Job Discussion Forums

[angrysoba]

That's ridiculous!

First you are talking about keeping money that they accidentally gave you and now you say you want to keep working for them so they will provide you with a reference. If you give enough notice there will surely be a provision in your contract allowing you to leave before the end of your term.

[ifrit]

the notice is 4 months, and its been given.

and i've spent a long time with the company, to pretend that time didn't exist because i broke contract would be a big waste for me. I never said i wanted to go against contract - i just wanted to take advantage of a mistake they made.

[mrjohndub]

[fluffyhamster]

I don't understand why you were thinking of keeping the travel allowance they'd mistakenly continued paying you when you'd already written to them and more or less said you wouldn't be needing it anymore (that's what I presume you telling them you'd be "cycling rather than taking the train" meant), unless by withholding the repayment up until now you were trying to get back at them for criticizing you for your few latenesses (so several issues may have got rolled into one and compounded the situation).

Although the boss may be having a bad day and being a bit cranky or unreasonable (in apparently singling you out), an employee is never allowed to be, and saying even once 'Yes, but...' rather than 'I'm very very very very sorry and it will never happen again I promise <<sob>>', especially in Japan, is a sure way to becoming a marked man; that is, things may seem black and white to "us", but it's probably better to think of yourself as being just one big shade of grey to the average employer here.

By the way, it might have been a good idea to have pretended that you were still taking the train, I doubt if the slight extra expense would've bankrupted the school. It's "good" though that you've decided you have to pay the money back (and as another poster has said, they'd probably just deduct it if you didn't)...I'd recommend that you just ask them to deduct it from your final paycheck rather than pay them back beforehand with your own cold hard cash right now (unless they're adamant about it).

[canuck]

[fluffyhamster]

If you give them four months, granted, you'll still have the job for that time and be earning, but you'll miss the opportunity to get hired by somebody else from April (now is entering the prime hiring season)...

[Sweetsee]

Give the money back and become a model employee.
The mistreatment probably exists only in your mind.

[cornishmuppet]

Give them the money back, after all it isn`t yours, and then give them a months notice. That will screw them even more. And a month is perfectly long enough to find another job in this country. I assume you have other reasons for staying in your town, other than travel convenience? Otherwise it wouldn`t be difficult to leave a company that makes you feel like you claim.

While most companies ask for it there is no law requiring you to give four months notice, it just makes life easy for the company and difficult for you. As I posted not so long ago my company, where I`d been for a year and a half tried to screw me at the end, as did the new teacher who tried to use my mail as a bargaining tool. While I had the legal ground, for the amount of money involved it just wasn`t worth it, and I have just moved on to a much better job. I`m still extremely bitter and angry, but you can guarantee that the only person suffering for that is me.

I say leave as soon as you can.

[Sweetsee]

Don't get down on yourself about the whole thing. Afterall, you told them you weren't taking the train, you volunteered that, didn't have to.

Some say quit that job, I disagree. Stick it out.

[Zzonkmiles]

[fluffyhamster]

Bad day at the office, Zzonk?

[ifrit]

[ifrit]

to clear something up: I havent been going into the company's money drawer and taking out travel expenses that i'm not using.

They've been adding it to my salary every month. I don't know what is what because its all japanese. they gave us a translation of what everything was, but with over 50 categories on the paystub, i didnt memorize them. I check my paystub every month, and the total is always less than my official salary, so I didn't think anything was wrong.

My manager said there was a problem with NET's payments last month and had a look at my stub. She discovered the extra travel payment on there and told me what it was. I wasn't stealing - it was just a glitch in the system.

[Currawong]

Japanese workers don't EVER turn up to work late. If they do, they have a shomeisho from the train station stating that the train was delayed.
Japanese workers always turn up to work too, unless they are physically unable to work.
The concept of not meeting the dress code 100% at work is not comprehensible for a Japanese person.
Whether your travel method was common knowledge at work or not has nothing to do with payment - if anything changes, you fill out whatever forms necessary for things to be changed. It's not like back home where you might just casually say to your boss or whoever "Oh, I'm moving, shall I scribble down my new address for you?".
Who you know as well as the names and positions of important people in the company is critically important information.
Add that all up and you want to keep money you've been overpayed? No wonder they don't like you.

[angrysoba]

Currawong:

I think this issue has already been resolved.

Ifrit's subsequent posts make it clear that he is going to give back the money.