Help Needed-- No Shame Below

[reckless toboggan]

Wow! Great news!

[Diamond Joe]

Glad to hear!

but tell me more about unemployment insurance where you can quit your job and still get paid....

Ditto, happy to read this update mang.

Also curious what your "home" mountain is... and what kind of unemployment insurance you had that covered you in a job you quit?!?

[east or bust]

Glad to hear you got something worked out, keep up the good work

[Vt-Freeheel]

Glad to hear you are working at your dream job under a different setting. Good luck in securing the needed funding, it's out there.

[zlatham]

This thread is hitting home and inspiring! Congrats, way to overcome adversity, great to read your thoughts.

[gaijin]

These breaks that I get to write, to respond to you, to react to those who want to hear more-- they're sought after.

I wish I had more time. I want to tell the world my story. I think it's worth hearing. I wish I would have been keeping a video diary (youtube vlog) from day one. The drama I have undergone in the last 4-5 years is absurd. To the TGR audience, the story began just recently. But you missed everything else. There are four years that you never got to hear. That's devastating to me.

Unemployment Insurance is an awkward translation. In JP, it's an extension of the already existing Social Security. It's a secondary branch that you voluntarily pay for on top of your already existing unemployment taxes.

Employment Law in Japan is different than the states. Essentially, if you have a full-time job, you can't get fired. You have tenure. If the company decides to restructure, they are legally obligated to find you a new position.

The birth rate has been in massive decline and the population of students entering high school had decreased by 42.3% from 1992-2012. This has devastated the economy. As such, schools have made the secondary unemployment insurance a mandatory fee for teachers simply because so many schools have been shut down by the government. Think about it... schools close and now you have 50 teachers who are not employable.

So, 10 years ago when I had gained full-time (tenure) status, I also inherited the new 50$/mo fee of this unemployment insurance. I didn't get it. As such, I objected to it. And then, I forgot about it. (It never made sense to me.)

Whatever.

But there's more to it across the country. Employment Law. Again... you can't really be fired unless you seriously fuck shit up. So, if the company restructures, they are obligated to find your new role.

So when Industry A decided to restructure and delete Industry B, I was left in limbo. They were obligated to find my new role. I tried, too. As... I didn't have an exit strategy, or another job I could turn to. So they decided to get me to quit.

And this is the foundation to the concept of Power Harassment that is so prevalent in Japan that when I told my Unemployment officer about my abuse, she didn't even shrug. She was like-- "Corroborate it."

So I did.

They called an ex-coworker and simply asked: "Can you verify that Gaijin was verbally abused on a day-to-day basis in that back office?" And he said, "Yes."

And that's it, I guess. I wasn't there... but that's how I imagine the conversation went down.

She didn't even flinch when I told her my story. It's as if she had heard it a hundred times before. She (and the local population) had heard it so many times that there is actually a term for it-- Power Harassment.

Power Harassment = What we do when we can't fire the people that work for us so we conspire to get them to quit.

The alternative would be = Sorry this didn't work out. Here is your severance package.

All that said... for me it was only 2mo's of 50% previous salary (and only upon corroboration of said harassment.)

But still--- buy unemployment insurance if you can.

[gaijin]

Did you make one that holds real man skis? Is that how it is in Japan Just Smaller?

That was made in Reno. It holds 14 pairs of 190cm modern-day pow skis.

[gaijin]

So you got a dream job in Hokaido? Sounds amazing. Congrats.

Not Hokkaido. Central Japan, but still north of Tokyo & Nagano. Zao. Where I own a home.

[m2711c]

How’s the skiing and snow around zao compare to the areas around Nagano? I’m thinking of myoko kogen / madarao or shiga Kogan in particular.


If you didn’t have a house near zao, what would be your favorite region to ski on honshu?

[The AD]

But... the population of Japan had decreased by 42.3% from 1992-2012.

Um, what?

[m2711c]

The kids ain’t making enough babies to replace all the old folks dying.

[The AD]

The kids ain’t making enough babies to replace all the old folks dying.

Well the population of Japan sure as hell hasn't gone down by 42%!

[m2711c]

prove it.

[The AD]

prove it.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-...an-population/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogr...cal_population

The population actually increased between 1992-2012.

[m2711c]

statistics? pffft.....

[gaijin]

How’s the skiing and snow around zao compare to the areas around Nagano? I’m thinking of myoko kogen / madarao or shiga Kogan in particular. If you didn’t have a house near zao, what would be your favorite region to ski on honshu?

That's hard to answer because they're all kind of your average mom-and-pop, mini-golf, private-like forest lines. Zao is big, as in vast. And I know my way around it... so it's my choice in Tohoku. Madarao is trying to market itself as a "tree-skiing debut resort." Meaning... it's super easy to access intermediate forest lines for people who want to enter this realm.

But-- Cortina in Hakuba beats that by a mile... but also has crowds. If you want chair-accessible trees with consistent pitches... Cortina is a no-brainer. But you're racing people.

If you want to venture into the country-side, see fewer people, still have mini-golf forest lines just choose your resort around Tohoku.

Nagano/Hakuba has bigger mountains. Period. You can definitely access big lines in Tohoku/Yamagata, but Hakuba's side-country is world famous for real reasons.

But here's the kicker-- Japan is famous for massive amounts of snow... which kind of limits the safety of the backcountry. So, if you want pow... just make it your annual pilgrimage and ride chairs all around the country. If you are a big mountain skier chasing lines, I have reason to believe you probably have a bucket list of big ranges around the world that are more accessible and safer than Hakuba's endless deathtraps and severe lack of safe exits during the snow season.

The big lines in April-June in Nagano are absurd... and definitely worth a trip. But that genre of skiing isn't the pow that Japan is famous for... and why so many skiers around the world want to hit it. Frankly, all spring high-country in Japan is absurd.

Let's be real... if you want big lines and pow combined in one package you're probably going to Alaska.

On average-- Nagano mountains are steeper and longer than Tohoku's. They are also busier.

Um, what?

I edited the above. Sorry for mistyping... it was a 42.3% decrease in the population of students entering HS... which was attributed to the decline in the birth rate. Schools have been closing all around the country for the last couple of decades. This has been major, global economic news for a long time.

[The AD]

I edited the above. Sorry for mistyping... it was a 42.3% decrease in the population of students entering HS... which was attributed to the decline in the birth rate. Schools have been closing all around the country for the last couple of decades. This has been major, global economic news for a long time.

That's still pretty incredible.

[m2711c]

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll definitely take a look at Zao and the areas north of there.