It took me ten years, but I finally think I got it...

This last month has been a bit of a pain in the butt. Not just because I lost my wallet. Which was inconvenient, but not nearly as bad as trying to get a new ATM card. And not just because the girl I thought was interested in me was just trying to score some free English lessons for her friend.

Maybe the worst part was dealing with the company that leases my services to the Saitama prefecture board of education. As it turns out, despite the efforts, attitudes and responses of everyone at the school I've been at, it turns out that I'm not actually a part of the school community.

Since I was encouraged take part in student life, I'd been staying after to help some of the students get read for their English recitation at the school festival that was held this Saturday. For those of you who didn't attend a Japanese Jr. High, every semester or so they'll have a "bunkasai," which roughly translates as a "cultural festival." The students (and a few of the more... confident teachers) will perform or present some kind of fine-art-type effort. There's a lot of organized choral-type singing, speeches and recitations, a few dance routines and pop song-quartets, and some obligatory mugging from whatever team has the most popular students.

Oh yeah, and no air conditioning in a packed gymnasium from 8 am to 4 pm.

Needless to say, this whole affair is a lot of work. The students and teachers really bust their butts for this thing. And since it runs all day on Saturday, the school takes a day off the following Monday.

Now I was looking forward to getting that Monday off, since I needed to go to the bank, the post office and the police station. All fine institutions that only offer the services I needed most between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. But when I finally was able to get in touch with the helpful young Australian at my company to ask about whether or not I should send my pay sheet in on Monday or Tuesday, she informed me that I was due to meet the principal at a new school on Monday, and couldn't figure out why I hadn't answered any of the messages she'd left on my cell phone.

Explaining both my desire to be at the cultural festival to see these kids show off the stuff they (and I) had been working on for the last month, and my predicament and subsequent need for some time off on a weekday, she very carefully considered the facts, and said she'd talk to her boss, and then call me back after 5:00. Which would be after the school switchboard was shut down, and before I had retrieved that all-important cell phone.

It took some doing to get her to see the failure of that plan to be successful, especially given the language barrier.

"Wait, you said she's from Australia, right? Aren't you both native English speakers?"

That's an excellent observation. But I've never been any good at communicating with a dumbass.

After some effort, she finally got an official party line from her boss (the half-Japanese Irishman) which stated that

although ALTs are encouraged to participate in school life, they are, by contractual definition, not members of the community of an individual school. Therefore, any attendance or participation in any extra-curricular school activity is at their own initiative, and will not be eligible for compensation, in terms of cash or time off.

I knew those cheapjack skinflints weren't gonna cover my transportation, but after being told reminded that I was essentially equivalent to any other piece of equipment that had been leased to the school, I was in a less than genki mood.

Come on. Am I really supposed to believe that they expect all the ALTs to try and do their jobs well without going to the damn festivals?

And then I finally realized what I've been struggling to understand for all these years: I've had so many jobs that I hated, and I never understood why I've had this inability to be a happy worker bee. What was the reason? What was the common thread?

It's not that I hate work.

I hate working for other people.



This may be the beginning of wisdom.