The Company

There are many people talking about Coco Juku online and what it is like to work for the company. I recently looked back to my first post on my blog and can say that things are pretty different than the idea I had back then. This is my blog, so here are my two cents...well, two yen.

Obviously, that means this post will not be one of my adventures. I am just hoping to help those looking into applying to Coco.

Background of my school. We are in Matsue, a town of 200,000. The rest of the prefecture is largely rural rice fields or mountains. There are not many reasons for a lot of people to speak English. We opened in the middle of February this year. At the beginning, we may have had a few demo lessons a week, which was pretty exciting. We even had a few people sign up! But after those first 2 or 3 months, things slowed drastically.We ended up going a full month without anyone signing up. True, sometimes it takes a while to get a company on its feet. Hopefully that's the case with us. We have had some events lately which might at least get the word out.

We - rather, the Japanese staff - began having sales meetings. After a few months, my other foreign teacher and I were excluded from almost every meeting. I understand -- it's difficult translating back and forth during a meeting and trying to keep any sort of flow. That is especially true when it seems so difficult to decide which of our counselors will translate what is being said. It usually falls to the youngest (who, in Japanese society will almost always be the lowest-ranked) member of the group. That being said, being left out of meetings all the time can get pretty frustrating pretty fast. Much of the time we feel like we don't have a say in what happens in the office.

I have heard some horror stories by others working at busier schools in Coco, but at my school, mostly there is not a lot to do. That is one reason that I will not be staying another year. With sometimes as few as two lessons a week, the job can get pretty boring.

I can realize and acknowledge how lucky I am. I get along well with my branch manager who, after I learned her history, seems like someone I would have been friends with had we grown up in the same generation and spoken the same language. Since we have fewer students, my coworkers and I are able to joke around a bit more. We can have fun during the day and teach each other phrases in different languages. (I learned that the word for a drunkard is youparai (yow-pah-rai) and my Japanese coworkers learned the phrase cat nap.) There are only four of us in the office -- one school manager/counselor, one counselor, and two native teachers -- so things can be pretty relaxed. Most of the time, it is a fun work environment. Difficulties do, of course, arise when things need to change or happen and that dang language barrier gets in the way. There is a lot lost in translation not just because translation is difficult, but because so much in Japan and in the Japanese language is implied. A word I hear many times a day is the word for maybe. I think it is probably among the top 10 most commonly used words in Japanese. I believe I have talked about this enough in previous posts.

All that said, I came to Coco Juku with no experience. They taught me how to teach and gave me a job. My coworkers  helped me (and still help me) solve all of my tasks having to do with living in Japan. I signed up for this job to have a way to earn money in order to live in another country. I did not sign up to be given a bunch of time off and do what I please. No matter how frustrating the job can be sometimes, it brought me to a foreign country. I think back to the demo lesson I gave over Skype during my interview and wince. I have learned so much and it is all because of Coco. Although frequently the job is dull, my experience here has been overall a positive one. But again, it really depends on the staff at your school.

Hopefully this will give some folks insight on what it is like for one person working at one branch of Coco. I promise the next post will be exciting.