Work Ethics

Nothing too crazy has been going on recently. Pretty much everyone is waiting for summer vacation. Our summer break is this coming Friday, so my lesson plan has been a game and the winners get candy. They don’t really have to learn something with EVERY lesson plan I think. In any case, the teacher and I can relax in class while making it fun for students. Everyone wins.


I’m pretty excited for summer vacation. That means that I get to….go to work everyday and not have to do anything. “What the hell kind of summer vacation is that?” you ask? It’s a Japanese summer vacation! Even though there won’t be any classes, seeing as how it’s summer vacation, I still have to go into work. I, as well as every other teacher still have to go. You wouldn’t believe all the complaints I’ve heard from other teachers about that, and how it’s unfair and such. The idiot English teacher (the one that spoke about Korea’s snow) told me, “Well..we used to be able to go home when the students left, but now…the economy is getting worse…so now we’re forced to go into work.” What? That’s such stupid “logic.” Most people would say that going into work would be WORSE for the economy because working includes wasting more paper, ink, electricity, water, etc. Whoever “they” are, government or whatever, it’s clear that they’re making people go into work during summer vacation, simply because no one is going to riot, or cause trouble; they’re going to complain to other people in the same boat, while not really doing anything.



While it should be obvious that we have the those weeks off, however, it would be no different from any other day in which people run around, look busy and give everyone else the illusion of doing work. I see it everyday; I’ve seen it since last October. Yes, even during normal days, most teachers aren’t doing work, but they’ll pretend for the sake of surface compliments.


How did I find that out, you ask? Well, about 5 different teachers have told me in the past 7 months. It would come unexpectedly simply because when I first got here, everyone seemed busy. Then I asked my former supervisor what’s he doing, then I got a, “Walking around and pretending to be busy.” What? Was he joking? Well….he doesn’t really have the best sense of humor so it’s a definite no. At first I thought, well, he’s only one person, it’s not like everyone else does no work. However, I noticed that if someone runs past me, after I wave and greet them; they would stop, and chat me up for like an hour! After a while, I’m like wait…wait…wait….if they’re so busy, how they can just stop whatever they're doing and talk me to for a full on hour about nothing? That’s odd. Doing that after a couple more times, and living here for more than 6 months, you quickly begin to realize that most people do that. Of course there are people who really do work and are tired after work and all, but the majority don’t feel actual exhaustion due to work.


You have to wonder: why is everyone pretending when everyone else MUST know that nobody is doing work? Clearly this happens all of the time, so there has to be a point where nobody is fooled by anyone’s antics. You would never hear it out loud though, mainly because no one wants to be the person who blows that whistle, out of fear of being ostracized. I won’t get into that; just know that it’s a big deal.


They could just take a lot of vacation days during the summer vacation, right? No. Japanese teachers (I’m not sure about other professions) get 40 days of paid holiday and are supposed to use at least 20 days or lose them. Year after year, according to Japanese teachers here, most Japanese teachers don’t take more than like 8 days a year. So, they continue to let all of those vacation days go to waste. Why, you ask? Well, if they take too much vacation time, the other teachers will jealously gossip about that person and call them lazy and whatnot. That’s also the point of omiyage; the practice of giving a gift to the people that you left high and dry when you were on a business trip (hanging out) in Okinawa/Tokyo/Osaka, so you have to give a gift that apologizes to everyone else who had to take up the (non-existent) slack that you so heartlessly left to everyone else in your absence. It’s kind of like an apology and to let people know that you were thinking about them. Even that though, it’s a cultural norm and if you don’t give something, then you’re a despicable Japanese person. However, everyone else must already know that you HAVE to give a gift, even if you hate everyone in your office. So, where’s the genuine apology in that? I don’t know.

That teacher who takes all of that paid vacation will eventually be confronted by one of the teachers who “heard from other teachers” that he/she is taking too much vacation time.” It’s a bit ridiculous because it isn’t as though the people that are still at the school are even doing any work. Even going on actual Vice Principal sanctioned business trips still require you to give gifts, even though it probably wasn’t your choice to go where you went.

So it’s everyone being forced to go to work for some reason, not really doing work, but pretending very well and being envious of people who decide to use their vacation days so they can do something better with their time. Yeah…I don’t know either.