GComm NOVA

It's all over...

2009-12-15T20:09:00.004+09:00

Hey guys,

I should have left this post on the site a long time ago. I left Japan for good in August 2008. It was the end of a wonderful experience living and working with some great people.

Therefore, I will no longer be able to update people on how the company is going. So I must leave it up to all of you guys.... The people still there... The people who know how it is all going...

Let us know, what are conditions like? How are you all being treated by the company? Is it different in the franchise branches or the company owned places? What would you all say to someone thinking of heading to Japan for the same experience that you had?

Has there been a follow up training session to the smile training we all had? Anything anyone would like to post please put in the comments here...

They got him... Sahashi being held by Osaka police.

2008-06-25T09:56:00.004+09:00

Sorry it's taken me a while to update the blog, but things have been rather hectic, particularly with all my efforts going into trying to get a free Bali holiday...

Wake up this morning and what do I notice on Letsjapan? A reference to a Japan Times Story about the Monkey man and his upcoming criminal charges. The LetsJapan story also mentions Sahashi taking himself into an Osaka police station for “Voluntary questioning” (pictured above).

There are a lot of ex-NOVA employees who have a lot of questions they'd like him to answer voluntarily also. Like “Where did our money go?”, or “How do you sleep at night?”, or “Would you like to step outside for a moment?”

What questions would you all like to ask Sahashi if you had the chance? What do you think will happen to him in the court system? Will justice be served?

G.education's generous offer...

2008-06-12T10:46:00.004+09:00

G.education has started a competition/campaign... The competition is based on the number of 100% students we have in the branches (as opposed to returning students who only pay 25%).

First prize, my staff informed me was a trip to Bali for four days (hence the picture of Bali above), second prize is an overnight trip to an onsen, and from what I can gather these trips include teachers and staff. I am not sure if everyone has to go together or whether someone can choose to go separately.

Either way, for a company constantly trying to save money, this is a rather extravagant offer... Has anyone else heard about this competition? I will post again in the next few days about changes to systems that I have been hearing about...

The G.education GComm Nova stock market float is getting closer...

2008-06-01T01:56:00.003+09:00

My staff came up to me this week and explained... "You have to tell us each day you need travel money by this Saturday..." "Why Saturday?" I asked inquisitively... "The company is planning to float on the stock market and needs to have all its books and records up-to-date by the end of this month..."

This would account for the auditor we had in the branch last Wednesday and some other mildly unusual goings on...No hint as to exactly when this is going to happen, however, the indications are that it is getting closer...

Are you all planning to buy shares?(hahaha) How do you think this will affect the company? Are there any positives or negatives to come out of this?

G.Education / GComm NOVA looking for new instructors...

2008-05-26T14:56:00.002+09:00

Thats right! You read it here second! (Here first) G.Education, the division of GComm which owns the NOVA brand of Eikaiwa schools has had to start hiring new instructors...

This puzzles me, didn't they have plenty of teachers before and put them all on standby and fire them... Weren't they paying those old instructors less money? I could've sworn that in the old days teachers were always promised 250,000 to 280,000 monthly... Well, their messing around and screwing people over with regards to standby and non-renewal of contracts has now led to a situation where the company needs to find instructors somewhere just to keep the branches functional...

Admittedly these jobs are in Aichi prefecture, near Nagoya and near the G.Education/GComm NOVA head office... Maybe all the standby instructors were offered these jobs and ever single one of them refused... They will need to hire experienced instructors that have been well pre-trained before they start though, as the level of training they will receive will be abysmal compared to previous levels, which in my area has always been good... Now they will learn to pair people up (ooh...) and smile (aahhh...) and all those five qualities...

Are people genuinely going to take this opportunity up? How many people do you think they'll be able to hire with this campaign? It smacks of desperation for mine...

G.education releases Rules and Regulations for instructors...

2008-05-14T09:45:00.003+09:00

About a week or so ago in the branch, a new set of rules and regulations for instructors were printed... They were just left sitting on the tables in the teachers room, casually strewn about as though they had always been there... I saw the staff printing and copying them, so I knew that they hadn't always just been there...

Across the top there is big writing in Japanese 社外秘 which means that it is forbidden to take them out of the branch... and that they are a secret to anyone outside the company... I think that means I am risking my job for writing about them here... I didn't make a copy, but I did have a look and make a note or two...

In general terms, the regulations are a step tougher than any regulations ever had in writing, which was the old "Introduction to NOVA"... The thing I found most interesting is that I saw them in May, yet they were effective February 1...

I will not post any specifics as I need my salary at the moment... Has anyone else read the new regulations? What do you all think about them?

My Promised Vouchers from G.education...

2008-05-13T18:11:00.002+09:00

2 days after my birthday, and I am still waiting for my promised vouchers... Very disappointing Mr. Inayoshi... I ended up having to spend my Birthday evening in non-G.communication owned drinking establishments... I survived though...

Go for it! The G.education newsletter for Instructors...

2008-05-05T16:40:00.003+09:00

Go for it! is the newest incarnation of the "Diplomat News" which used to be called "The Monitor"... These were the computer printed newletters were (some) useful teaching ideas and Company information was dispensed...

This used to come from the Education QCG but seeing as none of them are left, I assume it would be old RAAMs, AAMs etc that are still around contributing to it, and from the last page asking for contributions it appears to be Jack Aranda in Nagoya collating it...

The front page has a publicity shot of our President... Mr. Inayoshi...　not quite this one, but pretty similar. He gives us an inspiring message that officially anounces to us the things mentioned on here and Lets Japan. From May, G.education is finally achieving an account surplus. There has been a rush for people to buy the franchises all over Japan... In 1 year, we will have 1000 branches, and "therefore I feel we must go forward to fully take advantage of these opportunities in order to achieve our goals" (whatever the hell that means)...

It summarises a newspaper interview that Mr. Inayoshi (his first name is never referred to, but it is Masaki) did with the Asahi Shimbun on April 22... At the end of march there were 176 NOVA branches... By Spring 2009, there will be around 1000... The breakdown is as follows;

Franchises 250
Juku-Nova* 240
Puchi-Nova (Petit NOVA)** 290
Total 780

*Juku-NOVA- Cram schools offering help to Junior High School and High School students.
** Puchi-NOVA- Small NOVA branches where one can go in to the branch and sit down and take an MM (multimedia/ginganet) lesson... Why people would do this instead of staying home to take an MM lesson is beyond me...

Therefore, the inference is that the remaining 220 or so branches will be company owned full NOVA branches... It also tells us that foreign recruitment offices will open in the USA, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland over the course of this year... And that the company plans to call some of the 20,000 former NOVA instructors to ask them to come back to work...

The following pages give a breakdown of the sales campaign as I had done here and then there is a list of Branch Rankings...

The next page I found interesting, it was the Refresher course training page... And some absolute rave reviews from attendees... They all loved it... It was wonderful that we learned this sensational principles... We are all revitalized now... etc. The information is certainly different from what I heard, but then again, people that tell me know that the information won't be used against them in a negative fashion...

Then a page on Branch Visits, how AAMs are explaining that they are visiting branches and observing us unannounced and then doing individual interviews with instructors... They are sending people from outside to come and watch us, then have meetings, and our input is highly encouraged... After the meeting, a written report is sent off to head office to help decide what will be in future editions of Go for it!... No-one will be comfortable with this... The in-branch trainer system allowed us to know who was telling us off... They know the people, they deal with them better, and they know our strengths and weaknesses as teachers... I just hope this doesn't become the NOVA crack squad where one complaint is received and a team of people are sent out to discipline those instructors...

Finally there is a teaching page with ideas like split the group in half, have one half ask the question, the other answer... I spent hours on this page, as I had never heard of this technique before... And finally, to make us feel better, we are getting 5000 yen worth of vouchers when their birthday is coming up... I am checking the mailbox constantly as my birthday is coming up... Of course the vouchers are to be used in G.communication restaurants bars, izakayas, etc.

Anyone else's birthday coming up? You all looking forward to your vouchers? You all going to use the split the group technique? What do you think of the newsletter?

New Scheduling system for GComm NOVA students...

2008-04-26T23:02:00.002+09:00

They have done it again... The geniuses at head office have come up with another brilliant idea... Students can now book their own lessons on the Internet from the comfort of their own homes... They can do it on the same day as the lesson too...

This may seem like a great idea. but so far it has already caused some challenges... For example, every student's number will change, so the new schedule is printed out and all the numbers are entirely different from the ones on the files... This wouldn't be a major problem if every class didn't have 5 students in it... The staff subsequently have to cross reference an old style schedule and hand write all the student numbers on it...

Secondly, if a student books on the same day, there is no system to tell instructors that they have done so... This means that again, our busy Japanese staff have to go on to the computer every interval and check that no-one has booked in manually... As can be imagined, a very inefficient system...

Students can select their instructor also, so any crappy instructors enjoy all your frees, but good instructors will be flat out as they are the most in-demand...

As can happen, good concept, terrible execution... It is the first student focused thing the company has done, even though their motivation was only cost...

Has this caused any teething problems for those in other branches??? What is everyone else's experience like???

GComm NOVA's planned expansion...

2008-04-25T02:23:00.002+09:00

Speaking to some people recently who attended one of the recent Yamaya san indoctrination sessions and some plans were explained there..

Biggest one involved the expansion plans of the company... As has been mentioned by one of the commentors here today, the expansion plan includes
expanding the number of NOVA branches to 800 by next spring... This includes not only regular NOVA, but also Nova juku, Petit Nova and of course the wonderful franchise idea...

This anouncement comes slightly fresh on the heels of inside company announcements that the company plans to float on the stock market...

Does this sound familiar to anyone else... Rapid expansion plans... 350% expansion in 12 months??? The rapid inflation of a balloon for example...

GComm looks to float as soon as possible...

2008-04-17T01:39:00.002+09:00

After making such massive losses on their attempt to revive NOVA, GComm has decided that now is the time to go for a public share float. I have only heard about this via some rumours but the pieces are starting to come together.

Inayoshi is currently the sole owner of the entire GComm group including G.Ed, G.Meats, G.Beerjoints and G.CramSchools... As such he was (until about last November) quite a wealthy man, but as LetsJapan put it so delicately, NOVA is a sucking chest wound which makes it bleed lots and lots of cash... and it could be responsible for the collapse of the entire empire.

After a few months of such press, Mr. Inayoshi, our revered leader has decided that it might be a good time to float on the stock market... I know it is usually advisable to float the company when things are going OK and interest in the company is high, but, oh well... when you need a cash injection, what are you gonna do?

So don't be surprised to see auditors out in the branches getting ready for the big float, some branches have already reported visits...

How well do you think the float will go? Will it just be a chance for Inayoshi to do a Sahashi and play around with the stock market to make money that isn't really there?

GComm NOVA's new advertising campaign...

2008-04-11T12:21:00.000+09:00

Now, GComm NOVA have started a new advertising campaign on the website... Nowhere else of course, as this would cost the company money and (not that they weren't cheapskates already), as we have all heard by now I am sure, the bank has stopped extending credit to the company... So, in a bid to gain new students, they have put this massive ad on the website..

I will have a shot at translating it, although I am not as good at him on LetsJapan...

The ad says that (this part is quite obvious) the campaign runs from April 1st until June 30th, when I am sure another campaign will start... The incentives to join are;

1. Free Lesson Points... 2 free points a month if on a monthly 10 point package and 20 free points if on a 100 point package...

2. If taking MM lessons in languages other than English, your Level check will be free for new students...

3. If taking a MM Man to Man lesson in languages other than English, it will only cost two points and not the previous three (I think)...

4. NOVA KIDS can get the 3 year old piece of shit textbook for free, plus 3 NOVA Usagi stuffed toys.

Underneath the white box there are also free point incentives to bring friends and family members along, as well as a 20% student discount on monthly courses...

Seeing how this goes will be extremely interesting I think... The company has struggled attracting new students for two main reasons... Firstly, the awful battering the company received in the press when it went down... And secondly, because a lot of people aren't even aware of the company reopening... None of those people are going to find this ad...

How are all the branches going for new students? Will this bring a massive influx? hahah

New GComm NOVA branch openings

2008-04-10T00:41:00.004+09:00

Today is Thursday April 10th and is the opening day of the newest NOVA branch in Shibuya in Tokyo... This thing on the left appears to be it... For those outside of and unfamiliar with Tokyo, Shibuya is an extremely busy area filled with young men and women, shopping in the afternoon, dinner in the evening and clubbing on a weekend... It had 3 NOVAs before the bankruptcy, from memory. It is now opening a new branch, and if the Ikebukuro model is anything to go by, it will open with 2 English instructors and a possible other language instructor, although as far as I know all of them have been fired... They might get one via the "work for peanuts and pay for your own travel" job advertising scheme they have cooked up...

Further branch openings in the near future, 4/13 Chiba Matsudo, 4/15 Fujisawa, 4/16 Nagoya Nonami, 5/10 Nagoya Irinaka. There are also rumblings of openings in Ginza, Shinjuku was on the cards but after trouble getting the building, this was shelved... It will be interesting to see where all the instructors are going to come from as there are very few left on standby, by next week or the week after, none in our area will remain... That hiring campaign must have been extremely successful...

Is anyone out there in one of the new branches??? I am particularly interested in Shibuya... Let us know how it is all going there...

Remodelled Refreshed GComm NOVA branches

2008-04-10T00:03:00.003+09:00

First of all, I must apologize for a total lack of posts recently, I will try and get back into it from now on... The information must be spread and all that good stuff... Reader numbers have dwindled a little, but I guess that's what happens when you don't post so often...

The kind of classroom that will soon disappear...

My branch is one of the refreshed units, with a move about 7 minutes walk from the nearest station. Admittedly the old one was about 3 minutes from the station, but it was in the heart of the area's most important shopping district... The new one is on a side street in the middle of nowhere... The old one had a sign visible from about 5 miles away on top of the building... The new one you need to be within about 30 feet to be sure the sign has those 4 giant golden letters on the sign...

Once inside the branch (or campus as GComm likes to call them), things seem slightly different... It looks clean but it is obviously cheaply constructed. The tables, not classrooms, have a partition which goes just over the level of the seated students and instructor's heads. This provides no sound protection from loud instructors, students and 5 student classes. Yes, as expected the new schools are designed to accomodate 5 students. The partitioned areas are bigger than the previous booths, and in our current branch we have 5 as opposed to 10 in the old school. Oh, but one of the partitioned areas is being used for storage as we have no space in our shoebox of a teacher's room.

The teacher's room/store room/staff put all your shit in here room/photocopier room is tiny. It doesn't have anywhere near as much room as it needs. There is barely enough room for someone to walk past behind someone sitting at the table writing a comment, and I have heard at one branch that there isn't enough room to get a table in the room. Now my handle is Big Man in Japan for a reason, I am not a small fellow, I am lucky that some of my coworkers are smaller than me, and this makes things bearable...

Finally, the pièce de résistance (I know the accents make me look like a dick, but they make me laugh) is the Voice/KIDS room... GComm have constantly demonstrated a lack of interest in the KIDS program, i.e. ditching Chibikko KIDS Club, getting rid of all the people that prepare the materials and support instructors, throwing away the already completed 2008 materials so we can rehash the shit from 2005 etc... Now they have given us a multipurpose room for KIDS and Voice. The room is almost filled with a hideous, fluorescent, nauseating, egg-shaped yellow table. I know you are only supposed to use 2 or 3 adjectives in a sentence, but this thing is a travesty. It fills the whole room so that KIDS need to be seated around the table during lessons... Four walls is going to suck... But at least it's the old materials, if you remember they involve about 20 minutes of workbook time, so it'll be OK...

Is anyone else in one of these remodelled schools, anyone else loving the new setup? Let us know what you think...

More doom and gloom for NOVA instructors.

2008-03-25T15:07:00.002+09:00

Rumor mill is starting to buzz and I have heard a lot of things...

1. Gaiji staff are all gone at the end of this month. They have all been asked to resign and as far as I know March 31st will be their last day. From April 1st the foreign staff have no support in Head Office... We are in trouble with accomodation, bad luck... We have a problem with our pay, try and fend for yourself... I heard about this a couple of weeks back, but was sworn to secrecy... Now however, it is already out in Letsjapan forums, so now I can confirm the truth in it...

2. More standby... Thats right, you heard (read) correctly... More instructors are being put on standby, to come back, who knows when... Those of us in the branches already know the precarious position that student reservations are in... Students try to reserve and there is a straight purple screen visible, meaning no reservations are possible... This will mean that students can continue to not book lessons. If this is the case, then the earlier faxes about a couple of cancelled lessons through the company causing the company to fail show themselves to be a heaping pile of crap...

There are more things on the Japanese side about pay cuts and the fact that GComm can't borrow money anymore, but all of these are things that have recently been on Letsjapan... Thats not where I have heard them, but they are starting to get some things right... Has anyone heard anything else? Any other rumors doing the rounds? Let me know... Good luck... Let's hope you are not all going on standby...

GComm NOVA Instructor recovering nicely at home...

2008-03-18T17:53:00.002+09:00

Well, as expected I had quite a bit to drink and I could do things like go to a restaurant for dinner, enjoy St. Patrick's Day even though I am not Irish, but then neither was anyone else in Harajuku for the parade... I would like to thank the well wishers and also thank, but in a more sarcastic manner, the people who tried to give me advice on how to live my life... Of course I am not stupid enough to spend the whole lot in a weekend... I did however manage to spend quite a bit of money :) and I was extremely happy with my weekend. Now, of course I am just planning when to put it all into US dollars...

As far as work goes, not a great deal has changed... Although last week, I heard the bosses come in patting themselves on the back saying that in our area everyone has been allocated, there is no-one left on standby... This means that at least 2 people that I know of personally have been sacked... They had been presented with letters saying "Please transfer to Kyushu/Fukui/Toyama or you will lose your job". They thought that this was silly seeing as they live with their families and have commitments in the Tokyo area, but as GComm sees them as numbers and not people, then none of that mattered... So now they are sacked... Don't know what their plans are... I hope they are OK...

Anyone else get sacked off standby recently? If you are reading this then I wish you all the best... Take care, and good luck...

GComm NOVA instructors getting paid again! Including me!

2008-03-11T18:32:00.002+09:00

Thats right all! You read it here first! Assuming all goes well by tomorrow I will be rich and I am planning to enjoy most of the money in various izakayas and bars in the Tokyo area on that night... If it is all gone by Thursday, that's OK... Friday is payday, we hope, and I will have money again... The feeling of not being broke all my life is awesome... I hope that everyone else gets their money in a timely manner... Good luck guys...

NOVA Instructors get paid!!!!

2008-03-05T10:02:00.003+09:00

OK guys, well I haven't checked my account, and I haven't heard from anyone personally, but an Anonymous comment to this blog has said that they got paid their past salary... They got the money owed to them... This is the best news since... ever!!! Has anyone else here been paid??? I don't think I have yet as they haven't sent me back a statement to say I would be, which seems to be the pattern... Let everyone know if you got paid!!!

GComm Reprogramming NOVA instructors...

2008-02-26T16:06:00.003+09:00

At the end of last week, i.e. Thursday and Friday, training sessions, referred to as "Refresher" training sessions took place... These sessions, according to all reports were less to do with refreshing anything and more to do with learning the EC company philosophy...

It involves things like; smiling is the most important thing in the world, we need a sense of responsibility, an unbiased look at the world, and some incomprehensible rubbish about being like the sun... The first session was in Funabashi Minamiguchi on the Thursday and the second session took place at the Ginza head office... They were run by a Mr. Yamaya... The same man who, until now, had organized EC OJT and other training sessions and the man whose reputation as a trainer is less than sterling... According to everything I have heard, he did himself no favors in these training sessions, giving the first group about a 1 hour smiling and saying "hello" practice session...

People have said that he was "unprepared", "amateurish while telling us how to be professional", and "full of crap"... As far as I know, no-one died in any of these training sessions which is the only positive I can see coming from them... He was talking to some very experienced instructors e.g. 12+ years in NOVA like they were brand new... From all reports the rooms for the first two sessions were filled with BTs and ATs and even one AAM in the second session... Yet they were treated like people who had never stepped in a classroom before... Apparently most left angry and/or slightly amused by the whole thing...

Can anyone here report on what the sessions were like? Did you enjoy the feeling of being patronized???

NOVA UNPAID SALARY Paperwork is in!

2008-02-22T02:24:00.002+09:00

Hey all... I got my paperwork... I will fill it all out tomorrow... and will sort it soon...

Soon it will be time to.....

Hope everyone else has their stuff if not... Contact the Trustees ASAP!!!!

Paperwork for unpaid NOVA wages coming in...

2008-02-21T00:04:00.002+09:00

Hey all... I am sure those of you in Japan may have heard but those of you far away might not have...

Some people (not me. of course) have received the final pieces of paperwork needed to claim past pay... I am not sure, but have been led to believe that the paperwork includes all the information on what to do regarding applying for it... I am hearing once everything is done, it will be a month until we see money in accounts, but I think that is a very optimistic number... If it's true, March will end with a big bang for all of us...

There are detailed instructions for those O/S and they have things like the leaving the country tax business and all that (if you are not resident in Japan, your income tax jumps to about 20%)... For people who worked to the end of business (October 26) it appears you will get 80% of all of September and October up to the 26th... The October period is causing confusion, so I will have to wait until I can verify what it will be...

I hope you all get your paperwork in a quick fashion... I can't emphasize enough, that if you have moved, you need to tell the trustees that you have and give them your new info... Don't let your chance slip...

Shakai Hoken News for GComm NOVA Instructors...

2008-02-19T22:37:00.002+09:00

Just a quick one that will only affect BTs, AAMs and some other married instructors who took Shakai Hoken under NOVA...

The insurance cards for these people are starting to come in... 2 different people have told me that their cards have arrived and that they are then covered... Some people have been terribly concerned that theur wives, children etc. would not be covered as no-one had seen the cards... But now they are here and we can all breathe easier...

More Branch Openings Planned For GComm NOVA

2008-02-19T01:14:00.002+09:00

These are the branch openings from the GComm NOVA official website...

・08/03/19
　愛知岡崎駅前校

・08/03/15
　大阪東梅田校

・08/03/12
　大阪日本橋駅前校

・08/03/09
　大阪難波駅前校

・08/02/16
　東京池袋西口校

This indicates that Ikebukuro NishiGuchi was scheduled to open on Feb 16... Just across the station from possibly the largest branch in Japan... In March, 3 Osaka branches are planning to open... They appear to be in Namba, Nipponbashi, and Higashi Umeda... Hope I didn't mess the Kanji up... As well as an opening in Okazaki in Aichi prefecture... The 3 Osaka locations seem pretty central, any Kansai teachers can probably help us with that information and Okazaki appears to be a touch more suburban in the Nagoya area...

I am not sure if these places had branches before, and if the same buildings will be used... Ikebukuro Nishiguchi I know did, and I am assuming it will be in the same building as when I walked past there last week I think the signs were all still there... I have also a heard a rumor about a possible opening in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's other busy hotspots, and one of our area's standby instructors got a call to work there in just over a week... If anyone has heard any similar rumors of openings that aren't on the website yet, please let us know... I am glad another teacher can come off standby... Now this area will only have 2 still on standby from a list of 11 before...

Please share stories of teachers coming off standby, being stuck on standby, getting or being refused contracts... Share the information... The more we know, the better off everyone will be...

BACKPAY NEWS FOR NOVA INSTRUCTORS!!!

2008-02-15T03:45:00.003+09:00

Sorry all, forgot to add this earlier... A guy at work got a call from the lawyers today as he had moved address for them to send his paperwork to, and they called to confirm his new address... They told him on the phone that his paperwork was being sent next week... This is the first confirmed news we have had that says when the paperwork was coming through... Officially once paperwork is taken in (I assume to Kawasaki in the Kanto area), it takes about 30-40 days... But in our case, it could take longer as there are so many people owed money...

IMPORTANT!!!
If you know anyone who is owed backpay and has left the country they need to contact the Trustees... Direct them to this website... Make sure they send their current address, their phone number, email address, and their NOVA instructor number to facilitate all enquiries...

The details of the Trustees from the old NOVA website are;

we would like to ask you to fax or mail individual inquiries
to the following fax number or address, as it is difficult to deal with
them by phone. While this may cause considerable inconvenience to all
related parties we would appreciate your understanding towards the
particular nature of this case where there are an extremely large number
of related parties.
Fax number: 06-6649-9790
Address: Midosuji Minami Bldg 4th floor
2-3-2 Nishi Shinsaibashi,
Chuo-ku, Osaka

Shitty news for Standby NOVA instructors...

2008-02-15T03:28:00.003+09:00

The worst news update for today (3 in a day, can you believe it?)... My AM and old AAM have told me that GComm have changed the ratios... We are now aiming for a 1:50-60 ratio （the official number seems unclear as is often the case)... So when we thought we almost had enough students for one teacher to come back off of standby, we need to get close to
60 more to get a teacher back off standby... And it was only a short while ago we were told that because of the occasional lateness students couldn't take lessons...

Frequent cancellation of classes due to instructors’ absenteeism has disappointed us because we had higher expectations of the new NOVA.”

“In the past NOVA cancelled a lot of lessons so our lesson package expired with many lessons left. We want you to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”

Idiots! Do they not see that they are falling into the same trap??? Of course they do... And when it happens it will be the teachers' fault that these guys couldn't manage a Rock Paper Scissors game... We need to bust our humps to get everyone back, and guys on standby or planning to quit your job, get the new job quick so we can help our brethren out...

Comment on the email from Masaki Inayoshi...

2008-02-15T02:52:00.002+09:00

OK, the whole message has been posted below, as well as a comment from Paulzdeli...

My summary is in italics, and my comments are in brackets...

A positive start with a thanks for working hard and sticking with our jobs even though we didn't get paid for so long (the pay bit wasn't there... It's how I read it...) Inayoshi says that overall he is pleased to have taken over the new NOVA so far... He shows his lefty side by saying how much he respects unions... BUT!!! When checking the Union website, he says they are leaving out detail or lying about what he said (the NOVA union??? NEVER)... Whether someone is in the union or not has no influence on whether they get a contract or not (Yeah, right...)

GComm inherited a company that was not making profit (no shit Sherlock! Maybe that's why it went out of business) and salary costs are high (that's because of us greedy people wanting a paycheck every month) and they can't give contracts to shitty teachers and they can't keep paying teachers to stay on standby...

Union says "You were going to hire us all" (they also said after an interview, which never happened in big cities)
GComm says "We were going to hire the ones we liked and/or were willing to move to Hicktown Japan"

Unions says "You aren't giving anyone new contracts"
GComm says "We are giving new contracts to most but some areas are short of teachers and some places don't have enough teachers, so we will give them contracts if they move to where we want them..." (hahaha you are all at my disposal now, you pawns...)

Union says "You aren't giving us union bosses contracts" (that doesn't really surprise me)
GComm says "That they are in the union has nothing to do with us, and a lot of people applying for jobs are people who used to work for NOVA years ago (read Bob Tench didn't get a job) and we have enough teachers so screw them"

Union says "G Group sucks"
GComm says "We are following the law"

Union says "WE STRIKE!"
GComm says "WTF?"

There are 7 points in summary which are basically a repeat of what's above... Read the post below to see exactly what they say...

Thanks to the good and hardworking people left in NOVA... (the ones who we have so far been willing to bend...)

Overall, GComm is trying to get rid of what they consider troublemaking instructors and move the instructors from bigger areas to other areas where they are short staffed... They don't seem to realise that by April 1 they will have nearly nobody left as everyone goes on to fill in every ALT contract in Japan... This going to be an interesting couple of weeks or months...

Message from GComm to all instructors... Thanks Paulzdeli...

2008-02-15T02:42:00.002+09:00

Here is the message in full from Masaki Inayoshi to all instructors... It is quite long, so grab a beverage... Thanks Paulzdeli for posting it to comments...

To: Nova instructors

As there have been enquiries, questions and concerns received from instructors who have viewed the General Union website, the Chairman of G. Communication would like to take this chance to communicate the message below.
********************************
Firstly, I would like to thank all the instructors and staff of G. communication for the effort everyone is putting into their work. I would also like to add that I really do think that Nova has a large number of tremendous people and great instructors.

I am also very appreciative of the assistance that we have received in working to increase student numbers and open schools in the current winter season. It was great to see so many people attend the get-together parties that I planned in each of the regions.
In short, I am truly pleased to have taken up the challenge of moving Nova forward from this point on.

I should say that I also have a great deal of respect for unions and also, for the role the union movement actually plays in our society itself.

However, I have to admit that I was surprised when looking at the current homepage of the General Union. What appears is in fact quite a bit different from what I really would like to express. It was disappointing to find out that some important points have been omitted or in fact even left out completely.
I have also received enquiries expressing concern that I am only interested in members of the union. I have to say, and would like to make it very clear that in making decisions, whether someone is a member of the union or not plays no part at all in influencing the decisions that are made.

G. education has inherited Nova from a position where there was actually not even 1 yen profit and the salary requirements for one month come to about 600,000,000 yen. I do not think, however, that this is an inappropriate amount. At this time, even should someone have had a contract with Nova as it existed before, if the performance of an instructor has not been satisfactory we will not be in a position to offer contract renewals. I will make all efforts possible to take into consideration the situation of instructors who are yet to have a place of employment, however I am also sure that you appreciate that it will not be possible to continue to provide salaries indefinitely to instructors who are on standby at home.

Points and Demands 1
The monthly layoffs continuing since December are in violation of the basic agreement with the District Court to offer "Employment to all applicants" and go against the chairman's press announcements.

[The response from the company]
* I was not said that we will hire everyone unconditionally, nor has that been the case. In principle, we will go through an interview process and then make an employment decision based on the individual situation of each instructor, notwithstanding exceptional circumstances. We have not laid anyone off. When making contract renewal decisions, our deliberations will be based on the instructor having fulfilled his or her role as an instructor. In cases where there is no place of work, a further condition of renewal of contracts will be the ability and willingness to transfer. Keeping in mind that the number of branches have been drastically reduced since the company's rebirth and continuance, it is not possible to renew the contracts of instructors for whom we have no place of work to offer.

Exceptional circumstances --> As a result of the interview; unsatisfactory performance with the former NOVA; actions which have a negative impact on the reputation of NOVA; the business preparation not being complete; not being able to transfer to a different area.

Points and Demands 2
The requests for contract renewal by instructors presently subject to the terms of one-year contracts with the pre-existing NOVA have been mostly refused.

[The response from the company]
*Student enrollment is progressing well, so there is a limit to the number of instructors who will be unable to renew their contracts. In some areas, we already have a shortage of instructors. On the other hand, as we also have areas where there is an oversupply, contracts can be renewed in the event that relocation is possible, even if only for a fixed period of time, and as long as performance has been satisfactory. However, in cases where the initial business preparation has not been completed, more than two months' notice of cessation of employment will be provided to those affected.

Points and Demands 3
Union leaders have not been re-employed

[The response from the company]
*We have not refused employment to an individual due to union membership. Moreover, of the people who have requested to be hired, more than half are people who have left Nova some years ago. Under the present conditions, we have enough instructors already, so we cannot employ people simply on the basis that they are union members or otherwise.

>Point
Throughout the entire G group, employment contracts and regulations are inadequate.

The response from the company
*At this point in time, in managing the company's operations, legal compliance is considered a fundamental necessity. It is not possible for a company to continue operating if Labor Standards laws are not being complied with. This claim has no foundation.
Procedures undertaken when joining the company are based on the applicable laws and conducted appropriately. All agreements between labor and management are completed appropriately. Various working regulations etc. can be viewed on the Intranet at any time, and, in addition to that, these laws are being complied with in each of the branches.

>Announcement
Strike in order to protect the rights of the students.

[Company viewpoint concerning this]
*We cannot see the point that is under discussion here.

Current policy is as follows.

[1] G.education will take over the contracts of the former Nova under the same employment conditions and working regulations that were the case previously.

[2] At the time that the contract expires, in the case of both parties agreeing, the contract will be renewed.

[3] In exceptional cases, where the performance of an instructor has been deemed to be unsatisfactory, the contract will not be renewed. This being said, in April, from a total of 120 instructor contract decisions, only seven fell into this category, This judgement was influenced in no way by whether or no particular instructors were members of the union.

[4] At the moment, there is a lack of instructors in some branches whilst at the same time, there are almost 200 instructors who are on standby. In this instance, as long as an instructor's performance has been deemed to be satisfactory, and they are willing to move to an area where they are required, G.education will assure that their contract will be renewed.

[5] In the case of areas where the initial business preparation has not been completed, more than two months' notice of cessation of employment will be provided, and salaries will be paid until March 31st.

[6] In regards to contract renewals and all personal matters, whether a person is a member of a union or otherwise will not be a factor in any decision.

[7] If you have any questions please contact one of the numbers listed below.
TOKYO foreign personnel office
TEL: 03-5524-2481
OSAKA foreign personnel office
TEL: 06-7688-0404

Finally, I very much look forward to working with all of the positive and motivated people at NOVA, in moving on from this point toward an enjoyable and successful future.

Yours Sincerely,
Masaki Inayoshi

2 interesting emails from G Communication...

2008-02-13T22:51:00.002+09:00

2 emails came today to branches... One of which I have read, the other one I am yet to read but will post about it at some stage tomorrow...

The one I have read is in Japanese and says to the Japanese staff that throughout the company there is a rule that our staff are not to give ANYONE, that includes fellow staff, instructors, anyone so-called "GIRI CHOCO", or "obligation chocolate" (the one you feel you have to give people just because you work with them and not because you like/love them)... Lucky my manager told me that she is actually in love with all of us, so she will still give us chocolate...

The other one I have heard about and from what I have heard, it is a bunch of claims from the General Union (Nambu maybe) and then the responses to them from the company president... I can post to the blog and read comments from my mobile, so if anyone has had a good chance to read it, then can you put a short review of the article in a comment and I will make the whole thing available with a summary and comment at some stage tomorrow...

In the meantime, have a Happy Valentine's Day... tell someone you love them... Not that you need a day, but it gives us all an excuse, doesn't it?

Possible news about Backpay for GComm NOVA people???

2008-02-12T14:56:00.000+09:00

There is a comment on Lets Japan that says that someone knows someone who says that they got their backpay documents... This was also repeated on a comment on this blog... What I had heard from friends who went to the labour office and Hello Work was that the documents would not be ready until the beginning of March and then the processing would begin... Now, I would like to know first hand if any readers here have received the third and final envelope necessary to claim the backpay that we are all owed...

If you have received it then please put a comment on to tell us... Again if you know someone who has and it is reliable then please put it on... I am not in the business of rumour-mongering, I just want the exchange of information to be as honest, smooth and fast as possible...

Not a real post... but this is funny...

2008-02-12T11:19:00.000+09:00

It's old but good, I was playing in Gizoogle... www.gizoogle.com and put the blog in there...

Here is the resulting page... Made me chuckle yo...

http://sites.gizoogle.com/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgcommnova.blogspot.com

Almost there... a phenomenal effort...

2008-02-08T23:22:00.000+09:00

So speaking to the AM today and a Block Trainer in a neighbouring branch it turns out that a few days ago one teacher came back off of standby. Our branch is 20 students away from calling in another instructor, the nearby branch has one coming in off of standby next week, and the other branch in the area is about 12 students away, so effectively that means that by about next Thursday, our area, which had previously had 9 instructors on standby, will only have 2 left on standby... This is an awesome effort, and I have to pay tribute to the trainers in nearby branches who are in the AM's ear the whole time and making sure she knows how urgent it is that our guys (all the standby instructors are male) get back to work...

I transferred to my original branch (the one I was at before the shut down) on February 1st. The branch is becoming quite full now, when I started at the original branch in November we would get about 6 frees a day as well as a usually empty VOICE lesson... Today I had no free lessons, at the start of the day some were scheduled, but they filled in during the day... Things are kind of getting back into a normal kind of pattern, or as normal as it could be...

Unfortunately due to this crap, I have to say goodbye to a good friend tomorrow... This experience is toughening all of us up, and desensitizing me to goodbyes...

A funky spin on the recent fax....

2008-02-07T00:46:00.000+09:00

Here is a video made by a guy called Lightning Jack about the fax and email we all received... Some of the wording is different from the one that I received, but the background music is a nice change to the doom and gloom with which we would read the thing by ourselves....

The inference that it is our fault, and not the incompetent management's fault that the company may still fail infuriates and sickens me... Yet it doesn't surprise me... No-one wants to hear that they are incompetent...

Would you like your English well done or medium rare?

2008-02-05T19:43:00.000+09:00

Well, Let's Japan has posted that according to a news story brought up by one of their comment posters, which matches one we had here yesterday Takashi Ono has been replaced by Mr. Hideo Sugimoto as CEO of G Education.

Sugimoto was the boss of Yakinkuya Sakai which is one of the millions of companies under the whole GComm umbrella... Here is a link to the list of companies under the GComm umbrella, yet they found it appropriate to choose the boss of a Yakiniku joint to put in charge of all of G Education, that is NOVA as well as the rest of G Education's businesses ... Let's just see how this affects our situation at work... I am hoping not to have to do any serving of meat products anytime soon, but who knows what will be required???

Of course, it appears that this Sugimoto chap is adept at cost-cutting and bringing companies back from the dead so to speak... Let's just hope that this will not involve more firings, nor the delay in hiring back friends who are still on standby...

The Threatening Email

2008-02-04T20:12:00.000+09:00

About 3 hours ago, I received an email from GComm, and according to the email all instructors received the same thing... I had heard rumors of this and warned the teachers at work that I had heard this was happening... Supposedly, this went out in an email to managers a week or two ago, and only now the instructors are being told... GComm feel they can bully us as they have so many teachers on standby ready to take our jobs if we show up late to work... For those who didn't get the message it is included below... Summary is, if you are late you are fired, if you are seriously ill, you can call Foreign Personnel... Those working at GComm, do yourselves
a favor and be on time...

To all NOVA instructors,

Having re-opened the branches succeeded from the previous NOVA, we have started lessons and have received words of gratitude from former NOVA students. New enrolments are also increasing each day.

However, over the past few days complaints from NOVA students about instructor absenteeism have been reported to G.education Head Office. These complaints include comments like:

“Frequent cancellation of classes due to instructors’ absenteeism has disappointed us because we had higher expectations of the new NOVA.”

“In the past NOVA cancelled a lot of lessons so our lesson package expired with many lessons left. We want you to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”

On looking into records of lesson cancellations, over a one-month period more than 3000 hours of NOVA lessons were cancelled due to instructor absences. At this point in NOVA’s revitalization we can not lapse into the same situation as the public is closely observing how NOVA performs. For the company to prosper we need to avoid disappointing students at all costs.

As a result, from today the following rules are implemented:

* No absenteeism will be permitted.
* In unavoidable circumstances, such as poor health, instructors should continue to contact Foreign Personnel by the established deadlines.

If you are unable to meet these expectations, it may not be possible to continue your employment
with G.education.

We trust that you have a thorough understanding of the current situation and thank you for your cooperation.

Takashi Ono C.E.O
G.education Co., Ltd.

* This document has been produced to inform you of company policy and is being sent to all NOVA instructors.

A week of mostly calm and peace...

2008-01-28T22:30:00.000+09:00

The week has come and gone, with at least one of our local instructors being called back off of standby... I was talking to our Area Manager and she says that it is her, in collaboration with branch Titled Instructors (they are still getting treated as Titled Instructors around here), who gets called back off of standby... When asking when that would happen, she explained that when branches got to within about 10 students of the 1:40 ratio, another teacher would get a call... For example, a branch of 160 students will have 4 instructors, but when they get to about 190, another instructor would get called in... This provides me with some hope as the 2 branches in this area have far less students than they should, and most likely will, have...

From the same conversation with the area manager, I also found out that contracts are not reliant on evaluations anymore, rather, they are based on a one paragraph email from the area manager which goes in to GComm head office... This email is read, and based on whether that email says the instructor is any good, the Vice President of G Education gets to review it, if it is then decided that it's OK, Ono the G Education president has to give the OK... One of our area instructors just had this process done, and it was decided that he was OK... I am sure that's a relief... The AM knew this guy though and that made it easier... If the AM doesn't know the teacher that will be tough... Any readers have a contract renewal recently? Anyone know of anyone that has?

I will post again soon and let everyone know how its going... In the meantime, share information, post a comment, and read others' comments... Let everyone know that they are not alone in this new endeavour...

The brave few volunteers...

2008-01-17T01:06:00.001+09:00

Today was one of the worst days at work... It wasn't so bad for me but for the bosses it was a killer... At our branch there were only two who needed to be asked to go on standby... At a neighbouring branch 7 instructors were asked... People were sensible about it and spoke to the ones that could most afford it financially, as opposed to the instructors that the new bosses will want working for them... Those boys stood up and took a bullet for us...

So I will post a short one as my fury prevents me from saying what I think...

Hats off to the Tobu 9... Jon, Eric, Adam, Adam, Dana, Leslie, Jeza, Michael, and Scott... You all have my admiration and love brothers... May you get your jobs back if you want them or get new jobs if that's what you boys are after...

To anyone reading this, post a comment if you know of friends that volunteered to take the hit for those less well off financially...

I have had to go out to commiseration drinks twice in two days, and I am sick of it... When will this nightmare end??? If this was the winning bid, what did the losing bids offer???

More rumoured sackings... and some rehirings...

2008-01-14T16:23:00.000+09:00

I had a two week break over the new year period as I wanted to relax and enjoy the festive season... I hope everyone had an awesome time... In that time I got my brown envelope, but I have no idea what to do with it...

I have heard two interesting things over the last few days... The bad news first... I received an email from a very reliable source that the meeting the IAMs had all day on Friday was an information session... The information was that they were losing their jobs... They have been asked to go quietly after receiving 1 months pay and a flight ticket home... There are no management jobs for gaijin left under the new GComm regime... I haven't spoken to my AAM yet, but I will endeavour to do so and find out what's going on... If anyone else speaks to their AAM let us know...

The other thing was that some B option people have got their jobs back... I have met a couple that have been coming into the branches and getting their jobs back, so not everyone got fired... I was absolutely shocked to see them... But that's some mildly positive news... Are there any B Option people reading this? Did any of you get your jobs back?

The third thing that I have recently heard a rumor about was teachers in branches that are overstaffed were going to have to go on standby from yesterday... I haven't heard about any of that happening in this area, particularly because we have just had a new branch open up and possibly another one scheduled for next week, all the instructors around here will be required... If this has happened in anyone's area, please let everyone know...

Merry Christmas from GComm...

2007-12-30T10:25:00.000+09:00

Who thought that no-one in Japan had any Christmas spirit??? Here is a very late update (this actually happened about a week ago, but Christmas festivities...) All the people who took the B Option got fired... That's it... There are no jobs for you with GComm unless you want to work in restaurants...

The email was sent to me by about 3 sources... One of which was an anonymous comment on this blog... I will include it here...

Thank you for requesting re-employment with G.education. Since taking over operations at Nova we have put all our efforts into proceeding with the reopening of branches. As a result, we expect to have approximately 130 branches offering Nova lessons during December 2007.
At the same time, the Trustees in Bankruptcy are making progress with dissolving Nova Corporation. At present they have started proceeding sequentially with terminating leases of properties which will not be taken over by G.education and the problem of unpaid wages. With the cooperation of property owners, we have managed to rapidly reopen many branches but now intend to more closely align branch reopenings with the current business situation. The process of opening the Ekimae Ryugaku branches and restarting lessons requires a lot of time, personnel and expense. To enable us to offer lessons even more quickly to students who still have unused lesson points, we will shift the focus of development from the branches to expanding Ochanoma Ryugaku lessons with a view to even opening new Multimedia Center facilities overseas.

In the current business situation, it is only possible for G.education to employ a limited number of instructors in January and while we appreciate your request for re-employment from January 10, 2008, it is with great regret that we inform you that we are not able to offer you a position at G.education at this time.

This has been a very difficult decision for G.education to have to make and we would like to offer assistance to all applicants, including information about other employment options or financial assistance with purchasing an air ticket to your home country. Additionally, the G.communication group has opportunities available in the restaurant industry and would welcome inquiries if you have an interest in this field. We will also continue to assist the Trustees in Bankruptcy with the necessary documentation for making applications for reimbursement of unpaid Nova Corporation wages.

While the current business situation makes this decision unavoidable, we hope to be able to contact you and ask you for your assistance if possible once business operations allow.

In our endeavor to continue Nova fs business, we are constantly forced to make difficult decisions and, while our aim is to be able to have as many students as possible return to the branches and as many instructors as possible continue employment, it is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you of this decision and ask for your understanding.

We wish you all the best with your future endeavors.

Takashi Ono
Chief Executive Officer
G.education Co. Ltd.
5-12-3 Hondori
Kurokawa
Kita-ku
Nagoya-shi

There were a few people who made these jokes to me when GComm took over the business, as they owned a whole bunch of restaurants and izakayas... But of course I couldn't take any of that seriously until now...

Fortunately, I only personally know 4 people who took the B Option but none of them were actually seeking re-employment, they had either found other jobs in Japan or were using the 150,000 yen to help buy a plane ticket home... Some people I have heard of, though, used the period until January 10 to take a Christmas holiday home and are sitting in their home countries now trying to decide what to do... Go back to Japan and find another job... Just stay here and cut my losses... Go back to tie up any loose ends... All I can do is express my condolences to those having to much such tough decisions over this Festive Season...

Merry Christmas All...

2007-12-24T23:29:00.000+09:00

The GComm NOVA Blog would like to wish everyone who bothers to read this and share the information a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year... I will post again soon... I have heard about the email... I will comment about this terrible state of affairs in the coming day or two! Take care all, and enjoy the Holiday in the way it was meant to be enjoyed!!! Safely...

The mysterious brown envelopes...

2007-12-19T21:21:00.000+09:00

So... Speaking to some friends yesterday, I have heard that some Rishokuhyos have arrived... these came in a couple of days ago, and that I know of, only came for people who have said they will not go on to further employment with GComm NOVA... Does anyone else have a similar experience? Are there more people that have received the large envelopes? I haven't...

They said they received a bunch of information in Japanese in a large brown envelope (the same size as the big ones we have at NOVA)... Most importantly it contained a large (A3) page I think they said it was green, with handwritten amounts of the salary owed to them over the months that they were not paid for... Now I assume this means that they are entitled to 80% of the number shown on that form, and that there will be a substantial wait for that money...

The regular application time when a small company goes under is about 1 month I am led to believe, but in the case of NOVA (one of Japan's largest ever bankruptcies, and the one that has led to the most creditors out of pocket in history) then that application time could be substantially longer... Not that one should necessarily believe the 6 month figure being bandied around (particularly as the only "sources" quoting that number are union figures who spend a lot of their time scare and hate mongering)...

The actual amount of time it's going to take is an uncertainty, but it is certain that 1 month will be too short... It is, however a possibility that people could start to see their money within the next 3 or 4 months... Certainly not ideal, but better than the 6 month wait we are being told to expect as a certainty...

So for those that have received them, good luck! Let us know how the application process goes... For those who haven't let us know when you do finally get them...

I apologize for the 4 day absence...

2007-12-13T00:40:00.000+09:00

Glad to hear that a lot of you have been receiving your money... Are there any people that are still waiting on money from the G-Unit?

So I show up at work yesterday and my staff come running up to me... "I have a letter for you from GComm"... Take a quick look and it's a payslip... Unfortunately there within was withheld the awful news... Anon was correct... We were not getting paid again until January 15, 2008.

This means that after all the waiting, all the trouble, and all the issues and most of our continual struggles to pay rent, we now have a 41 day wait from one pay to the next... I guess that is slightly better than the previous wait, which was either a 79 or 68 day wait depending on whether you were a trainer or not... And at least this time we are being promised a full paycheck... A FULL PAYCHECK!!! UNBELIEVABLE... Almost inconceivable until a few weeks ago... But 41 days is still a long time to wait... If they don't pay on the 15th, I will be the least happy man in Japan... My rent will be late now... Hope the real estate agent is OK with that...

Got a text message from a former coworker with 2 main details... Number 1, his new company sucks as they get paid less, work longer hours and they get no rest time... Like absolutely no break time in between lessons, and a 20-30 minute lunch break...

The other thing though was that he has not received any severance documents at all... He was quite concerned as expected... I explained that I had received the initial severance documents, but not the ones that we needed to apply for the past salaries (thanks Paul)... Has anyone else not received their initial paperwork? Are there any stranded people who can not apply for unemployment because they don't have the paperwork?? If you have time, leave a comment, let everyone know if you are OK regarding severance documents, money etc...

Sorry all..

2007-12-09T01:52:00.000+09:00

Celebratory beverages have coincided with a bout of illness as well as further celebratory beverages... Seeing as this post has taken about 10 minutes, I think it would be wise for me to post on Monday when I am a little more sober...

My ship has come in...

2007-12-06T15:41:00.001+09:00

We got paid... I got about what i expected in my bank account.., When I got into work this morning I went to the ATM and saw I got paid... I will post again after celebratory beverages...

Another day... Not another yen... Maybe today...

2007-12-06T10:46:00.000+09:00

OK, the 5th came and went and no-one got paid... I didn't post last night as it would have been loaded with expletives and curse words... This morning I can look back and laugh... What else can you do?

I checked my account late on Tuesday night (at about 1am)... When NOVA was a viable company, the money used to go in at midnight automatically, but no money had been deposited... I got a text message from a colleague yesterday at noon saying that her money had not been deposited either... I arrived at the branch and everyone was asking... "Did you check your account?" everyone had, as we are all broke... No-one had any money...

The AAM called and explained that when they got paid on December 30 for the December 10-20 period (as they had worked from December 18) that the pay had gone in at 2pm a day late... During the afternoon a fax came... (I have included it verbatim)...

"Regarding the trouble of the data transmission of the salary and reward.

Thank you for your continued effort to revitalize new NOVA.

Today December the 5th is the Supposed payday for the former month payment from the 20th November to the 30th November.

But we are sorry to inform you that your salary for November has not transferred to your bank account yet because of some errors in the transfer operation system with the banks to which the data of your payment was already sent.

We are now looking into this problem and asking the banks to transfer money by today. In case your salary should not be put into your bank account by today, we will change the way to transmit the salary so that you will definitely receive your salary tomorrow.

We are very sorry to have caused any worry.
We greatly appreciate your understanding in this matter.

G.education"

Sound familiar? The teachers room echoed with "What? No black clouds this time?"... A silent rage covered with laughter filled the room...

Speaking to the AAM that evening he explained that GComm had never made such a large bank transaction as the salaries become one major transaction and if there is one error, they send the whole thing back... There were 110 errors in the salary deposit...

Trying to remain positive, the monkey never said the word definitely... He used things like scheduled and maybe... Also, our staff called one of the G.Ed or GComm bosses, before the fax came and he also said that we would get paid today (December 6)... NOVA had the details sorted and just had to plug in numbers, GComm have had to try and enter the data of about 2000 people and their bank and salary details in about 3 days... It doesn't surprise me that the first one was late... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt... for now...

Let's see how that goes... There is only so long you can keep people going on promises... We'd better get paid today, that's all I'm saying...

The time has arrived, or at least the paperwork...

2007-12-04T11:44:00.001+09:00

So, I received my Rishokuhyo or notice of termination effective on November 30th, yesterday... Even though I have been working for the new company since November 22nd, it still says that I am dismissed from the old NOVA effective on November 30th... That's OK I have been reassured that it becomes effective on the day I started work with GComm...

The pack came in an envelope naming NOVA as the bankrupt company and inside there were about 5 pieces of paper... the main one is the release or dismissal form, and after thet there is a 4 page booklet about finding work at HelloWork for those that are yet to get a job or are looking for work other than NOVA... I haven't yet gone to the effort of reading these documents carefully, so I am not sure if they include the process of applying for past salaries in them... If anyone else has read them, please post a comment and let me know if something like that is included... Otherwise, please let us know what we have to do if you have any information...

Well, just a short one today, hopefully tomorrow, I'll have more to write, as I will have been at the branch and tomorrow is slated to be payday! I hope it's on time this time... I have forgotten what it's like to be paid...

2 updates in a day...

2007-12-02T18:22:00.000+09:00

Sorry I haven't updated for a couple of days... I have been a touch busy... I can afford to just a little bit now as the advance came through...

We started working on Thursday November 22, filled in the paperwork then, the AAM took it in the next morning. Friday November 23 was a national holiday and then we had the weekend. So the process probably didn't start until Monday the 26th... We ended up getting the 50000 yen on Thursday November 29. A little later than expected, but we got it... This gives me a bit of confidence in the new company, as with the old company, we would never have seen that money...

Schedules have also become a little confusing in the branch as our branch and the neighboring one are both closed on Monday... So some instructors are doing self swaps, some are changing days off, some are taking unpaid days off for the Mondays... Help shifts don't look to be an option as for now, so few branches are open that there is no realistic place to do the help shifts...

Lessons in the branch started yesterday but as I was off, I am not sure how it all went... I wonder if anyone else has started lessons yet... If anyone has, please leave a comment and let me know how it's going...

The new system...

2007-12-02T11:45:00.000+09:00

The new lesson system is posted on the internet as a PDF file... It should be easily readable in your browser though...

There are 2 kinds of lesson plans in place... Number 1 is the standard plan, and 2 is the Senior Plan... (GComm are after the Grey Yen it would seem...)

Lessons can be booked for either 4, 8, 12, 16, or 20 lessons per month and are to be paid monthly... In this system students can not use these points for Man to Man lessons as they used to... When I asked the staff, they explained that for students who want to book Man to Man lessons there is a different plan... If you look at the PDF file, its the box on the right of the 2 standard and senior plan boxes... So ex NOVA students who want to take 12 group lessons a month, will end up paying 6900 yen a month and those who buy the Man to Man system will pay 27600 a month for 12 man to man lessons...

Similarly VOICE and KIDS students have to buy their points back at a reasonable price, but seeing as the already paid old NOVA once having to repay doesn't seem too reasonable...

For those who can read Japanese there is a Q&A for students up on the G Education website...

New colors...

2007-11-28T12:04:00.000+09:00

By the way, you might have noticed that the colors of the blog have been changed due to popular request (2 people)... Let me know if there are any other cosmetic changes you think would help the readability of the blog... Thanks...

The big news...

2007-11-28T11:17:00.000+09:00

Saw some interesting news as reported on Lets Japan... It looks like (old)NOVA has now officially declared bankruptcy and gone into liquidation...

This is good news for a couple of reasons. Firstly it means that instructors waiting on backpay are one step closer to receiving their rishokuhyo (the official letter of dismissal from the company which is essential to any unpaid wage claim)...

Hopefully it will also be a cue to start criminal proceedings against those responsible for, at the very least, the withheld wages, and probably to a greater extent, criminal negligence... These people have hurt a lot of people along the way and they need to pay for what they did... I hope retribution against the Monkey is swift and hard, as he has made a lot of people, particularly those with families to feed, suffer unnecessarily due to his abysmal economic management...

The procedures for receiving backpay will become clearer soon and the Japan Labour Health and Welfare Organisation website has an explanation of the system of application for backpay... and an explanation of English consultation times, but as can be seen there is no information for next week, so if anyone has any time to get down there by the end of this week (I don't), please head down to Kawasaki and find out what we all have to do... I would really appreciate a comment to help everyone out...

As promised earlier, I have the information on student courses and prices and will put that up in the next couple of days...

Back from my weekend...

2007-11-26T22:49:00.000+09:00

Sorry all, I just had my weekend and spent almost every last yen I had at a couple of celebratory functions...

Got into work today, and quite a few of the teachers had the day off, so the Teacher's Room was a bit emptier than it had been... Still there were about 7 or 8 people there... Over the weekend some people had bought some Craft materials and we could get down to the nitty-gritty of making our introductory posters... After preparing the training sessions tomorrow, and in between card games, many of which had unsavory names, but one of which I ended up quite adept at... The Training needed to be scheduled, the instructors are are starting to or are about to go stir crazy ... Two of the instructors got the posters finished to varying degrees of success, mine not so successful... The other one much more so...

Staff confirmed with us today that December 1st would be the first day of lessons, but as the computer systems are still not fully operational the Japanese staff must handwrite all schedules for now... But as bookings only start getting taken from tomorrow, I can't imagine that there will be too many lessons booked on the schedule even though after only one day, they have already opened 3 kids classes...

Also I received an email from my AAM that if any instructors wanted to continue their job at GComm NOVA, they were to wait for a phone call about an info session at Head Office on Wed/Thu and that all instructors that still wanted a job back needed to be available for these sessions on these days... I would, however also recommend that all waiting instructors call their supervisor or even better, their AAM to make sure they are on the list to get called... It sounds like these people will be going in to sign up officially for the new company... But again, please check with your AAM or call Head Office for more information...

The Second day in...

2007-11-24T11:43:00.000+09:00

Went in again yesterday of course... The second day of work and there were about 10 instructors there altogether as well as 5 or 6 Japanese staff... Only one of those was the same as the staff that were there the day before... Looks like the staff are going to be shuffled around a lot as they are planning to do with the instructors...

The AAM was in to sign more documents with the 3 new instructors who agreed to come in to the branch starting yesterday... One of those three, though, thought it over a bit and decided that seeing as he was planning to go home at the end of the year, and he had lots of stuff to do, that he would not sign up... So we have 11 instructors in a branch that should hold 5... That's OK... There is absolutely nothing to do anyway...

Again, I met a bunch of students from nearby branches who were overly happy to see us, some even being brought to tears by the sight of their favorite instructors... This is one of the moments that makes me feel pretty happy, particularly after reading people writing that we are all the scum of the earth and hated by all Japanese people... There are at least a few people that don't hate us... The students were given a questionnaire and a pamphlet with the lesson system to fill out and read respectively, and I grabbed a copy of it... Will do a bit of amateur translation of it tomorrow...

Staff and the AAM confirmed that there was no chance of lessons starting until at least December so there are going to be lots and lots of days of doing very little...

The First Day

2007-11-23T09:58:00.000+09:00

So I went in to the (new)NOVA branch yesterday... I arrived early and it turns out the NOVA and GComm staff had been there since 10 (all of them were on the late shift...) I am hoping that this was just an opening day anomaly... It would not be fair otherwise...

When I arrived, the AAM was there already and had been since 11... He warmly welcomed me and had me sit down in the VOICE room while we waited for the other instructors... A branch that usually had 5 instructors max had 9 yesterday and will have 12 today as 3 other instructors start up... GComm's goal is to get every single instructor that said they wanted their job back on the books by November 30 at the latest...

When I sat down yesterday, I was handed a piece of paper addressed to NOVA teachers and about NOVA's first day... It thanked all of the instructors for coming in and explained that our shift for the day was from 1PM to 9PM... It explained that our contracts were supposed to be completed before we began working but they have not yet been printed up... The AAM explained that the reason for this is that GComm are trying to print up an individual contract for every single individual instructor with salary details and conditions printed on to it... Not handwritten or printed on a second bit of paper, and not a generic contract for every single instructor... So no contract yet... The guy from GComm who was there promised us that we were all getting paid from yesterday, though...

We then filled in tax forms, banking details forms and we were offered a salary advance of 50000 yen to be taken against our January 5th paychecks... The AAM had applied for and already received this money... The page also asked us that when we were free we should be meeting and greeting students "with a lot of hospitality and a big smile"... So we sat down and chatted with students for about half the day...

The intro form also talked about making a self introduction poster but there were no materials for said poster so we spent the day trying to look busy and rearranging the Teacher's room...

All in all a day of little to do, and we are already getting paid... Oh well, better get ready for work now...

The last night...

2007-11-21T23:52:00.000+09:00

Tonight is my last night with no job... My last night of rest... I didn't have enough money for a real Last Supper though... I am starting to love Cup Noodles...

When I got the call from H. he asked me to bring in my bankbook and stuff as well as a ryoshusho (receipt) from the station to get my first day's travel money back... I guess there will be some documents to sign, maybe a contract or some kind of other banking documents etc.

The best thing is that I am getting text messages from my fellow teachers who are ready willing and able to come to work... All of them are, in part, excited about what our future holds and I assume most of them are bored, poor and a few that live alone are a little bit lonely and looking forward to a little human contact... This all adds up t6o a fun day tomorrow of hanging out with teachers and 8 free lessons...

The problem is that my branch staff have not been called yet and as such are all on their way to the Labor Standards Bureau or whatever those people are called to sort out what to to do about past pay...

I am planning to call them tomorrow to get as much informati0n as possible and I will put what I learn up here...

The purple flash came...

2007-11-20T22:46:00.000+09:00

It came! At 5:31 PM I got a phone call from a guy who identified himself as H (all names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty)... He told me that I have a job at a nearby branch about train about 30 minutes away by train so not too bad I guess even though my old branch was only about 10 minutes away. I have to front up there at 1 on Thursday...

H told me to bring my bankbook, passport and any other relevant documents (wonder what that might mean...) to the branch... He has never been there as he worked in a different area originally, but now it looks like he is coming to our areas, if the area system even stays the same...

Anyway, so it's gone from a predicted long period of further repose to one last day off.... That really sucks balls coz I was planning to get so much more nothing done...

Branch Openings (cancelled)...

2007-11-19T11:29:00.000+09:00

Today a branch in the local area, in which some of my friends were slated to work, was slated to be opened... As the teachers waited for 1PM to arrive they got a phone call from the bosses explaining that due to "Technical Reasons" (rumor has it this means that no-one could get their hands on the keys...) the opening
would be postponed...

So all the teachers had been sitting around drinking coffee and decided to go and get drunk... And now we are all a little concerned whether any branches in the area will open...

Oh well back to the grind of watching the Movies that I have planned to watch for a long time... SItting next to a phone, watching the little light on the top to see if it flashes purple... If it flashes blue it's just a text message and I don't think GComm will text me with a new job...

Branch Openings...

2007-11-17T15:42:00.000+09:00

(new)NOVA has opened some branches as is displayed in this News story put on Youtube a few days ago (November 14, 2007)...

This is the first branch in Nagoya and was an old EC English conversation school... A different company but the original brand of GComm's Eikaiwa schools...

The report also mentioned the impending opening of more branches in Nagoya as well as Tochigi, and Shizuoka... All of them miles from here, so our wait continues...

I am also getting calls and text messages from concerned instructors worrying about when we will open in our
area a lot of angry people... Angry... Like about to kill people angry... I wish someone had some answers... We have rumors about possible branch openings in the area but no concrete news...

Oh well, I have lots of movies, games and other things to do at almost the same rate as the unemployment
benefit so I will get on with that stuff for now... I hope we have some news soon...

The waiting game...

2007-11-15T19:52:00.000+09:00

I have come back from the meeting at Head Office and now sit at home waiting for the news... Will it be good or bad? I have signed all the documents, I left the old NOVA and asked GComm to hire me.. They promised they would. There seemed to be a gap in the information. They said that if the company hired us and there was no school to go to in our area, then we would get paid at 100% of our salary... This seemed too good to be true... Well it both is and isn't, it is because we weren't hired yet on that first day... We have to wait for phone calls, so in the meantime, we are being hired by (old)NOVA, so we get paid 60% of our salary for the waiting time... (the government will only backpay us for 80% of this effectively making t 48% we are eligible for...) It isn't too good to be true in that once (old)NOVA declares bankruptcy, we will all automatically be hired by GComm and get paid the waiting time at 100%...

So now, as always recently, its just a matter of time to wait and see when we get the calls, and when (old)NOVA declares bankruptcy so we can try and get backpay...