Working For Coco Juku

My late father always taught me one thing.  He always said that, "if a man can't admit when he is wrong, then he is not a man". 

I had previously had another blog post, praising the company and giving a positive spin on working for Coco Juku, amid all the negative publicity and all the negative blogs around cyberspace.  With recent events, and remembering what my father said to me all those years ago, I have deleted the previous post and replaced with this new one.  There will be those who read the original one from last year who will enjoy telling me, "I told you so".  Well, here I am admitting how wrong I was.

So where did it all go wrong?

They say there is one idiot in every crowd and I guess our office in Tokushima is no different.  We had a great manager, we had 2 great native instructors, had great counselors and have 3 great Japanese instructors.  The reason for the "success" of our branch is because of the good staff.  The ICC section of Nichii Gakkan  has nothing to do with the running of Coco Juku but in Tokushima, the head of ICC, not only interferes to the extent the people can't do their jobs, but she also gets credit for the success of the branch.  This person's indiscretions include but are not limited to, taking overseas vacations with students, gossiping about staff to students/customers including gossiping about our manager, placing students in levels where the student themselves don't feel comfortable in such a difficult level (behind the teacher's and counselor's back), creating a lob-sided schedule where some instructors are run off their feet while other instructors struggle to stay awake due to them not having classes, blocking all lines of communication among the staff and between the counselors and students, lying to and misleading the students, forcing and bullying visitors to join against their will, forcing students to sign contracts 2 months before necessary.  The list goes on but you can get my drift.

Anyway, this tyrant requested me to do a group class during Obon which was against the rules.  I said that it was against the rules and that I would not be bullied into doing it.  The reason this love-child of Josef Stalin wanted me to do this class was because I was going away for training next week and then I would be on vacation the week after, so this student would miss 2 weeks of lessons.  I reminded Ms Stalin that a teacher was available while I was away but the student refuses to take his lessons due to Ms Stalin's gossiping about my co-worker.  There is no reason for this student to refuse his lessons other than she has been misled about him.  Ms Stalin still booked this lesson and I was forced to teach it but I took action by taking it up with the union.  The union was made aware of all her indiscretions and the fact that 6 members of staff have already resigned because of her bullying and intimidation and collated a list of her indiscretions with many examples of how she has stopped us from doing our jobs properly.

Finally the day of the meeting between myself and union reps against the Shitencho (who is loyal to Ms Stalin, whose loyalty has created the problems in the first place) and the Head of Education at Coco Juku.  After 3 hours, the Shitencho and Head of Education made it clear that they are aware of all the indiscretions, and that Ms Stalin is in fact a bad person who is difficult to work with (which I wanted them to say impossible to work with) but due to her sales record, will not have any restrictions placed upon her, nor will there be any sanctions against her due to her indiscretions.

You read that right.  They accept she is a bully who intimidates the staff to such an extent that 6 people including the manager have quit their jobs, they accept that she has made it impossible for the office to function properly, but due to her sales record, will not do anything about it.

There is nothing flash about her sales record.  If she has worked there for 2 years,, it is understandable her sales record will look better than those who lasted 3 months until they were bullied out of a job by Ms Stalin herself.  Plus, the reason we have customers is because the students like the lessons given by the teachers, not to see the head of ICC in the Coco Juku office.  Shitencho has been brainwashed by Ms Stalin, even though she admits that all the points against Ms Stalin are true.

They gave me an ultimatum.  That I accept that Ms Stalin is there to stay and that I must go back to work.  I told them that I will not go to work and be bullied and harassed just for doing my job.  I suggested to them that Ms Stalin could be based in the branch office, rather than the Coco Juku office where she can cause problems and the Shitencho refused this request, knowing full well there will be more resignations if this simple remedy would be ignored.

I had no choice but to resign from the company who I had last year felt compelled to write a positive blog post about.  A company who made it clear that if a person breaks all the rules, and bullies the staff and students, but has a good sales record, will never have any sanctions made against them. 

Therefore, any person offended by my blog post last year, praising Coco Juku, I apologise to you.  You were right and I was wrong.  "Bullying is okay" was the key message from the meeting.  They said it several times because I did not believe they said it and was convinced that I was misunderstanding them.  There was no misunderstanding.  They made it clear they are aware of all previous staff's complaints but refuse to sanction her, not even warn her.

Apologies/gomen to all previous contributors to my previous blog.