Hey all,

I just got back from eating yakiniku with a friend of mine. Over the grilled meat, we got into a discussion/arguement that I was hoping yall could use your collective wisdom to help settle.

Here's the situation:

I work for ABC English company. ABC English company has a contract to provide English teachers for the City Board of Education.

I'm going to be quitting the job at the end of February (i.e. before the end of the school year) to start a new non-English teaching job in Tokyo.

The problem is that no one has told my school yet.

I'm of the opinion that it is not my place to personally tell my school. I've already informed my company, and my company has told the board of education. And I think based on my understanding of Japanese culture / how the schools work, that I should leave it to either my company or the BoE to tell the school.

My friend is of the position that my school would want to know I'm leaving as soon as possible and thus I should tell them.

I think that if I tell them, it could either lead to the BoE or my company (it's a small company, so more specifically, the company president) losing face / being embarrassed, and more generally that there is a sort of "way of doing things" that should be followed.

Even though I go to work at school every day and am friendly with the teachers, I think on a more formal level my "in group" is my company and the school/BoE is an "out group", and so for something formal like quitting a job I should respect that.

My friend thinks I'm projecting a very formal, idealized version of Japanese people. That they would want to know, and I should tell them. It's funny because he said I had a very "american" view of Japanese people, that I was treating them like some delicate flower or projecting some idea that Japanese culture is so complicated and mysterious, but they are just normal people, and normal people would want to know that I am quitting as soon as possible. But I said he had a very "American" viewpoint because he was suggesting that I do what would be considered the norm in America, i.e. tell my school that I was quitting directly without worrying about anything else.

Any thoughts / opinions?

If I were you, I would ask your company. If they don't know, you should tell the school. Formalities are nice and all but the important thing is that you're leaving and they need to know.

Ask your superior.

~J

Well, I wanted more opinions on how y'all think Japanese culture would handle it, as opposed to practical advice...since actually it is more or less worked out...I already asked my company and the company prez is coming by my school on Tuesday.

I left out that part because this has been an ongoing debate with my friend, and when it came up tonight he was telling me how wrong I was and how much I misunderstood Japanese culture, so I didn't bother to tell him it would be settled in a couple days.

Based on my armchair theorizing, I would also probably think it'd be best to leave such things to specific channels, as long as time isn't an issue and it wouldn't inconvenience the 'out group'. In such a case, surely you could speak both as a coworker and as a spokesperson for your 'in group'. I guess it goes back to what Tobbs said, formality is nice but would it be something you'd stick to in situations where they 'need' to know. But really I have no idea, I always assumed things were close to but more flexible than what's presented in foreign books about doing business with the Japanese. (I'm reminded of that Seinfeld episode where they bring a bag of oranges to a meeting with Japanese executives.)

Even in America, I would have left this to the official channels. If my company didn't want them to know that, who am I to tell them?

I have no idea how the Japanese would handle it, though.

In general, if official channels exist, the more formal the relationship the less acceptable it would be to go outside of those channels. This is cross-cultural; the cultural aspect is the formality of the relationship, which I can't speculate on.

~J

This is mostly just intuition, but I think the "Japanese way" might be to find out from your company when they planned to tell the school, and then maybe give the principal (or whoever is above you, but not other staff) a heads up about it the day before. In my experience, Japanese workers tend to keep a pretty tight lid on it when they're going to leave.
I witnessed the alternative a while ago when one of my coworkers found a new job that was going to start a few months down the road; she told just a couple of coworkers that she was pretty good friends with, and a few days later the manager heard about it through office gossip. He was pretty pissed, of course. Wouldn't have much to do with her until the day she left. Maybe not really pertinent to your situation, but I just started typin'...

I would tell the school immediately. The official way sounds terrible. I'm sure the Japanese would just pretend they didn't know until they were 'officially' informed.

Your first loyalty should be to your employer, they will certainly have a system in place for when people do not complete their contracts, and you should leave it to them to inform your school when you will be leaving.

If there's no one you really talk to at school, don't tell them.

If there are people you talk to on a regular or semi-regular basis, tell them.

You'll move on and probably never see them again and vice-versa.

Such is the way with foreign English teachers...usually.

Tobberoth Wrote:If I were you, I would ask your company. If they don't know, you should tell the school. Formalities are nice and all but the important thing is that you're leaving and they need to know.

Tell the school, tell eveyone you are leaving. It's a natural thing in life. There's no shame in moving. I think your friend is right about the Japanese reference about treating people too delicately. If you are leaving, no one will mind or care. They will probably wish you the best of luck. If you DON'T tell people the truth, they will think you were being shifty with them even after you are gone, and be suspicious of you. What do you think is going to hurt them more?

I work for two High Schools now, but am quitting April 1st. My company had instructed me to not tell the schools if I was quitting - which I thought was pretty silly and didn't quite understand. Anyways, most of the teachers asked me if I would be around the next year so I just told them I wasn't going to be - that I was finishing in April.


I had a discussion about it with one of the teachers at a school I work at. She explained that for Japanese teachers at the high schools, they do not tell anybody (except, of course, administration) they are quitting until right before it happens. This prevents any awkwardness between you, the other teachers, and the students . We talked about the differences between this system and how it would be handled in the United States. I think in the US, we prefer the sentimental, drawn out goodbyes where you enjoy every last minute you have with each other. (quite a romantic way of putting it, I suppose). In Japan, it's the opposite - they want to avoid that and continue like it's business as usual. While this seems to kill a lot of the sentimentality of it, it also avoids situations where there are hard feelings.

I know that another Japanese teacher I work with is planning on moving to a knew school for the next school year. She said that only the administration at the two schools new that she was leaving and she wasn't allowed to tell anyone until right at the end of the school year. I'm not really sure why she told me...heh.


And smujohnson - I think you're completely wrong. They won't see you as being suspicious or shifty. They'll just carry on like normal. It sounds like you're projecting Western assumptions onto Japanese people there. It's a "natural thing in life" if you're living in the west. Obviously, it's not in Japan.

In my case, when I was asked, I told people. I didn't go around broadcasting it, but when directly asked, I don't like to lie - so I would just tell them. Since you're a foreigner, it is kind of a special situation and the normal rules don't exactly apply. Just do what you think feels right.

Easytarget Wrote:Your first loyalty should be to your employer, they will certainly have a system in place for when people do not complete their contracts, and you should leave it to them to inform your school when you will be leaving.

meh, your first loyalty should be to your friends. Your employer pays your paycheck, but seriously, you're just the guy that they make easy money off of.

I had friends at the schools I work at ask me if I was leaving, so I broke my company's rule and told them.