Pointing Fingers

Day 86 of writing every day.

When leaving a job, it matters to Japan’s unemployment office how you lost your job. Did you leave of your own volition, or was it something on the employer’s end? This small detail can decide whether unemployment insurance money can be received quickly, or at least 3 months later.

It’s not written really in clear and easy to understand language, however, and it seems unfair that those who quit and break contract fall under the same overall category as those who complete their contract but chose to move on. At least, that was my first reaction when I received conflicting info on the stated reason of my leaving my job when I got asked to submit basically the equivalent of a formal letter of resignation.

As an employee with an employment period clearly stated in the contract, logic would argue that there’s be no need for such redundant procedures. Once I reach the end of the contract, there’s no agreement between me and the former employer that binds me to work for them and for them to pay me for my labor in the form of hourly wages.

When the contract states that there is a possibility—not a guarantee—that you will get contract renewal, the nature of the relationship remains tenuous. After all, if you want someone to work with you for at least a certain period, set contracts that run for a year or longer, not six months.

From the worker’s perspective, six months isn’t very long and with no explicit guarantee of renewals, the feeling of being securely employed is non-existent, especially if you aren’t a brown-noser who’ll do anything to appease the higher ups.

A short contract that has to be renewed over and over just suggests you’re around while it’s convenient and easy to let go when the employer decides to cut you off despite your loyalty since you’re not protected from unfair dismissals like a permanent employee. Many companies just offer permanent employee status after a probation period of a few months for both parties to decide if their relationship has prospects to be a long-term one.

After being used in ways I don’t feel and comprehend to be related to the duties of the role I applied for in the place, I decided I no longer want to continue my relationship as an employee for the company I work for beyond the current contract, and rejected the offer to renew the contract.

All I’m doing is letting a contract expire with terms my employer set in the first place, and that we both agreed to in order to establish the relationship of contract employee and employer. There’s no winner or loser here, the contract simply runs out.

If they want me to stay long-term, they could have hired me without an end date. If they wanted to stay on, they could have put more thought into the way they made me work and respect my preferences in regards to work hours among other things that caused me to feel discontent with the idea of continuing to work for them.

Anyways, the way things are done in Japan, it is still legally considered as the worker leaving on their own volition as there doesn’t seem to be a neutral category that recognizes discontinuation of contracts without marking one party being responsible for the outcome. It just feels wrong when it’s more often than not that workers who feel mistreated by employers decide to cut off any future association with toxic employers and still have to get a slap in the face with having to state that they quit because they wanted to, instead of being pushed to quit in roundabout ways.

Thanks for reading!