Japanese blues

Posted on 2007/04/04 21:08:55 (April 2007).

[4th April]

Well it's time to catch up with the work related news at least.

The past couple of months as I wrote in an earlier post shed some scary light on the job that I have started with the Japanese multinational company.

To make long things short, I have realized that not only the job type has much changed from what I thought it was agreed, but the money side was also quite a lot less than what I asked in the first instance.

This is all due to a strange commission system that they forced on me, and that accounts for slightly more than 20% of what I originally asked them.
As this commission has not produced any income whatsoever in the past seven months, I have basically worked at a discount for quite a long time.

Of course I complained about both situations, and recently I received the reply, which is (strangely) quite negative.

They basically agreed to re-discuss the commission base of my salary, in order to make it a bit more "sure", but on the other side they denied all my other requests, on the basis that even if they didn't put in the contract it was kind of assumed that I should have acted as an employee for them, meaning that I have to do what they ask me with no question.

So in the end the general feeling is that I am not earning what we agreed, and I have to do a lot of other jobs that I was only partly aware of, as we discussed about them but they were never "formalized".

I am growing tired of this treatment. Couple that with the fact that my contract is on an yearly base, and there you go, I wonder if I should even bother continuing...

There are good sides mind you.

By the way the business is pressed on I get a terrible workload from September to March, then another couple of trips to Japan but generally a lot easier March-August spell.
There have been days where I have done little work at all, just bumming around the house, or doing other things.
Of course if I was to be an employee it would be impossible to do such things.

But on the other side having free time is not exactly what I long for, I'd love to be more busy, and of course to earn what I think I deserve...

In short I will open up again for possible job offers, even if it means going back to selling fabrics, this Japanese company has been a disappointment so far, I have been mistreated, put down, paid less than what they told me they wanted to give me, burdened with a lot of extra-contractual requests...

This is the way they work, now I know, but frankly speaking is not the way we work in Europe. Fine, I love Japan and understand the Japanese way, but it's clear that unless I lived there it is not possible for me to comply with it.

Good experience, yes, it was a good experience, gave me a lot of tools that I didn't have to avoid traps like these in the future, but on the other side it feels like a defeat. I really believed in this job.

having said that, as I have no other tangible offer I have to strive to make things work, maybe more time will make things better, though I strongly doubt it...

It is good to see you taking a "positive" attitude towards the experience of the last 7 months. From this position of strength you can only move onwards and upwards. Quite why your present employers are treating you so badly is a mystery. Perhaps it is that old Gaijin/second-class citizen thing? Cultures vary and I suppose there are bound to be such basic disagreements about protocol and procedure. However, you gave up a lot to go and work for these people. They don't seem to appreicate the commitment you made. For that, they deserve nothing from you, but your contempt!

(That was almost a "rant", wasn't it? :))

Posted by Nigel at 2007/04/04 22:43:56.

Nigel: It's a bit of a mix really. The Gaijin part doesn't help, but the rest is plain business. They are simply doing their own game, not caring at all for me. I should have seen it coming, there were several bells ringing in my head back in July 2006 when I started talking with them, but I didn't listened to them and that is my part of the mistake. The fact that I have no other job lined up doesn't help, but at least I now know that I will do only the minimum indispensable job, in order not to hear complaints from them and to get the money that they owe me at least.
Yes I did give away a lot, more than anything certainties, such a stable job and a work environment that I knew very well (by rejecting the offer of that company in Prato), but as they say "if you don't try you never know", so now at least I am left with the experience of it all... What the future holds it's not for me to know, but at least I am making my mind up that this deal is a bad one...

Posted by Lox at 2007/04/04 22:55:21.

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