Cutting Bait

Apparently, I was lucky, if not smart, to get out of the GComm/Nova business when I did. I got the news on my way to meet Saki to watch I Am Legend tonight that Bryan has been sent home and put on standby until further notice. GComm, much like Nova before it, is bleeding money something awful and as such they fired all the old Nova management and started to use their old Japanese model, i.e. fire the hell out of everyone, 1 teacher per 40 students.

So, Bryan and a bunch of the others, based on seniority, ability, and training, were told not to come into work anymore, and that they would receive standby pay until their branch numbers rise to an amount that can support their coming to work.

What was GComm thinking? Did they really think people would come back to Nova after they opened it back up? Only the hardcore, only the social rejects, only the people who had put every penny they had into that company would think of coming back, if for nothing other than to reclaim a bit of the money they sank into the falling giant.

So now, here they are, trying to suture their internal bleeding, at the expense of basically no one but the teachers. Which reminds me...

What were the teachers thinking? Why would you stay with a company that did all this to you? I mean, I understand, cause I stayed with it far longer than I should have, I should have gotten out faster and I didn't, but, in the end I did, and they all should have too. First, we were all given a nice long vacation with which to look for new work. But they didn't. Then, we were given a chance to take a month off and get paid for it. Many took the money, but didn't use it to go home, or find a new job. Many, myself included, started work instead, but unlike myself, didn't continue to look for new work. Now, most of those people are getting another chance to stay at home for another month before GComm undoubtedly fires them, they'll have to, they can't just pay them month after month to sit at home, to find a new job or get the hell out of the country.

But will they? No. Dumbasses will sit there and keep coming back, they'll sit at home and blow their paychecks on wine and beer and Roppongi, why? Because it's all they have to keep themselves from feeling like their lives have completely gone to shit. Well guess what? They HAVE. Get over it and find something new. The company is dead, and no matter how shit you think the situation is, such that you would be willing to put up with whatever they dish out in order to make ends meet, if you just got another job you could avoid all that.

Not qualified to find another/better job? GO HOME. Don't have the money to move somewhere else for a new job? GO HOME. Not willing to make sacrifices to make ends meet until you find a job, i.e. stop partying all the time, cook your own food and stay home? GO HOME. You stupid, stupid moronic fools get a new job or get the hell out of the country. What are you doing here? What kind of sick pathetic illusion of life are you living in such that you'd put yourself through all this? How miserable and depressed you all must be to think that this is the best you can do? And if this really is the best you can do, shit, you can do it back home too. Better yet, you could go back to school and have a shot at something good, assuming you can try hard and long enough to pull it off.

I know for a lot of people this is a dream come true. It's way better than anything they could have gotten at home with the same skills. Live in Japan, meet beautiful Japanese women, feel important and amazing and unique and rare and get away with anything you want just because you're gaijin? Ya, it's fantastic, a dream many would never want to walk away from. The allure certainly drew me in, and I'm certainly stuck here for as long as I can imagine, but I've got my feet on the ground enough to know that there's a daily life behind that dream, working and moving up and bettering yourself that must happen to make anything like this possible, at least in the face of adversity. Something has come along that has threatened to destroy the easy, celebrity life you had planned out for yourself, and I know you don't want to give it up, but for fuck's sake, it's GONE. It's long gone and all you're doing now is revealing how pathetic and washed out you really are. If Nova were cocaine, you'd all be Sanjit, scraping and licking plates at the end of the night and knocking on friends' doors just to make sure there's not more hangin around somewhere, all the while oblivious to the fact that the sober, er, high but not desperate people around you are fully aware of just how low you've sunk. Sanjit had a family too, a pregnant wife, like so many foreigners here have, but sink sink sink he would and sinking sinking sinking you are.

Saki commented tonight while we were sitting in her car parked out in front of my apartment after the movie that all this time she thought eventually I would ask her for money, and thought I was very dedicated and hardworking that I didn't. While this came as no surprise to me, I knew she would be thinking that from day one, it was still weird for me to actually have that conversation with her. I told her she is the last person on Earth I would come to for money, my troubles are my own to fix, and if I absolutely had to, like I did, I would go to a friend first, then family, but never her. Debt destroys relationships, it's her job to support me emotionally, not financially. She gave me something far more valuable than money, she gave me my sanity. She gave me the resolve and the motivation to get through all this, to be with her, and preserve something worth keeping. To ask someone to do both, when we're not married, and even if we were, would tear out the foundation of our relationship, at least in my eyes.

I mean, Saki's by no means poor, she's actually quite rich, she makes more than I do, but then again she also works a lot more than I do. But all that aside, she's done well for herself, and she could, I'm sure, help me out if I needed it. But I would never dream of asking her for money. It's just morally deplorable in my eyes to do something like that. It just makes me all the happier I never had to. I hope should never need to. I'm sure it sent a message to her too, about who I am, and how hard I'm willing to work for something, because I learned a lot from it too. Sure I slacked a little, but when it came down to it I got my name out there by whatever means I had to, and I found something. I'm fine now. Given I could be working with Jennifer for a lot more money had she only offered the job sooner, but it's something, it's fun, and I enjoy it. The work is important and it's rewarding to me.

I've faced crazier adversity than this before, and walked away. I'm proud of Saki that she has the job she has, I'm proud that she makes more than me and works much harder than me. I'm also proud of myself for getting this job, and for showing her I'm someone worth being proud of being with. Life will go on, I will continue to move up, and hopefully, lol, someday I'll be the breadwinner enough that her income is just play money. I look forward to that.

But you guys at Nova. Man, get the picture. They say, fish or cut bait, ya? Well, not only are there no fish, but you're running out of water. Cut bait.