So yesterday I had to take a day off due to getting really sick. My boyfriend, who works for the same company, came over to check in on me. He looked especially worried that day but wouldn't tell me exactly why. He just kept making up some excuse and told me to focus on getting better. The next day, a coworker called me and said, "Did you hear about the pay cut? She's suddenly going to give everyone a 30% pay cut. Too bad so and so didn't tell you...that sucks.. etc"
My stomach sank when I heard that because payday is about 2 days away and I do not know what I am going to do. I called up the BF and he told me it was true but he didn't want to tell me when I was suffering from such a high fever etc... which was smart. I could feel my temperature going up in anger as I talked to him about it. I had to calm down as I was still not out of the sick woods. Though I am scared out of my mind, I feel some relief as finally I can get away from this company and find work in Tokyo or some other place...
I had a feeling this was coming but I do not blame the failing of our English school on the economy but on a rich, sociopath, self-entitled, selfish woman. Since 2011 she has done a lot of things to sabotage her company.
1. She got rid of the Japanese staff whose English was better than hers. As the boss, she wanted to be the only Japanese person with the best English.
2. She hired 2 yes men who can barely speak English and hate teaching children... but since they follow her method of teaching by just reading sentences from a book rather than teaching, then she never wants to let these two guys go. They always go to seminars with her or stay up till 11pm just talking about BS with her because she loves to be the center of attention from younger men.
3. She raised the prices more than twice in a year for students.
4. She changed the name of the Eikaiwa to this really long name that the students have a hard time remembering and some have complained and wondered if we are even an Eikaiwa anymore. She also changed the school to a foundation.
5. She keeps going on about "dreams and fulfilling your dreams" but when people actually tell her their dreams, if it has nothing to do with her or the company, she makes them change it lol
6. In one year alone, she has spent over 20,000 dollars of the company's money on stupid seminars dealing with motivational speeches and seminars. She made a few of her workers go to a tarot reading seminar in Tokyo...
7. She has stopped paying us for overtime and says that we have to do it for the good of the company but at the same time, she is hiring all these extra people that we do not need.
8. She's made the company in a way now that the few remaining students that we have believe that only a Japanese person is the best for teaching them English, even if they are not fluent in English. Instead of the English conversational classes we used to have along with a few Eiken and TOEIC classes, we now have a juku atmosphere throughout the entire school. These teachers that she has hired can barely say Goodbye in English to their students...
9. Many of the Japanese people are worried about her. She has a lot of enemies in this town as I have found out.... She seemed really sweet to me but many of our students have left because of her antics.
10. The fact that I told her that I can no longer stay at the company because of the huge cut did not register in her mind. She just sat there smiling and then started to talk about dreams as one of her minions frantically tried to throw together these seminars and lame events that got us here in the first place. After I left the office, I heard that she told people that I had given up on the company.
11. If she doesn't have enough people for a seminar, she will make some of the Japanese staff attend and pay the full price. She tried to make the foreign staff pay for attending and teaching at last year's Christmas party, but we had refused to pay, so she backed down.
I'm so angry and disappointed now because I really like my current town and the friends I have made here. She says that if I stick around that we can all get our money back but I do not believe her. It also does not register in her mind that a 30% cut is drastic for many and we have bills to pay etc... Her mom is very rich and everything is covered for her so she cannot empathize at what others are going through.
Really worried now... I've been frantically applying to schools in the Kanto area, so wish me luck.