALTs, even if the dispatch loses the contract we can just hop over to the new dispatch company, it’s as easy as that. Salary should be the same, we lose our paid holidays(need to work 3-6 months before being granted them) but that’s about it.
However coming in a few minutes late is not on, 5-10mins before is fine. My contract says i can leave at 3:30, and i leave on the dot. Who cares about Japanese work culture, the reason why Japanese workers work overtime is because they get compensated with a bonus twice a year.
Who cares what Japanese work culture is like as an ALT for a dispatch company? If your contract says you start at 8:20 and you’re ready to go at 8:20, you’re golden.
It’s also really odd how you say that if dispatch companies switched, they would just get the ALTs who wanted to stay **and** your actions could cost everyone their jobs.
Those two statements are complete opposites. Were you a few drinks in when you decided to make this post?
Here’s my two cents, take it or leave it. I am one of the ALTs that my company relies on. First off, I speak Japanese fluently. I use it to help my lessons and make sure my students are on task. My schools love me, and I have been given words of praise from JTEs and “awards” (whatever the fuck those are worth) from my company.
Now I arrive at school 45 minutes early just to prepare for class. This is because I respect the school, teachers, and I want my students to succeed. BUT, if I felt that I was receiving no support from anyone (school, company, teachers) I would arrive at my assigned co reacted time and only teach the MEXT approved lessons that my company promotes. And they suck.
Point is, it’s difficult for a long term ALT to keep motivated when their successes and failures are treated the same. You might be frustrated with those ALTs who really only see Japan as a work holiday, but for those of us who care, for those of us who can’t afford to take time to get another degree, from those of us who put on extra hours already, don’t forget that we are human too. We work hard. We come early. And our skills are often overlooked and under appreciated till we’re gone.
The dispatch company pays the bare minimum with zero job safety. Therefore ALTs should work the bare minimum. They should never prepare lessons off the clock, never participate in activities outside work hours including lunch, and they should be in and out of the school the minute the contract states. They should follow their contract to the letter. Because that’s what the dispatch company does.
(I don’t even think ALTs should be designing lesson materials, they should only use dispatch designed materials, because the dispatch company should be providing some value other than wrangling university-educated English speakers. But that’s another topic!)
The BOE has not made them members of staff. The BOEs make the system that lets dispatch companies syphon government funds while providing horrendous training. If the BOE wants to hire them and give them real jobs, I’m sure the standards and amount of effort will change.
Laughing at you with this longass posts talking Down to ALTs because you’re now in the big house. If my contract says my work starts 8:20, I’m not going to be there at 8:15. You will not get 10 free minutes from me.
You really need to get-off your high horse missy.
You’re a company guy so it’s really no surprise you’d hold these opinions.
1. If the schools wants quality people then they should hire them directly and incentivize accordingly.
2. Dispatch companies are responsible for the people they hire, so even if LatebroALT42069 is late and the BoE doesn’t recontract, that’s the dispatch company’s fault for not hiring better people in the first place.
>in their eyes I’m not really an American anymore.
Oh, honey. That’s adorable.
>So….what is the point of this long winded post….the point is
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>1, You signed the contract, you have to follow it. You knew what you were getting into, so do it.
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>…
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>3, About #1, you should actually work more than your contract says you have to otherwise you’re not being a good sport.
lol
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>2, If you’re a bad employee, the boe will fire 60 people along with you instead of demanding you be replaced.
lmao
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This was a very high and mighty sounding post when the problem was just that an ALT was coming in late every day… which would be a problem in *any* profession.
If you don’t want to take jobs designed and compensated as such, for working holiday takers, don’t take one.
If you don’t want to hire working holiday makers, don’t.
You get what you pay for. Same as any job in any country.
Whenever I was an ALT a long time ago, the teachers at all my schools actually made sure that I never had to stay after my working hours. I think they’re aware that ALTs have often been taken advantage of in the past, and are trying their best to prevent any overworking for someone with lower salary/expectations.
HOWEVER arriving 20-30 minutes before lessons start is always something that was agreed and confirmed beforehand. Not only is it just common sense and something I would do in any job anyway, but the schools actually told me it’s necessary.
1) While many come to Japan as ALTs seriously and earnestly, many do not. As someone who worked dispatch, I’m surprised this sort of thing is even slightly surprising to you. If you want a quality ALT, either go through JET (tend to be better people, but 0 experience) or get a direct hire (congrats you get to handle hiring and it’s easy to mess up, but the applicant pool has a lot of top talent). If a BOE goes through a dispatch company, they should know to expect the bottom of the barrel ALT. The fact that this ALT is *only* 5 minutes late should be a relief.
2) Working as a dispatch ALT is not great. If someone comes along and reads this and decides not to do it, then you’ve done the world a service. But I’d wager that most people who apply from overseas really just need a visa, any visa, and they’ll do whatever they can to get it, then transition to a job they really want to do. So if dozens of people can get fired because of 1 or 2 people being dumb, well, that’s par for the course, isn’t it? And the sort of person who takes on that task anyway probably isn’t going to be your best, most loyal, most hardworking employee/contractor.
3) You’re writing this as someone who became a JTE. My guess is that you didn’t just wake up one day after years of slacking off, knowing Japanese and wanting to be a teacher. Probably, you tried hard at your job. You associated yourself with people who were similar to you in values and with JTEs who helped/inspired you to get where you are today. But you must know that makes you incredibly rare, and that most everyone else who works at dispatch isn’t going to be that way. Many won’t come close to putting in half of that effort. Nor should they, given the job and contract conditions
What should the BoE do?
I’m going to be generous to the ALT and say that they’re catching public transit at some point in their commute, and it’s getting them there 5 minutes late. If this is the case, then the BoE should look at what the next earliest transit is and set the contact start time then. If this guy is just not a morning person, then ask for them to be removed, or if they’re an otherwise good ALT, have the school stop scheduling him first period and let it be.
It’s frustrating that you would be here posting this, that the BoE would be complaining to you and considering changing contracts, because of 5 minutes. You and the BoE should *know* that when you hire a dispatch company instead of JET or Direct Hire, you should be happy if the underpaid, undertrained, probably looking for whatever other job they can get, under-motivated ALT you get can actually do the job decently, everything else is a bonus.
This sounds like the ALT is disappointed with something or something wasn’t communicated properly.
I agree to an extent. I think that coming in on time is essential for any job. It’s kinda sad that you have to explain that to grown adults.
However! The bigger problem here is with the BOE and the dispatch company. If first period starts at 8:25, why are they only getting paid from 8:20? That’s not enough time to talk to the homeroom teacher or plan lessons. Also, you have to agree that employers have a responsibility to allow a person to correct their behaviour before they’re fired for it. Being late for class everyday impairs your ability to do your job, and that is a problem, but everyone deserves a chance to change.
But a BOE considering firing 60+ people for one person arriving a few minutes late? That’s actually horrific. It goes to show how little respect foreign workers get here. That’s the real problem here.
But as for other teachers liking you more for arriving early. No, people can hate you even if you come into work everyday and try your best. My first day as an ALT I had people pretending I don’t exist, and 2 years later and a personal daily “ohayou gozaimasu!” and I’m still being completely ignored.
Man everything I read I here makes me realize I win the lottery. My school is so chill, they don’t give a shit if I show up 5 or 10 minutes late and they don’t care if I leave early. They are probably just happy the old fart and creepy dude are gone. Lol
Everyone is super nice and great to work with. Sin r I. A direct hire the salary is good too, at least for me that wasn’t even looking for a job. Yeah they literally saw me and handed me the job. I only took it bc it was close to home. I’m super glad I did bc I love it. I was sick recently and when I came into work the vice principal told me if I don’t feel well I can leave early. I’m so so lucky. Also glad I don’t have to deal with any high horse former ALTs
Then reward the so-called “good” ALTs with some type of bonus structure, or just raise the salaries across the board. If you treat people in a mediocre fashion, then they’re gonna act mediocre.
>My official start time is listed as 8:20 on my sheet so even if I am late, it’s only a couple minutes.(as if that somehow makes it ok)
I would lay the blame at the dispatch here.
I guarantee you that the narrow start time between the contracted working-hours and actual lesson time, is down to them squeezing as much time out of the ALT as possible.
My school originally wanted me in at 8:30, even though the first lesson is at 9:10. 6th period ends at 3:35 with my contract stating that I should finish at 3:20. Again, total horse-shit. If the school wants to complain about me sitting in the morning meetings contributing fuck-all but then expecting me to be available to teach 6th period, then can either raise my salary or alter the start-times.
>but Japanese work culture is not that way.
Japanese work-culture can also be extremely restrictive and harassing towards female employees, should I also expect to adhere to this standard? Just because it exists, doesn’t mean it’s right. 過労死 is also a thing at some companies, should we also kill ourselves to try to fit into a culture that ultimately won’t accept us anyway?
>Whether or not you think your salary is fair, or your work responsibilities are ‘important’ you are the one who signed the contract, took the job, and moved overseas to do it. No one forced you to be an ALT, and your compensation was no secret before you came here.
You sound exactly like a young Republican here. Change the word “ALT” to “manual labourer” and switch out the race of people – and you’re a shoe-in for the next CPAC meeting.
*I mean…. nobody forced you to migrate across the Sonoran desert!*
But anyways, if I sign up to a 29.5 hour contract and am then expected to work 40 hours when I get here, is that not a lie? I can’t even begin to tell you how much horse-shit has been peddled by dispatch recently. When I first started, in orientation training they were like “oh you don’t need to syllabus build, the lessons are already there for you!” And now it’s like “we are now expecting you to create an entire ALT syllabus from the textbook.”
Again just profiting off the goodwill and hard-work of teachers and not being compensated for it.
Complete bait and switch garbage.
Good advice, but I feel like you’re getting mad at the wrong people. As you pointed out, there are ALTs who come in on time and do their jobs, and the only thing that would happen if anyone took your advice is… they would become one of the 50-60 good ALTs getting fired. And when all of those people get fired, they are going to be replaced, by many people who are making the same mistakes they made.
Multiple people who are not ALTs had to make poor decisions to allow this to happen. Some idiot at the local board of education was dumb enough to sign a deal with a dispatch company (that probably lied about the rigor of their teacher training) where some idiot was either dumb enough or desperate enough to hire the bad ALT, and some other greedy (read: dumb) person at the company was dumb enough to write it in their contract that their work time started well after they should be at the school.
And these poor decisions are going to be made again and again and they are going to lead to dancing monkeys doing their monkey dances because the system *selects against* having good ALTs. As you yourself implied at the beginning of your comment, you worked really hard to go to school and get licenced (something I am in the process of doing) partly to *get out of being an ALT*, and that’s pretty much the primary motivation any of us has for professional development. I am sure there are people who have legitimate reasons for wanting to be ALTs instead of moving on to better teaching work, but like, it can’t be overstated how shitty a deal it is. As has been pointed out multiple times, there are better working conditions at Family Mart. Being a good ALT is almost maladaptive; people who are good ALTs are likely going to leave for better work (like you did), giving an opening for another bad ALT to take their place.
It’s just unbelievably typical for a Japanese person to see a foreigner doing something, and then extrapolate that ALL foreigners likely do that thing, and conclude that firing everyone is the answer to the problem.
Why not just tell the BOE. “If you took the time to explain that in Japanese work culture you’re expected to be at your desk at the exact time work starts, and take the time to remind them the first few times they forget, that would do the trick.”
It’s typical Japanese work culture to expect young, inexperienced people who likely have never had a professional job before to just learn all on their own how to behave and depend on them to read the disapproval in the air to figure out when they’ve fucked up.
This is how freshmen in Japanese companies are “trained,” but the same method can’t be used for people who a) don’t know they need to “read the air”; b) don’t know HOW to “read the air” in a foreign culture they aren’t familiar with. Going from a low-context, direct culture like the US or UK and then being thrown into a high-context culture like Japan is going to cause a lot of communication issues.
We who have been here a long time tend to know these things instinctively, without even needing to think about it that much, and have forgotten what it was like for us when we first arrived and had to stumble around in the dark.
It’s unfair and it’s just asking for trouble when BOE’s expect the ALTs to just *know* how they should behave. Even if they have gone over this in training, it’s not likely to stick the first time they hear it. They will need a lot of things explained to them, probably more than once, before it truly dawns on them that yes, Japanese people take this *seriously,* and then learn to modify their behavior in an appropriate way.
So yes, you do sound condescending there, and it seems you have forgotten what it was like when you were new. It may seem like common sense to you now, but back when you arrived I’m sure you made a good number of mistakes, too.
You should have their back on this.
I’ve always felt that the big cities should have a more premium level of dispatch companies that can pay more since they can reduce their overhead by not recruiting from other countries and they wouldn’t have to have as many staff members / substitutes to compensate for those on a workation. It’s so hard to get even a little more pay at this level and some company should siphon off all the proven teachers.
>Yeah this post is going to seem like I am talking down to everyone, and I am not
Proceeds to talk down to everyone in their post ***and*** in their comments.
I honestly don’t understand the point of this post. If you are unhappy with your duty being in charge of this “shit”, as you put it, then don’t complain to random teachers or ALTs working at dispatch companies. Step up, talk to the ALT that you are having a problem with, or talk to the dispatch company. There are lots of teachers in Japan that are professional and work hard under many given circumstances. But unfortunately, there are a few bad apples just like in any profession.
OP, your post is basically “C’mon ALT peoples, make my job easier.”
Now in some cases, I would agree with this- specifically, if one wants to be in Japan long-term. Which I think you’re forgetting something VERY important:
How many ALTs come over just to be be in Japan for a year, have already decided they’re already only going to be here for a year (or even less!), and don’t care about however many bridges are burned along the way?
It sounds like the ALTs your BoE has been dealing with are of these kinds: they stay in the infamous “gaijin bubble”, learn just enough about Japan to survive for a year or so, and then are on their merry way back home, any consequences that may have happened with the company or school be damned.
Dispatch companies get a ton of shit, and rightly so- they take any foreigner that speaks good enough English, is preferably genki and not creepy, and has them warm a seat in a school for a year. If they lose the contract, oh well- there’s always another BoE they can sucker because they advertise as being “cheap”. Which leads to the REAL problem- if your BoE wants quality ALTs, tell them to go direct hire and do the whole hiring process for somebody who’s actually a quality teacher… oh, but wait, that requires actually spending more money and paperwork, which I’m sure they’ll say is めんどくさい.
I don’t know, I feel like the likely reason they list the work time like that is so they can somehow take some benefit away from the ALT.
Why do they have them come in 5 mins before the first class? I’d make that 15 at least in case if any delays. Takes me more than 5 minutes to log into my computer at work.
Nice post! One thing: Not sure what dispatch salary is, but I’ve heard it sucks. As you say, you take the contract and that’s your choice… BUT… it’s also the BOE’s choice to not have direct hire when it actually doesn’t cost them any more than dispatch. They’ve chosen workers who are getting paid peanuts, so if a worker doesn’t want to put in the extras because they aren’t getting paid for it, fair play. You get what you pay for. If I were you, I’d recommend the BOE move to a direct hire scenario. Sure there will be a few hiccups along the way, but in the end you’ll get a better level of teacher. Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it!