Nova Sucks

Here is a bit I wrote when in Tokyo about Nova. It really is a poor company and here's why.

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I’m not writing this as a result of a particularly bad day. I have no reason to lie about Nova. I wouldn’t bother writing this unless there was a good reason. I haven’t had any major personal reason to write this about Nova, I haven’t been fired so disciplined by Nova in any way, nor have I been treated any more unfairly than most employees of this company have. I just want people to know the truth about how bad Nova is. Here are a few things that come to mind:

- The vast majority of Nova employees have little choice but to start by living in a Nova apartment and most employees will continue to live in this apartment until the end of their time in Japan. Nova charges exceptionally high rent for what it provides its employees. Figures of over 70,000 yen a month to share with other people in a very normal apartment in an area that is not close to a major city is common. Nova takes advantage of foreigner’s ignorance and rips them off. Nova makes money from the excessive rents.

- When new employees arrive, there is no social plan, no cultural initiation, and no effort to make the employee feel at home. My experience appears to be common. I was picked up by a woman who seemed ill at ease with what she was doing, answered all my important questions with bare-minimum one-word answers, and simply dropped me off in my flat with no other to help me any further. I was left alone in an empty flat in a completely unfamiliar country with no back-up plan.

- Nova rips off the residents of its apartments by process of “inspection” and official cleaning. If it deems an apartment unclean, instead of asking the residents to do something about it, it hires cleaners and then over charges the residents for the work done, surely another way for Nova to make money. In my case, my housemate ad I were charged $150 EACH for having two cleaners some and scrub the shower. That was all they did.

- Nova hires questionable “teachers” and seems to make a habit out of hiring very close-minded, career obsessed foreigners as bosses. Although it official states that all of its employees have University degrees, this is simply not true as many, particularly Australians do not. Any type of degree is deemed acceptable and at no stage at all is the Nova “teacher” tested on their grammar.