Job Discussion Forums

[Squire22]

Has anyone heard anything about this company? Wing? Or Wing Global is there full name I think, they have an office in Shinjuku, and mainly send teachers out to Saitama and Chiba areas I believe.

Any info? Better yet, has anyone worked for them? Currently working for them? Anything would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

[scrying]

I worked for them in Kisarazu, Chiba. Loathed the town, but the company is pretty straightforward, and the president seemed pretty on teh level. If I was going to move back to Kanto, I would definitely look into hooking up with them again. If I had to name a "good" dispatch company, it would be them, unless someone with more recent experience can testify differently.

[tonyukohi]

please take this with a grain of salt - I am not currently working for them.

However, been through the interview process with them, and frankly I found them rather unprofessional. Not in any serious way, just not being prepared, not knowing what to ask during the registration session, and generally they didn't seem to offer the same level of support and follow-through some other dispatch companies do. Basically, it *appeared* to me as if they just wanted to get and complete as many contracts as possible, and leave everything else up to the staff at the schools.

Granted, it *is* a dispatch company. Can't fault a leopard for its spots

[cafebleu]

There's another Wing school in Fukuoka - not far from Dazaifu. It's a very unprofessional set up whereby the female owner wins the confidence of the gaijin teachers and then proceeds to rip them off in sly ways.

Last time one of my friends worked there it was in a fairly uninviting room on the ground floor of an apartment. According to 4 people I knew who worked there, they were all stiffed in different ways of the pay they were ocntractually promised. It hires teachers on a part time basis - give it a wide berth if you live in Fukuoka.

[tyrabunny]

Sorry to revive this old thread but I couldn't find information anywhere else about this company. They are recruiting for April 2012 at the moment and I had an interview with them. If anyone has experience working for this company, please let me know! Thanks!

[OneJoelFifty]

I interviewed with them too. Nothing raised any doubts.

[Subkulture]

I interviewed with them too, it seemed pretty straight forward but if anyone has any insights about the current standing of this company in the Tokyo area that would be great!

[fluffyhamster]

(It's Christmas. Time for a heartwarming story of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men, including gaijin... )

I assume this is the Wing that has (or had - I haven't checked where they are now) an office in Shinjuku. I worked for them for a year about 7 years ago. They weren't too bad a company to work for (at least initially, until they started doing things like ringing up on a number of occasions to demand why I wasn't at schools on days they had cancelled my visits and thus pay - they'd forgotten to notify or remind the vice-principals that I wouldn't be there, just the thing you need early on a supposed "day off" following a late night, eh), and some minor plus points were that they arranged and paid for a welcome dinner for our local group of AETs (at which we learned that the boss was only making a 4% - unbelievably, just 4%! - profit from our labours. The way he blubbed, you'd've been forgiven for thinking he was running a charity - that, or that he'd outbidded rivals to such a low point that his company was now "struggling", the poor fellow!), and brought forward the first payday (which helped). A more or less immediate and rather large black mark against them however was that they somehow failed/forgot to transfer my first paycheck into my bank account, and after keeping me waiting all day finally had no option but to settle up in cash at that welcome party. Then, they began quibbling about paying me for certain days that had been chopped and changed so much that nobody really knew if I should or shouldn't've been scheduled to go. All I could say was, my timesheet has been hankoed, so pay me, or will the 13,000 yen per day or even just the train fares alone break the fr*ggin bank? Less tightwad, yen-pinching, pro-rating BOEs would obviously help, but then, so would such dispatchers, if they existed.

Ultimately and as with all AET work, much will depend on the BOE and individual schools that you get assigned to. Unfortunately I ended up having a school that was legendary among that city's AETs (some of whom had previously been directly employed before the work got farmed out to Wing) for being one of the most demanding and unpleasant to work at, thanks to an extremely neurotic head JTE especially. (I remember the first time I'd just sat down to look for a company email using the school PC, after checking with the VP that it was OK to do so. This head JTE came back very soon after from a class and the first thing she said was "Can you please not spend SO LONG on the PC" - "Er, I've literally just sat down, and this is the first time I've ever used it, so you'll excuse my taking offence at your use of 'not spend so long'. Perhaps you meant to say 'too' rather than 'so', not that it really matters in this particular context. Anyway, if you'd prefer me not to use the PC at all, just say!" - "Well, we had another AET who spent all day every day on it blah blah blah" - "I'm not that AET, and won't be doing that" - "Yes, but I had to make that point, just in case" - "I see. Did you realize that many AETs, especially Wing's, aren't really able to afford an internet connection at home let alone a PC? That they aren't all rolling in it, or slacking off at work when they dare to use the school's? No, didn't think so!").

I actually got fired by Wing (but thankfully, reasonably close to the date I'd earlier given with my notice) for having the temerity at that particular school to hold the Principal's gaze until he blinked first, after he decided (as his first-ever real interaction with me) to get all ultra-macho and "top-dog" tough about not my making it to the school on a bitterly cold day when a collision on a level crossing had shut down the train service for at least a good 2-3 hours. (I'd eventually had enough of waiting around and hopped on the only moving train, going in a homeward-bound direction, after calling Wing and telling them to write the day off). Apparently I wasn't the first AET to have ever been fired in that city. I was also given an extremely hard time for the transgressions of a cover AET (I'd been ill one or two days) who'd supposedly followed some girls into a toilet (perhaps he'd been conversing with them and not quite realized where they were headed until he looked up. At the sign, I mean ). This school's teachers also felt no compunction about nicking my desk fan during the summer holiday and breaking it, all without a word of apology, and also thieving my can of super-effective foot deodorant (which simply vanished). A long depressing litany of treating dispatch AETs like dirt. Wing to their slight credit asked if there was "anything personal" going on at that school, but as I doubted they would or could do much to ease future AETs' plights I just grunted 'Nope' and took the severance pay (which I doubt they'd have been half as "generous" with had I not growled 'You don't know what trouble is!' when they'd emailed then belatedly telephoned to inform me that I'd been "nothing but trouble" at that school and had thus been dismissed without notice).

Anyway, my point is, Wing as is the case with almost all dispatchers took the "employer's" side to a fault, and rather alienated not only me but most of the other AETs with its ultimately patronizing and ball-busting attitude. Not as bad as Borderstink (Borderlink), which set out to deliberately antagonize its employees and take the complete p, but heading that way, and could be almost there by now if it's expanded and become perhaps a little too big for its boots (it might help if there were some westerners acting as at least middle managers). Approach with caution, and try not to get in hock with them (luckily I didn't need to borrow money from dispatchers at that time. I thus have no idea what their lending and repayment arrangements might be like). IIRC they pay a transport allowance, but the (unrelentingly pro-rated) pay is correspondingly low even for dispatch standards. I'd've looked elsewhere if I hadn't been really stiffed by an absolutely awful private high-school gig that rather sent me (through pressing financial need) into the clutches of these sorts of companies. Oh, and their educational experience and expertise was non-existent, as was their training (that's obviously a small mercy though, if you have even an iota of experience!).

Still, despite all my horror stories and dispatch battlefield wounds, AET work can be fun and is still worth a shot. It's just a shame that more of it can't be direct hire or through the auspices of the JET Programme (which I was on for 3 years and thoroughly enjoyed).