Reference no: EM133032756

You were born and have lived all your life in Soto, Japan. You taught high school English in and around Soto for more than twenty years. Two years ago you received a promotion and now work at the Board of Education as an advisor to all English teachers in the city. This was a career making promotion, one that most teachers will never experience and if everything goes well, you could end up as the principal of one of the high schools. About 8 years ago, the government started hiring English speaking foreigners to assist teachers in the schools and work as advisors at the Board of Education. The Soto Board of Education has had a foreigner working in it for the past 6 years. Since the foreign English assistants are hired on a one year contract basis, renewable to a maximum of three, your office has already seen several of these people come and go.

The government agency responsible for hiring the English advisors does not require any knowledge of Japanese as a prerequisite. Since you are the only person in the office who speaks fluent English, you find that you spend a lot of your time as interpreter and writer for the foreign English advisors since they are not able to do many of the day to day tasks on their own. For example, you have to go and help these people open a bank account, show them how to use the automated teller machines, show them how to read a gas bill, etc., tasks which you don't believe should be necessary for you to do.

Most of these foreigners have been good workers, but the past six years have not been trouble free. The men in your office have worked hard for many long years to reach such high positions within the Board of Education, and many of them are insulted to be working at the same level with people who are so inexperienced and so much younger. You also know that despite the obvious age difference and lack of experience, these temporary foreign advisors earn almost as much as you each month. (Although they don't get the twice a year bonus.) Another problem is that the foreign English advisors are not very committed workers. They are hired on a one year contract basis, renewable only up to three years. Many of them regard their time in Japan as a stepping stone to somewhere else and do not take their jobs seriously enough. Since they are in your office for such a short period of time, they don't really try to become part of the group. They do not work as long as the other Japanese workers in the office and it seems like they are always away on vacation. The foreign advisors' contract allows them up to four weeks of paid vacation on top of the Japanese national holidays and compared to Japanese employees who rarely make use of their paid leave, these foreigners use every available day. You know that if you took such long and frequent holidays, you would not be respected by the other members of your office and would never have made it to the position that you are in now. It makes you and some of the other Japanese employees upset to see that they get special treatment. You feel that if they are going to work in Japan for the Japanese government, they should at least behave and be treated like the Japanese.