Quitting Nova

I quit my job yesterday. I'll get to that in a few paragraphs but first, the story leading up to it.

I don't know if I told you already, but I'm coming back to Canada this summer. I applied for a scholarship that, if I get the interview, I'll have to be back in Canada at the end of June. I haven't heard from the scholarship committee and might not for a week or two regardless, but I decided it would be a good time to go back to visit anyway.

Coincidentally, Japan's worst season (constant rain followed by unbearable heat and humidity) and Canada's best season (bearable temperatures and moderate sunniness) fall on the same time of year: summer. It's
a similar convenience to the fact that the southern hemisphere's summer is during our winter and the fact that China's day occurs simultaneously with Mexico's night. The world was designed so that if you really wanted to, you could beat the system and not have to deal with the added stress of winter or "night-time".

From what I remember, the stretch from June to September in Halifax is great. Restaurant patios open up, frequent visits are made to unpolluted beaches, enough snow disappears from Point Pleasant Park to go jogging everyday, the air fills with the scent of freshly-cut grass and barbecued meat, children drink in the streets, American tourists come to gawk at our simple ways, the elderly play with the ducks in the Public Gardens, the sun stays out until 10pm, ice cream is always for sale within three or four paces, and we Nova Scotians get a well-deserved, short break from the wearing of parkas, moccasins and sou'westers... in sum, the city is abuzz.

So I decided that if I was heading all the way to Montreal anyway, I might as well tack on a few weeks in Halifax to relax, eat some local cuisine, spend time with friends and family, and relax on the beach. So earlier this month, I submitted my vacation request form at work for five weeks off.

Now, if you're in Canada or elsewhere in the New World, you're probably nodding, "yes, five weeks, go on...". If you've ever worked for a company in Japan, however, you've probably just spit your coffee out all over your keyboard as you scramble to re-read that... "FIVE WEEKS?!!" you cry out in shock.

Yes, Japanese companies don't like to give vacation. A few years back when my family had a Japanese exchange student named Akino, her parents came to visit. Her father could only get something like three days off for the year, so they basically tried to see the entire country in a long weekend. As I recall, they flew into Halifax for the evening to have dinner with my family, her father got drunk off and red-faced and invited me to come back with them to Japan, they napped for an hour or two, then were quickly rushed back to the airport to make their return flight to Toronto to spend an afternoon at Niagara Falls before flying back to Tokyo.

This is why, when you see Japanese travel groups abroad, they will be traveling by the busload, file off of a bus at, say, the Eiffel Tower, take a dozen or so snapshots, then scurry back on the bus to make their way to, say, Italy. They just don't have the time to waste that the rest of the world does.

Every day when I ask my students how they are, rather than responding what I assumed was a natural "Fine, thank you", the most common answer, by far, is a dreary "I'm tired". One of my language exchange partners told me he works seven days a week, twelve hours a day and survives off of three hours of sleep. Sure they make decent salaries, but it's no wonder everyone is quietly sleeping on the train to and from work.

But... that's collectivism. Your job is your life. You want your company to succeed. It's all worth it for that $50 2-hour karaoke session you manage to sneak in and the promotion you might get down the road. Soon enough you'll be old and will have plenty of time and money to ride public transportation all day and contemplate how the foreign community is ruining modern-day Japan.

Wait, I'm getting way off-track. So, I submitted my request for vacation. Can you guess what happened next? The response was a very quick and efficient "No, we cannot issue you any unpaid holidays at this time" and that was that.

Secretly, this was actually the response that I was hoping for. Although I really enjoyed teaching my Nova students, as a general rule of thumb, I'm always yearning to quit my job for something better. Despite wanting to quit, I've kind of grown attached to some of the people and the environment, so I would have felt bad just quitting for what they would see as "no reason". I know that fear of quitting is a psychological trap that business managers use to try to keep their trained employees on a leash, but it works well.

I went to the travel agency to inquire about prices and was delighted. Even with today's enormous fuel surcharges my $650 round-trip ticket to Halifax only totalled just over $900. For some reason round-trip flights from Asia are generally less than half the price of those to Asia. It's not something for which I've been able to come up with a valid explanation but I guess some investigation into the international travel industry is in order.

Before quitting, I contacted Gaba, the school with which I had an interview back in April. I asked if they were still willing to train and hire me despite my going home for a month. They indicated that that would be perfectly fine (they're good people).

So yesterday, I filled out my resignation form and bashfully passed it on to my Japanese manager. She put on a big shock, silence, sadness act that was fun to watch but embarassing to play along with. She asked me to stay, asked me why I would want to leave... a co-worker of mine piped in and said it was Nova's fault since they didn't give me the vacation. She said she'd call head office and try to get them to change their mind. I said not to, then slowly backed out of the school and made a run for the train. I did it, I escaped!

Well, it feels good now. I only have thirteen working days left now before it's time to come home (I arrive in Halifax the night of June 20th, by the way). I'm surprisingly excited for the trip home. I'm especially excited for all the Japanese food I'll be eating. Halifax has great Japanese food. Well... it used to taste good. It better not disappoint me like the Halifax Chinese food I'd been dreaming about on my way home from my year in Hong Kong...


Walking down one of Umeda's covered streets


A visit to an absinthe bar with some co-workers (sugar burning over absinthe)


Drinking absinthe


Train passes potential passengers


Which is my train?


"Herro!!!" - Being harassed by schoolchildren on the train


"Amerika? Amerika? I am Japanese."


Kyoto Station: Train station of the future