It's all over...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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.

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...

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!

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!!!!

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...

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!

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!!!!