Some of you may or may not know about the company I work for. It's called Nova, and it's the biggest private English teaching school in the country. It's also the biggest money-sucking corporation in Japan, in my opinion. They really don't give a rip about their employees (Japanese or International side) and the turnover is so high you would have a bird. For example, two of the 12 people I work with have been with Nova for more than 3 months.
Recently I've been facing some minor frustrations at work. Although if I can put the organization aside, I do love it. However, some of you might know that I don't put up easily with completely nonsensical rules at work, or rude people working above me. I can give examples of jobs where i've quit due to situations of this nature...like at the bookstore and also at the Huether Hotel Cafe. I simply just won't let myself get pushed around in that manner.
Anyway, when i got here i was shocked to learn just how ridiculous Nova actually is. Now honestly, I could go on and on and on about all the crap they've pulled already, but i'm just going to share with you this one mind-blowing story.
So during the week it's not really busy at Nova. Mind you I work at one of the busiest schools in the area, but still, from time to time we get 'no shows' - when your student just doesn't come to class.
Therefore we get a 'free class' which we call 'non-teaching time'. In this time you are instructed to follow a strict protocol as i've found out. After I found out about this protocol, I followed it. However i've still been warned THREE TIMES that I haven't been using my non-teaching time wisely.
Grrrrrrrrr. I've officially given up on trying to use my bloody non-teaching time wisely.
It's because of today. Today I only taught 5 lessons. My last lesson was a no-show, so I approached the manager on the Japanese side and asked her what I should do. Just like I ALWAYS do.
She had me draw lines in a new notebook.
Honestly. Imagine a regular Hilroy notebook. Drawing lines on each page, to make columns. I think they have 20 of them that are done and ready to be used from us teachers having to make them in our free time.
AFTER I was done drawing the lines with her coming into the teachers room every 8 minutes to be sure I was doing work, I immediately went up to her to ask her what else I could do although there was only 6 minutes left until my shift was over.
She had me rip up paper, yeah that's right, MANUALLY shread because the 'shreddo' wasn't working. I almost bore a canary.
So I sat there for 2 minutes and manually ripped up paper that isn't even confidential. Things like our schedules or ads or teachers comments from 4 years ago. I then used the bathroom card although I didn't have to go.
At least I got paid roughly $19/hour to do nothing. But it's just so pointless...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Yeah, NOVA is rough and ridiculous at times but one of the other instructors has gone and worked for all the other English schools here and NOVA is the least bad of them all... (It's not saying much for the others though)
Hey, was feeling a bit pissed off at Nova today myself, and typed in the words Nova and Evil and guess what came up? I must say your school sounds pretty bad. Non teaching time protocols are not that strictly enforced in mine, and even if they are, it's usually at least somewhat related to teaching. That said, I'm sure, despite Mike's comments, that there is something better out there. Just gotta pay back that damn loan.
Post a Comment