Job Discussion Forums

[flyingkiwi]

To all dispatch company alts:

Say your company gets a contract with a board of education. And you work there until the next contract review comes up in January (or thereabouts). What are the chances of you being moved to another b.o.e. i.e. your company loses the contract with the b.o.e. to another company?

Have any of you experienced this?

Does your experience/skill as an ALT and/or your school's opinion of you influence the b.o.e.'s decision regarding their contract with your dispatch company?

Cheers.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

If your company loses the contract with the BoE, then they may not extend you another contract at all, in which case you wouldn't get moved anywhere, you'd be unemployed.

It's nice if your BoE likes you, but ultamately, you aren't the BoE's employee, you are the dispatch company's employee. If the BoE has positive things to say about you, and make it clear that the company is losing the contract due to the budget or something, then the dispatch company may try to place you in another BoE or school with whom they have a contract, but they don't have to.

Your relationship with the BoE will definately have an affect on the relationship between the BoE and the Dispatch company, but normally, it isn't the type of thing that will sway a BoEs opinion about the dispatch company. BoEs are structured so that the people who make decisions don't even know the ALT. The people who do know the ALT are usually middle ranking at best, and in Japan's heirarchal workplace, they can't really do anything to help you. If the people you work with don't actually like you, though, they may start calling the dispatch company to complain about you, which makes you a pain for the dispatch company and therefore someone they may not want to contract again. It is not unheard of for Japanese schools / BoE to actually lie about an ALT in order to try to get this to happen. The heirarchal structure makes it really, really easy for them to do it. A teacher at a school lies to people in the school about you and so the school lies about you to your supervisor. The supervisor "doesn't know" that it's a lie (but probably has an idea based on them often being totally unbelievable) and has to tell the head. The head has no idea it's a lie and the supervisor 'forgets' who told him/her in the first place. The head of the BoE instructs the supervisor to contact the Dispatch Company to place a formal complain. The supervisor does that, because he/she is 'following orders' (totally ignoring the feeling, if they even have it, that this is slander) Net result: the BoE is complaining to your dispatch comany that you are kicking students in the face for not answering questions fast enough, and so when the dispatch comany goes to you with the story, it will be up to you to come up with an explanation as to how this type of a complaint could come up, and an initial response of "uh...that's just ridiculous. It didn't happen" won't make things better, you have to be able to somehow prove a negative- because at the end of the day gaijin are disposable people.

If your relationship with the dispatch company is good, then you are more likely to get a different placement than just if the BoE liked you. The BoE in the situation you described is, after all, a group of people that just took their business elsewhere.

[flyingkiwi]

Basicially, I love the school, the teachers love me. Therefore, they will tell the b.o.e. good things about me.

Also, I have only been working here since August, so, I doubt the b.o.e. will want to change so quickly. Or am I wrong in thinking that?

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Japanese BoEs are like Japanese companies everywhere. There has to be a reason for them to want to change something. If another company has come along and offered cheaper labour, then that's a reason. If people don't like your nationality, then that's a reason. If they don't like your hair colour or your eye colour or your skin colour then that's a reason.

But if they love you, then you can basically do no wrong and so chances are nothing will change. Is there any particular reason why you are worried, or is this just general paranoid stress because as foreigners we are always out of the loop and so it always feels like we could be unemployed any year based on the whims of people who consider us disposable (sort of how most of the foreigners including myself feel most winters around recontracting time)?

I think it sounds like you have nothing to worry about, all you can do is sort of hang on and see how things turn out (the same as pretty much everyone, except that you are lucky in that your school loves you, and around here at least, most of us have no idea how our schools feel about us- maybe a bad sign? Now I'm getting paranoid!).

[flyingkiwi]

So, do you work for a dispatch company? For how long? Have you ever had to change b.o.e.'s/schools?

Please tell me so I have something to relate to. Cheers.

[Big John Stud]

flyingkiwi wrote:

Basicially, I love the school, the teachers love me. Therefore, they will tell the b.o.e. good things about me. Also, I have only been working here since August, so, I doubt the b.o.e. will want to change so quickly. Or am I wrong in thinking that?

Too funny! Is this your first year working as an ALT? The most BOEs not all, but most don't care what the school thinks! Most BOEs don't even communicate with the school. Most only care for getting the cheapest bid. It is a scam. This is why most of these dispatch companies operate so illegally. Taking advantage of their employees. If you found an honest dispatch company stick with them.
I love the job, and every single school I have ever worked at however no job security.

[flyer]

[quote="Big John Stud"]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

No, I think it's true. The number of JETs drops in order to get cheaper ALTs. Many BoEs write in "blond hair blue eyes" on the JET request forms.

If you find a good dispatch company, then you should stay with them, but if the dispatch company is told that the school ONLY wants blond hair people, and that qualifications are nice, but they would prefer someone for photo ops, then that's what the dipatch company will do, even if it means getting rid of good people to replace them with... uh.... "backpackers" to put it kindly.

[flyer]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

My BoE told me during an enkai. And I asked around, and other JETs were told the same thing. The guy one town over actually saw it (he had very good Japanese).

[flyer]

OK thats 1

I work for a BOE (direct) and have been here for 4 years
that certainly doesn't sound like my BOE

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Actually, that's two, not counting the people throughout the prefecture who have told me similar things (which, admitedly, may not be true)