tl;dr I am leaving a volunteering job at a hostel on a short one week notice because the owner drunkenly verbally assaulted a guest for 30 minutes non stop (not exaggerating) and now I really don't feel safe here anymore. The owner is asking me to reimburse her for several expenses totalling over 60,000￥. I'm not sure which of these expenses are valid/justified.
I'm working a job in a hostel in Japan as part of my working holiday visa. I got this job through helpx. This is an online platform where people can list jobs which tend to be unpaid but are instead reimbursed with free accommodation/groceries in exchange for working 2-4 hours a day. It is very similar to other platforms like workaway and worldpackers. Many people on working holiday visas do jobs like these.
Before coming to work at this hostel, I also saw that the owner offered Japanese lessons. For a month of 1-on-1 lessons Monday-Friday it was 50,000 yen which I thought was a alright deal too. I'm taking the N2 exam in December so I thought this could be nice while I'm here to keep consistently studying every day and told her that I would like to take these classes.
It's just the owner of the guest house working here full time. There's no other long term staff. And then me and another non-Japanese volunteer. There's also one long term guest from a developing country who is paid by his company to stay here while he awaits his work visa to be approved and he doesn't speak very good English or Japanese (this will be relevant later) and once or twice he has helped us with cleaning work in the hostel when it has been very busy. He'd been there for about a month when I arrived and he's supposedly getting his visa approved in a week or two.
I've been here just over 2 weeks now. Most nights, the owner would have a "little bit too much" to drink and get very drunk but I didn't mind because it was like a happy sweet drunk and she'd be funny and clumsy. But on Thursday, I saw a different side of her.
On this day there happened to be no guests staying at the hostel. The owner was quite drunk as usual. I could smell the alcohol on her breath. The guy who is waiting here for his visa comes into the common room to make dinner and she starts asking him when his visa is going to get approved. And he says “I’m not sure I haven’t heard back from them yet” and then she just basically flips out and for like 30 minutes she’s just shouting at him non stop about how he doesn’t do anything around here and that he doesn’t bother to learn Japanese even though he’s been in Japan for 5 years. Then she keeps bringing me into it and saying like “look at Jack (me), he spends lots of time learning Japanese but all you do it sit around and do nothing!” And yea basically just that on loop for like 30 minutes. This guy's company is paying for him to stay here while they wait for his visa to get approved so in my opinion it shouldn't be any concern of hers as to what this guy does or doesn't up to.
She was shouting full volume. It was insane. Maybe top 5 loudest shouting I’ve heard in my life and it was all just her. Because his Japanese isn’t that great, he couldn’t say anything back besides ごめんなさい、わかりません (gomenasai-I’m sorry. wakarimasen-I don’t understand). He literally just stood there and took it all the whole time. This felt so cruel. She said some pretty mean things to him. I can’t remember everything but some examples were like:
- “If you aren’t going to learn Japanese then just go back to the country you came from" (this felt a little racist/xenophobic)
- “I bet you don’t even know what I’m saying right now, do you?”
- Saying “wAkaRImaSEn” (which means “I don’t understand”) in a mocking tone like she’s making fun of him
- “You’ve been here 5 years and you can’t even speak Japanese??? (And would laugh at him in a really mean condescending way)”
- “All you ever do is just sit around. Jack’s actually paying me money to study here, do you pay me money? No! Your company pays me money to stay here, but you don’t pay me money!”
- And she kept bringing me into it, like she’d always finish her sentences with “isn’t that right, Jack? *points to me*? Translate that into English for him so he can understand!”
- There is probably some other points that I’m struggling to think of. It was insane. She was so drunk.
And she just repeated those above talking points for about 30 mins. She was seriously shouting at this guy as if this was her own son or something. What makes her think she has the right to talk to somebody like that? She kept comparing him to me as if I was the favorite child and he was the problem child. He just stood there and barely said anything the whole time. It was just the 3 of us in the room and I was just awkwardly sitting there in the corner. It was so uncomfortable. After she was finally done, she goes up to me and says something like “I’m sorry you had to see that” as if it was the other guy’s fault that this happened? And then she was like “thank you for working and studying so hard”. I was really upset that she was using me to justify verbally abusing this poor guy. I wish I had stood up for him in the moment but I didn't fully understand what had happened until afterwards. I realized that this was not a safe environment and that I would need to leave soon. I decided that I would give her a week's notice and leave on October 5th (the same day the other helper was scheduled to leave so we don't have to handle her alone haha)
The next day she acted like nothing had happened. As I would later find out, she had actually forgotten (supposedly). So today around lunchtime (Monday) I finally confronted the owner. I waited a few days because I was shocked and spent time talking with family and friends about what to do.
I began by asking the owner if she remembered the incident that occurred on Thursday night. She said no but I think she did vaguely remember. I then proceeded to tell her the full story, using a lot of google translate because my Japanese skills can only go so far and I was really nervous/scared and it was a lot harder to think clearly when I'm stressed like that. She was upset that I had shortened my stay from until October 22nd to October 5th. I told her that I'm sorry but this is completely on her for having an extremely aggressive outburst like that and then bringing me into it. I also told her that most people in this situation would probably just leave the next day after witnessing that. I think the fact that I'm still giving her an extra week's notice should be considered generous. She said that I was betraying her ("裏切り" – she said) by cutting my stay short by 2 and a half weeks. I told her that I agreed to stay until the 22nd but I wasn't agreeing to work in such a toxic environment. If she wanted me to stay the full time she shouldn't have drunkenly verbally assaulted someone for 30 minutes. She doesn't think that my excuse is a valid reason to leave the hostel 2 and a half weeks earlier than I had promised. She said that since she wasn't yelling at me, but rather she was yelling at the other guy, it shouldn't concern me. But I simply have zero tolerance for living with that level of behavior. While I was confronting her about this she ended up getting quite angry and upset with me. Similar to how angry she got with the other guy. Then she said that if I am going to leave on the 5th of October then I would need to pay her the following (she wrote this up on an invoice):
- 5,000￥ for a cancellation penalty fee for a Kimono dressing session that she had booked for me (this is something that she usually does for free for helpers who stay over a month as a thank you gift. I was initially staying for about 5 weeks so she booked this for me. But after the incident of her yelling at the long term guest I changed to only stay about 3 weeks in total. This would have been in a couple of weeks but now because I'm leaving she will cancel it.
- 7,000￥ to cover the labor costs of the 5th of October, the morning I plan to leave. Apparently the morning that I plan to leave is going to be a very busy day for her with a lot of guests and she wants me to work for her on this day. But I plan on taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo on this day. I struggle to believe that what is usually about 2 or 3 hours of work (which is probably minimum wage) in a day would be worth 7000￥ but maybe I lack some insight here.
- 50,000￥ to cover the cost of the Japanese classes that I was part way through taking at this hostel. This one I am the most understanding of but still a little skeptical. I did sign up for language classes here but I only got a third of the way through the course that was set up so I was hoping that she would accept maybe slightly over half the course fee and then a little extra to compensate for the preparation but she wants the full amount for the course. She has claimed to me in a written document after I said I was leaving that I am required to pay the full amount because she spent 250 hours preparing these lessons for me. I think is untrue because I reached out to her about the lessons maybe 2 months prior to arriving. That would mean that over 60 days she spent over 4 hours per day preparing for these lessons which only consisted of her just walking me through the textbook. But I understand some preparation has gone into the lessons so this is the area where I would maybe be willing to pay the full or close to the full amount.
Two questions:
- Is 1 week's notice valid for leaving a job under these circumstances? Is there a legal minimum notice period in Japan? Would I get in trouble with the law for leaving a job on short notice? Note that I have signed no contracts when I began working at this place.
- Am I legally obliged to pay her any or all of this money? I think paying for the lessons could be valid, but it isn't run by an official school. I haven't signed contracts or anything. She did take a photo of my residence card and passport as I arrived, so I guess if she wanted to take legal action she has my identity. But can she hold anything against me legally if I just leave in the middle of the night without saying anything? I really don't think at least the first two expenses are my problem. I think if she wanted me to stay longer for volunteering roles then she shouldn't verbally assault people. I think that's pretty simple
I really don't feel comfortable living or working here anymore and I want to get out ASAP but first I want to understand what money I'm obliged to pay her and any legal repercussions if I don't pay some or all of these. Anyone here have any insights?
Thanks in advance!
by newjacknewme