At work about six months ago, I received a call from someone in the General Affairs Division who asked me to write up a brief blurb about my experience working for my company. She told me that it would be for job seekers looking for information about what it’s like to work there. When I asked her what the guidelines were, she told me, “just write whatever you want,” and requested me to please kindly complete it by five o’clock that afternoon. Seeing as I didn’t have very much time to think about it, I did what any person would do under the same circumstances: I pulled a bunch of bullshit out of my ass, smeared it over a sheet of paper, handed it in and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to earlier today when some of my coworkers were talking about the shinnyuushain (new hires) who will be entering the company on April 1st. Amongst the jokes about looking forward to getting them drunk and bringing them to hostess clubs, someone mentioned the recruit page on the company website.

“Oh Jeff,” he said, “your message was very cool, very American.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize what the heck he was talking about, and before I knew it, he had pulled up the website for everyone to see. Sure enough, there I was, amongst the many faces on the “Message from Associate” page.

Unfortunately, unlike the table manners guide on the company intranet site, this time my ridiculous posturing is available for the entire world to see (well, the percentage of the entire world that is capable of navigating the Japanese version of website). It’s nothing special of course, but it’s kind of embarrassing considering how shockingly little effort I put into the endeavor. (And yes, I am, of course, aware of the irony in mentioning it on this site, thus making it even more available for the entire world to see. However, at least this way I’m pointing out firsthand the fact that I’m an idiot.)

Anyway, here’s a screenshot from the company website if you’d like an idea of truly poor my bullshit-writing abilities are (as if this blog wasn’t enough evidence already).