Basic Working Conditions in Japan

Basic Working Conditions in Japan

(applicable to foreigners)

*For more posts similar to this one, see General Working Conditions

One of my desks...beautiful

*Note: This post is just a very basic obligatory overview of working conditions for English teachers. I'll get down and dirty in future posts about things related to what it's like to actually teach lessons.

Before I take you inside a school, you need to be familiar with at least a baseline of working conditions in Japan as they relate to foreigners - especially teachers.

First of all, you need to realize that once you sign a contract, which are almost never for more than one year at a time, your chances of getting fired are almost zero. To get fired, you have to do something so egregious that it would would make Charlie Sheen look sane. Keeping in mind that there are two main places to teach English full-time in Japan, conversation schools and public/private primary and secondary schools, here's a brief list of...................................

The Top Ways to Get Fired:
(actually this should read, The ONLY Real Ways to get Fired)

• Blatant sexual harassment - towards a student. You can probably get away with sexually harassing one of the teachers for awhile and get warned about it a few times before anything happened.
• Showing up absolutely steamed and stumbling drunk. I'm talking can't stand up getting ready to puke drunk. Anything short of this state will result in the Japanese just ignoring the situation.
• Punching someone in the face.
• Walking around naked.
• Cracking a beer or doing a shot in the classroom - and even then, I think you could claim Gaijin Rage.
• Refusing to show up to work for a couple of weeks - and I do mean that quite literally.
• Being thrown in jail for any reason (which is usually followed by deportation)

Yes, all of the above have all been done.

And remember, if you get fired in Japan, you are entitled to one month 'severance pay' and you are eligible for unemployment benefits. So if you want to get fired, simply perform one of the above bullets, and you're on your way to a month's paid vacation.

Moving on........................

As you may have heard, the basic company structure of Japanese companies is hierarchical and group based. Obviously, successful business organizations all over the world adhere to some sort of organizational chart, and successful Japanese businesses organize themselves essentially the same as any other business in the world, except for a few peculiarities. Most of the differences are strictly culturally based and in general do not apply to foreigners. The Japanese do not expect foreigners to adhere to most of the employee expectations that they have for themselves - this is because they know how enigmatic and convoluted the Japanese workplace environment is to outsiders.

Generally speaking, the structure of the business or organization that foreign English teachers work in will minimally impact their day to day life and general working conditions. Learning about the inner workings of Japanese business, however, is one more layer of the proverbial onion to peel, and understanding it will help one become exponentially more intimate with Japanese culture. 

Alas, learning about how the Japanese workplace environment is organized and how it operates is not my focus in this blog..... Just know that if you show up, do your job (not even well) and don't cause too many waves, the Japanese will pretty much leave you alone and your life at work will be pretty much smooth sailing.

Now,  let's go to school.....

Do you have a question about Japan or a topic that you are interested in that you haven't found on this blog? If so, please tell me about it in a comment. I will get a post up about it as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!!