Nova: The Legend Continues

When I went to San Francisco for the international teaching conference, my mom drove up from Visalia to have dinner and spend the night with my grandparents so that we could see each other. She brought me some mail that had arrived for me, and with it, the envelope below (sorry for the quality; it's a cell phone picture):

"Bankrupt company Nova Corporation"

To my surprise, proceedings still seem to be in motion for paying back employees who didn't receive their full wages because of Nova's decline. For those that don't know the story, some brief background: I worked for Nova, a language instruction company, in Japan for a year. It was clear as I neared the end of my contract that they were in financial trouble, and about six weeks after I left Japan in September of 2007 they went under. This was a huge deal in Japan because Nova was a colossal company. They were the largest employer of foreign workers in Japan and operated out of over 800 branches across the country (which is even more impressive when you consider how tiny Japan is). Their downfall was a combination of too-rapid expansion and shady business practices, the latter of which horrified the Japanese; people in the Land of the Rising Sun are honest to the core, and they were shocked to hear that Nova's policies about payment and refunds were less than transparent. Interesting, when you consider that in this country we pretty much expect that everyone with whom we do business is trying to skim at least a little off the top. I generally expect to get screwed, and it's the exception if I'm not. Anyway, I was one of the lucky ones who got out before it all happened. I heard horror stories about foreign teachers who'd only just arrived in Japan when Nova closed and had no money for a ticket home because they hadn't earned any paychecks yet. I, on the other hand, didn't get a portion of my final paycheck, but otherwise the whole thing was a mild inconvenience at best.

The Nova usagi (rabbit), our beloved mascot. Why they chose such an odd, unattractive symbol, I'll never know. I heard a rumor that the prominence of his mouth and ears is supposed to represent speaking and listening, but who knows?

The paperwork in the envelope informed me that Nova owed me 22,979 yen!!! Sounds thrilling until you do the math and figure that it's actually somewhere around $275. Bummer. Still, it's money I didn't have, and I'm happy to be claiming it now. I checked a box and mailed the paperwork back today. Based on the speed at which the whole thing is proceeding, I'm going to start looking for the money order in 2013 or so.