Gaba

I went to Gaba, an English conversation college, today to attend an information seminar. The information seminar is ostensibly about providing information about the company and the way it operates but is in effect a precursor to a formal interview for a job.

I should probably back up a bit.

As you may recall, when my contract ends in July of this year I will not be continuing as a JET. Although I would like to try out a different school I would also like to get my qualifications to work as a solicitor in New South Wales. It’s been seven years since I started university and although I have a degree in law, the fact I can’t actually practice chafes a little. Most people naturally assume that once you’ve finished five (in my case five and a half) years of university you’ll be able to defend them from every parking ticket they’ve ever received. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Although I suppose in a technical sense I am a ‘lawyer’ now that I have graduated from ‘law’, I can’t actually practise (or is it practice?) law until I become a solicitor. To become a solicitor I need to undertake another course, not through a university this time but through a different organisation: the College of Law (it really isn’t as cool a place as the name implies). Not only would it give me a feeling of completeness (there must be a better word I can use here) but I think it will help in getting a job in the legal profession over here – as odd as that may sound – so it seems like a good idea for a number of reasons.

In addition to not continuing with the JET Programme I’ve also decided I don’t want to immediately return to Australia either. I’ve finally moved to the same country as Rui and I’m not in a big hurry to run away. The College of Law offers an online course and I plan to study this for as long as I can in Japan before going back in January for work placement (it’s necessary to do 75 weeks worth of work experience in the legal profession in addition to the College of Laws course). In short, what that means is that I’ll be in Japan from August until January with no job. Worse, Rui will be attending a jewellery course during this time meaning there won’t be any income at all. Although Rui and I earn enough at the moment to save for this period it would be nice if we weren’t completely devoid of incoming cash.

Enter Gaba. Gaba is an English conversation college but one that operates a little differently to your Novas, Aeons, ECCs and what have you. In those English conversation colleges the idea is that you are hired by the college as an employee and teach classes on a semi-regular basis. Classes normally range in size from four or five up to about ten. In contrast, Gaba offers one-to-one (or as they prefer to call it ‘man-to-man’) English instruction. Moreover, unlike the other colleges Gaba does not hire you directly but facilitates the meeting of interested students with interested instructors. In essence, you work as an independent contractor, hiring out your services to Gaba who then collect payment from clients and pass that on to you (minus their cut). In addition to facilitating the lessons, Gaba also provides the space for the lessons, a web site for tracking students’ progress and instructors’ performance and a specially designed course.

There are two things that attracted me to Gaba. The first is the flexibility. Because you’re an independent contractor you select the hours you work. How this operates is that you nominate the times you are available to teach clients at a Gaba ‘learning studio’. Clients then contact Gaba requesting lessons at certain times. If they request a time when you’re there, there’s a good chance they’ll get you. If there are multiple instructors available at that time the client can either select an instructor manually or the instructor will be selected by Gaba. If you don’t want to work very much you just don’t nominate many times. The downside of this flexibility is that you must come to the learning studio when you say you are available even if no one has booked yet. Clients can book lessons up to five minutes before the lesson begins (and according to the information given to us at the seminar today this is not an altogether uncommon occurrence). If no one books a lesson you don’t get paid. You can leave once the period begins and there’s no one there but you’ve still come all the way in for nothing. From what they showed us, though, the studios are all pretty busy and there’s not much chance you’re going to come all the way in and not get any lessons.

The second thing that attracted me were the facilities. Gaba is classy. It’s not immediately obvious from the images on the web site but the learning studios, as the name somewhat belies, are incredibly slick. They are all located in up-scale areas. The one I went to today was in a building that housed a Louis Vuitton, a Tiffany and a Dunhill store. If they’re the stores you shop at, you’re the person they’re interested in. Male instructors are required to wear a black suit to work while female instructors must wear a collared shirt. It’s that kind of place. Since I like wearing suits it’s also my sort of place.

I saw they were advertising for interested people to become instructors a while back and after a friend here mentioned them over coffee earlier this week I was interested enough to enrol in said information seminar. Although they call it an information seminar it was, as I said above, more a precursor to a formal job interview than anything else. We were requested to dress for a job interview, to bring alone a resume as well as copies of our passport and work visas. I prepared that all on Friday and headed down to Umeda this morning. Finding the building was a little difficult. For some reason I’d written they were in the Daiwa Building (which they weren’t). Luckily with my broken Japanese I was able to ask the receptionist at the Daiwa Building and she directed me back to the Hilton Hotel I had passed. That too turned out to be wrong (Gaba is located in the Hilton Office Tower) but in the end I made it OK.

I got a good vibe from the two Gaba people who led the information seminar. There was a brief one-on-one interview at the end which I felt went rather well. Or at least as well as a brief 3–minute interview can go. I’m not entirely sure what happens now. I think they get in touch with us at some stage if they’re interested so hopefully I’ll hear from them soon. I do know that if that’s the case we’ll have to go in for another interview. After that there’s a 4–day training course we need to attend before we can start working. Unfortunately, this course is not paid for. Normally this would set off alarm bells in my head but the place seems too big not to be legit.

Anyway, we’ll see how things go and fingers crossed. Stay tuned!