Be Kind to Your Successors!

As many of us will soon be leaving Japan and handing over our positions (and in some cases, living quarters) to someone who is likely a complete stranger and newcomer to Japan, I would like to take this time to remind people to be kind to the newbies, not committing such acts as:

• Breaking contract with the false excuse that you have a terminal disease. Your BOE will know the truth, even if they don't confront you.
• Borrowing 300,000 yen (approximately $3000 U.S.) from a coworker without paying them back.
• Leaving your apartment in such a state of disaster that the English department at your school is forced to clean it up.

If you choose to do the things listed above, it may not only result in your successor having to work exessively hard to gain their BOE's trust, but they may also be given a sparsely-furnished, run-down apartment because of how you treated yours.

Why should you care? Well, eventually (although it make take them nearly 3 years of sleuth work), your successor will find out about what you did and will seek revenge for the unnecessarily difficult struggle they underwent during their first year in Japan. If you have a particularly vindictive successor, who knows what wrath will be inflicted upon you. Of course, it's always possible you'll get lucky and have an unusually kindhearted successor. In this case, you might get off with easy--say, with simple blog written about some of the things you did and vague references to you. (In other words, my dear predecessor, you should consider yourself lucky.)

My kids have another bug post up. Check it out at The Bug Brothers Blog.