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[momotaro]

Avoid Tom International School in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, at all costs!

Tom International School, AKA Tomu, is an English language pre-school with an attached eikaiwa.
Their shortcomings are as follows:

No class limit: They can make you teach 8 classes in a row with no break.

Walk in students: Students can have a class whenever they like without booking, regardless of how many classes you have already taught, or whether you had time to prepare anything. Wanna plan your lessons? Too bad.

Obligatory overtime: In their Summer/Autumn/Winter/Spring school programmes they expect teachers to work 12 hour shifts and come in on regular days off. On some days clocking up a total of 10 classes with barely any breaks. They also tried to get out of paying the teachers for the extra hours they worked. Illegal but nobody cares.

No paid holidays, EVER!: New teachers were recently given contracts stating that they were entitled to 14 days holiday after 1 year of full time work UNPAID. Teachers who signed an older contract promising them a paid holiday get rejected for holiday pay on the grounds of �poor performance�. Amazingly, every teacher they ever employ performs badly in their eyes. Also Illegal

No national holidays, either: Except for New Year. Japanese staff get their national holidays, and yours! You get neither. The Japanese staff even get time off at Easter. Forget about Golden Week.

Racial discrimination: Well, this is Asia. Highly qualified and experienced teachers have been turned down for the English teaching positions because they were of African or South Asian origin or just not white enough. One candidate was even discriminated against because he had a tan, owing to the fact that he lived in Thailand for the last two years.

Religious discrimination: A Bangladeshi kindergarten teacher was recently fired because the owner of the school was �told by God� not to employ Muslims. You could not even make this stuff up! They also conduct Bible study meetings where the self-professed �preacher� launches into verbal attacks on Jewish people. This sounds like a tall story but you have to remember that crazy people run English schools too.
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Tale-telling, back-stabbing Japanese staff: Using the computer to make worksheets is interpreted as �messing around on the internet�, talking about work related subjects is interpreted as talking about sport or girls or manga or whatever, by Japanese staff who think they can understand English. Sitting down and resting for 5 minutes after teaching six classes in a row in interpreted as �sleeping�. Go about your daily business of doing your job and you still have deal with these sad middle aged women running upstairs and crying to the boss about how lazy you all are.

Crazy rules: No throwing things in the bin because it attracts cockroaches. You must not use adult sized tables to teach 6ft tall teenage boys, use the baby tables instead! Toilet paper banned! Do not exist when not teaching, do not sit in the empty classrooms, do not sit in the waiting area, do not sit in the reception, but also do not leave the building. Do not exist!

Relentless pay screwing: If they can find a way to avoid paying you what you are owed they will jump at it. You have to go through your payslip and timecard with a fine toothed comb every month to see what deductions they have made, and then attempt to get the money you are still owed out of them. And they conveniently cannot speak English.
For example, if you swap a working day, they will deduct the day you had off, but fail to add it back on to the extra day you worked. If you forget to clock out at the end of the day, they will take the whole days pay off you, even though they know you worked. People have had to threaten them with legal action to get the money back.

This is not a joke! This school really exists! So avoid at all costs!
I have seen too many people get screwed by them and made miserable by them to the point of bursting into tears. Most people who have worked there have not warned others to stay away, so now I am strongly advising people to find a better employment opportunity than Tom International School.

By the way they pay 1250yen an hour and work you 40 hours a week.

Run screaming from Tom International School!

[southofreality]

[Khyron]

Thanks for the heads up!

Are you back home yet or still in Japan? (Didn't you used to shop at a LIFE supermarket for your food sometimes? I think I've met you before.)