How to Fire Your CIR
(or--You Can't Fight City Hall)
written by Ma-Chan       March 19 2001

		In the Beginning

(Note--All names have been changed to protect the guilty!)

I spent two years as a CIR at a City Hall in a city of about 100,000 people in a fairly rural prefecture. I enjoyed my job and I liked the people I was working with but things changed dramatically when I tried to renew for a second time half way through my second year.

I had the papers on my desk and had pretty much decided to stay on for a third year; I had bought new stuff for my apartment and had just paid the shaken on my car for another two years. I admit, I should have noticed when the renewal papers suddenly disappeared off my desk, I should have realized that I had forgotten to give in the preliminary renewal form by the December 17 (Friday) deadline but I guess I was complacent. I had just assumed that they would allow me to renew because I got along with everyone and had never received any complaints about my work. I finally asked my supervisor what was happening on the following Monday (the 19th) and later that afternoon, I was called into a meeting room with my supervisor and kacho (division head). They told me point-blank that they would not be renewing my contract, thanked me for working hard for the last year and a half and told me to ganbatte for the next six months. The meeting lasted about five minutes and I was too shocked to ask how or why. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

		Supervisor Switcheroo

My supervisor, Hamaoka-san had been transferred into the department in April of my first year, he was a nice middle-aged guy but it was obvious that he was very conservative and didn’t have that much experience in ‘internationalizing’. A couple of days after the meeting, I finally got up the nerve to ask him what was going on with my renewal. He said that they wanted someone who could speak Portuguese because there were a lot of Brazilian workers living in the city. I agreed that they needed someone who spoke Portuguese but it was too late to apply for a Brazilian CIR because the cut off date was in October. He responded by saying what they really wanted was a native English speaker who spoke Japanese and Portuguese. I tried to convince him that it was very unlikely that they would find someone like that, especially since native English CIRs are only required to speak English and Japanese. Hamaoka-san wouldn’t give in, he seemed convinced that they would get the JET they wanted, no matter what. In addition, he told me that there was a two-year limit for CIRs in the city. To my knowledge, none of my predecessors had stayed more than two years but it was the first I had heard of an official limit. Anyway, I’d been a CIR longer than he had been a supervisor, what did he know?

		The plot thickens: Nagase-san

Nagase-san had been working for many years in International Relations division of the City Hall as a student exchange consultant. She was a 40-ish lady, fairly well traveled with fairly average English ability. She was usually very nice to me and I liked her. We did have one major disagreement, however. She insisted on dominating everything to do with our sister-city relations and while it should have been the CIR’s job, she had managed to take over nearly everything just after I had arrived. A couple of weeks after I arrived, she asked me to translate numerous letters and faxes into English that she would then send to our sister-city with her name at the bottom. As a new CIR, I was more than happy to have any kind of translation work because I didn’t have all that much else to do. I didn’t realize until later when I checked the files that my predecessors had been responsible for sister-city communications all along. The final straw was when she was sent overseas as official ‘interpreter’ for the Mayor on his visit to the sister-city. Her katakana English was OK but woefully inadequate for interpreting, especially for a native English speaking audience. She made me translate all of the Mayor’s speeches into English and took my translations with her to read out whenever the Mayor made a speech. More of a ‘reader’ than an ‘interpreter’, really. When I finally asked why they sent Nagase-san instead of me, Hamaoka-san said that they needed someone who understood Japanese culture. I was dumbfounded.

My relationship with Nagase-san seemed to be amicable on the surface but I think there was a lot of resentment on her part. Sometimes I would come back to the office from a school visit or speech and the atmosphere would be icy. It was obvious that she was telling Hamaoka-san less than complimentary things about me. This may seem a little arbitrary but it happened a number of times and I would often return to the office to find Nagase-san in mid-rant.

		Help me, Kencho!

Christmas and New Year flew by and I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere talking to Hamaoka-san and Nagase-san. I decided to call the kencho to help me out. The PA was a 40-ish lady named Shimada-san and at first, she seemed genuinely interested in helping me out. At this time, I was unaware that Hamaoka-san had been visiting the kencho on a regular basis trying to negotiate the next CIR. I also found out later that Shimada-san had virtually guaranteed Hamaoka-san that they would get the CIR they wanted, no wonder he wouldn’t budge.

I went to the kencho in early January and told the whole story to Shimada-san. She said that it was unfortunate but the only thing I could do was quit or transfer. I decided to try for a transfer and said that I wanted a CIR position, preferably in a larger city, a CIR friend who was leaving even recommended me for his job. I waited for a week or two and heard nothing from Shimada-san. I finally phoned her and she told me there weren’t any CIR positions available and all she could offer me was an ALT job in the ken BOE. I refused to take the job (I’m a lousy teacher), and I had heard from friends that most of the 7 or so ALTs in the ken BOE were bored to death stuck at their desks most of the day. Shimada-san acted like I was being ungrateful when I refused.

Eventually, I phoned CLAIR only to hear the words ‘if only you had called sooner!’. I had wasted way too much time talking to the PA.

		Nothing to lose

Things returned to a façade of normality for a while. My city was getting rid of me, the PA had guaranteed them their shiny new CIR and all I had to do was collect my paychecks for a couple of months and jump on the plane home. Unfortunately, I still had an idealistic sense of obligation to my job and continued doing the best job I could. I enjoyed my school and day-care center visits immensely and was always looking for ways to get out of the office. Things started getting interesting, though, with the arrival of a certain brown envelope.

		The brown envelope

I knew what was inside the envelope the minute I saw it. It was a large A4 envelope from the kencho addressed to my supervisor containing details about my successor. I first noticed the envelope when I saw that Hamaoka-san was rushing around the office with a worried look on his face, the envelope clutched tightly to his chest. He took it with him to a meeting with the kacho and into the bucho’s office. Silly Hamaoka-san left the envelope lying around one day when he went out. Curiosity got the better of me and I had a peek at the contents. Even I was surprised that my successor was from the same country as me, same major in university and ‘only’ bilingual. I took great joy in asking about my successor and watching my supervisor squirm. I felt overjoyed that my HI hadn’t got what they wanted but I also felt sorry for my successor because they might have to put up with the same things that I did. I tried to be as objective as possible when I told my successor about the job as I didn’t think it would be fair to worry them with my bad experience. As they say, every situation is different…

		Sweet Revenge

I felt a fabulous rush of revenge when I looked in that envelope and I had an evil grin on my face for the rest of the day. I wasn’t a perfect CIR but in hindsight I feel that I did a good job and while I blamed myself at the time, I now realize many of the problems that I experienced were because of my work environment. I’m not angry at the city hall people any more, they just did what they thought was right, even if it meant that I would end up as a disposable CIR. They wanted a CIR who would single-handedly internationalize the whole city for them and take care of the not-so-fun jobs of dealing with foreign residents with real problems. What they really needed to do was take a look at themselves and their policies. CIRs are only short-term employees, most city hall workers will be living in their city for the rest of their lives and must take a more active role in internationalization -- and I don’t mean eikaiwa classes.

I desperately wanted to stay in Japan and applied for a couple of jobs here and there, never really believing that I would even get an interview. Finally, about 6 weeks before my contract was up, I got an interview for a dream job in Tokyo and I was over the moon. The interview went well but the longer I waited for their reply, the more stressed I felt. I finally snapped at the end of June and told my supervisor exactly what I thought of him in front of the whole office. I burst into tears and told him how cold and heartless they had been in refusing to even consider renewing my contract and it felt good to tell him ‘I told you so!’. The next day, I got a reply from my dream job telling me I could start work in August and here I am! City Hall couldn’t throw me out of Japan that easily!

Any resentment and anger I had felt towards the people at City Hall disappeared when I found out about my new job. I could escape from inaka hell and leave them and their petty bureaucracy behind. Ah, revenge is sweet.

		Epilogue

Hamaoka-san was extremely quiet during the last few months and it took the bucho (department head) to admit they were wrong and apologize to me. Apparently the Mayor had found out about the whole mess and was extremely angry that no one had consulted him about ending my contract. Anyway, at least I got an apology of sorts, even if my supervisor is still in denial. He blamed everything on the kencho for guaranteeing him the CIR they had wanted. I suggested he start studying Portuguese.

I was proud of myself for sticking out for the last couple of months to complete my contract. The bastards even had me translating half an hour before I was supposed to leave for the airport!

Amazingly, my bad experience at City Hall hasn’t affected my view of Japan. I love living here and I enjoy working every day with Japanese people.

		Benkyo ni narimashita

My experience as a JET was definitely one of those ‘benkyo ni narimashita’ things. I realized just how precarious our status is here as JETs. If your HI decides to get rid of you, there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. My HI didn’t even offer to help me find another position; they were just waiting for my contract to run out so they could ship me back to gaijinland. I’ve heard of one or two others who have had a similar experience to me but it seems like it’s a pretty rare phenomenon. I trusted the people I worked with and had trouble coming to terms with the fact that they didn’t want me around for another year. Lucky for me, my bad experience with my HI turned out for the best but if you find yourself in a similar situation and the alarm bells start ringing, contact the highest authority you can straight away.

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