My first day on the job here in Japan, I was presented with an employee ID card. On it, my name was written as “ジェルリー” (Jerurii instead of Jefurii).

This afternoon, one of my coworkers sent out an email announcing my official farewell party next Monday night. In it, my name was written as “Jeffry.”

It’s nice to know that after five years of working here, my colleagues still don’t know how to spell my name.

You know what kind of translations I hate the most?

“No,” you say. “We couldn’t care less.” (Unless, of course, you’re American, in which case you say “We could care less,” which, I’m sorry, doesn’t make any sense.)

Well, regardless of whether you could or couldn’t care less, I’m going to tell you anyway. Ready?

Spreadsheets.

This morning this ridiculous mess arrived in my inbox with a request to translate it by 5:00pm:

Yes, a single A3-size sheet of paper, stuffed full with all sorts of charts, graphs, boxes and lists, all requiring translation into English. Never mind that an English sentence requires something like a minimum of three times as much space as its Japanese counterpart; splitting the document up isn’t an option. And thus, in an effort to preserve the formatting, text is shrunk, columns are widened and even more hair is lost from my rapidly balding head.

The worst part is that deep down, I know that no one is actually going to read it. Sure, it might be skimmed, glanced at, looked over, but certainly no careful perusal is going to be taking place. Thus is the triviality of the translation of spreadsheets. A letter has its recipient, a presentation has its audience, but a spreadsheet exists for no one.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently, often being the last person to leave the office at night. As a result, I’ve been pretty brain-dead for the past two weeks or so, walking around in a daze and hardly taking any notice of my surroundings.

So you can imagine the little jolt I received this morning when I came into work and saw this hanging on the wall:

Yep, it’s the flag of the present-day Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, although it’s perhaps more widely recognized as the flag of the former Imperial Japanese Military and a symbol of Japanese nationalism. So what was it doing hanging up in my office? Well, it seems that today is the anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and my slightly eccentric bucho (who, incidentally, is now my de facto boss) is apparently somewhat of an ardent nationalist and felt the need to celebrate.

I suppose the equivalent in America would be someone decorating his/her office with a Confederate flag, but I doubt that would fly in most workplaces today. Although nearly every visitor to our office gave a startled reaction when walking through the door, most of my coworkers just giggled uncomfortably and played it off as just another one of the bucho’s wacky antics (last autumn he adorned the intercom with several persimmons tied together with twine).

Perhaps the funniest moment of today came when one of the managers from the General Affairs Department upstairs, whom I had never heard speak a word of English, came down to our floor to make some copies, saw the flag, chuckled and then said to me in heavily-accented English, “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

Things have been pretty hectic at work ever since I gave notice last month. My company was having some difficulty finding my replacement, and almost immediately began asking me if there was any way I could extend my stay. I declined several times at first, but after talking things over with Judy and agreeing that we were a) in no real hurry to leave, b) hadn’t found new jobs yet and c) that another few months’ pay wouldn’t hurt, we made the decision to change our plans to stay in Tokyo through July.

So that’s the news. Although I’ve been spending a lot more time in the “real world” than on the internet lately, hopefully I’ll be able to get myself back into posting regularly now that I’ve got a bit more time to spare.

I don’t really have anything else to say at this time, so how about a boring photo?

I gave notice at work last week. . . the beginning of the end, as it were. I had spoken with my boss about my plans last July so everyone more or less knew, but this has now made it official. Since my boss has been out of the country for the past six months or so, I had to give the news directly to the president of the company; fortunately, he was really nice about it and he actually tried to dissuade me from leaving (although I can’t imagine why). He also said that I can come back to work here if I end up being unable to find a new job, which, although very generous, also makes me wonder whether he doubts that I’ll actually be able to find work anywhere else.

So now I’ve got about six more weeks of employment before the paychecks stop coming. It’s quite scary if I think about it, but I’m (self-deludedly) optimistic that I’ll eventually be able to find something. I don’t know why, though… I can’t imagine that there are many companies out there actively seeking a barely-literate halfwit whose only “skills” (and I use that term loosely) are limited to semi-neat handwriting and the ability to say “You can’t prove I’m the father so pay for the abortion yourself!” in Japanese.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

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Speaking of work, a big reorganization took effect on the 1st of last month and my department was eliminated. Previously, I had been working in the Global Operations Group, but I’ve since been transferred into the newly created Global Operations Division within the Global Marketing Headquarters [did somebody say “global“??].

The practice at my company is to give every department a three-letter abbreviation to be used in internal email/memos, mail groups and the like. So, where I had previously worked in the GOG, I now work in — you guessed it — the GOD. Yep, so following the usual fashion within my company, I now end all emails like this:

Best regards,

GOD Jeff

In an amusing addition, this sign was also recently put up in my office:

The title reads: “GOD Mission Statement”

I find myself perpetually amused by the level of cluelessness demonstrated by middle-aged men in Japan. Clueless geezers can be found in every country, of course, but societal factors in Japan seem to leave the average middle-aged guy in a position in which the majority of his needs are met by those below him in the hierarchy (his wife, children, underlings at work, etc.), with little need to expend any effort on his part, resulting in an awfully high concentration of grown men completely incapable of completing the most basic of tasks. This phenomenon isn’t something that only punk-on-a-lark foreigners such as myself gripe about, either; in fact, characterizations of stereotypical oyaji featuring the requisite cheap suit, thick glass and bad comb-over, have a long tradition in Japanese comedy routines and on television.

I bring this up today as reference to an amusing incident that took place in my office this afternoon. The bucho (department manager) got up from his desk and walked over to the corner of the office where the coffee maker and electric kettle sit and lamented out loud the fact that there was no tea and that he didn’t know how to prepare any. Immediately, the youngest guy in the office jumped up from his seat and offered to put more water in the kettle, to which the bucho responded with the a mere grunt and went back to his desk.

About 30 minutes later, the bucho once again got up and went over to the corner, at which point paused and said, “Oh, I see you didn’t make me any.” The young guy raced over to the corner and apologized for the fact that although he had put water into the kettle to boil, he had failed to thereafter prepare a cup of tea for the bucho. The bucho, however, responded, “I don’t want tea, I want coffee,” prompting chuckles from other people in the office who had heard him not half an hour earlier explicitly ask for tea. Now, this young guy can be a bit cheeky and has a good rapport with the bucho, so he quickly pointed out that the he had indeed asked for tea.

The bucho, never one to admit a mistake, came back with this gem of an oyaji-ism: “When have you ever seen me drink tea, you idiot?! I want coffee!”

The confusion cleared, the young guy then went about preparing a fresh pot of coffee while the bucho went out to the balcony for a cigarette.

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And with that, I have wasted three minutes of your time. Thank you for playing, please come again.

This morning my company sent out a memo announcing that a new file server has been set up to soon replace the one currently in use. I’ve mentioned before my company’s affinity for the word “global” and their propensity to attach it as a prefix to just about everything (Sales Dept. = boooriiing; Global Sales Dept. = THE FUCKING R0X0R!!!11shift), and this is no exception. The new server has been christened the “Global File Server,” or “G-File” (on a whole new level) for short. Amusingly, the name is a bit of a misnomer, as the server is not actually accessible from outside the company network, let alone from outside of Japan.

And yes, in case anyone is wondering, the irony was completely lost on everyone in my company. They’re all proud of how kakkoii (cool) it sounds. I guess “Internal File Server G” doesn’t have the same flare.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently. I was the last person to leave the office every day last week, and if today was any indication, I may be the last one every day this week as well. In the days leading up to a big business trip to North America by the top management, there’s always a ton of correspondence, presentations and all sorts of other documents that need to be translated into English, which means that I, presently the sole native English speaker at my company, have to translate and/or proofread all of it. At least they’re leaving at the end of this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to take it easy for a bit after that.

About a year ago, I wrote a post on this site about a manager at my company who came back to Japan after a year in the U.S. shamefully addicted to Coca Cola. Well, as it turns out, he was eventually able to miraculously overcome his addiction, but not before spreading it to several other people in the office. How the heck does one “spread” an addiction? Well, seeing as he’s a pretty high-ranking manager and therefore gets whatever he wants, he requested that our office start stocking cans of Coke for the employees to drink. Sure enough, two days later, the first in what would become a steady stream of deliveries arrived.

Since that fateful day, I have watched several of my coworkers succumb to this ravenous addition. They can be frequently seen furtively leaving their desks at intervals to head to the kitchen area for a fix of 160ml of fizzy, sugary goodness, often going through 4 or 5 cans a day each. I wish there was something I could do to help them, but to confront them directly would be madness! I am but one man. . . .

I don’t feel up to attempting a “real” post this evening, so I’ve decided to blatantly copy the successful format of Patrick’s ‘Today’s Five Things‘ blog. I certainly hope I can do justice to the original. Here goes:

1. Buy me this, and this, and this!
Judy and I recently set up a wedding gift registry via the Wedding Channel website. While at first it seemed like it would be fun to go through various online shops and basically choose anything that struck our fancy, we’ve since come to find the process to be a tad. . . laborious. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that we’re looking only at small images of products on a computer screen and trying to select items that we will be expected to use for the rest of our lives. I have a hard enough time picking out a pair of shoes that I’ll likely only wear for a couple of years; I can’t handle having to consider whether items that appeal to my tastes now will still be tolerable a few years down the road. It’s like, “Is this the particular dish that I want to have flung at my head during a heated argument with my teenage child regarding his/her performance at school?” or “Is this blanket sufficiently thick to keep me warm when my wife makes me sleep on the couch for two weeks after making what I thought was a completely innocuous remark about the perkiness of our next-door neighbor’s breasts?”

Perhaps registering for gifts would be more enjoyable were we to do it in an actual physical store where we could examine the goods in person. Plus, we’d get to play around with one of those price-scanner gun thingies, which to me seems like quite a lot of fun (in case anyone hadn’t already realized, I’m incredibly easy to amuse). There’s also the issue of being unable to shake a slight feeling of greed as we browse through and try to select items for other people to buy for us. However, I suppose that we’ll have to try to ignore this guilt, seeing as it’s probably better than ending up with three different sets of tacky napkin holders.

2. Hot & sweaty
I haven’t mentioned this before, but the air conditioning in my office has been broken since the beginning of June (!). Thus, I have had to endure the entire frickin’ summer sitting in a hot and stuffy room, alternating between fanning myself with an uchiwa and wiping perspiration from my face, while trying to fit in some actual work in between. In a feeble attempt to ease our sweaty suffering, in July a large fan was brought in to blow cool air from the meeting room next door where the air conditioning is functioning (welcome to Japan! – perhaps the only industrialized nation in the world to shun central cooling/heating); however, every time the meeting room is used for an actual meeting (several times a day), the door is closed and we lose our only source of minimal relief from the heat.

Everyone in the office has been complaining about the problem and hassling the General Affairs Dept. to hurry up and have it fixed, but alas our complaints have fallen upon deaf ears. Apparently the entire cooling system needs to be replaced, which would end up costing around a million yen (about US$10,000), so my company made the decision simply not to fix it. Hence, last month we were requested to gaman until the weather cools down in autumn. Heartless bastards.

3. What’s small, hard and gives me a boner?
Nintendo’s GameBoy Micro was released in Japan yesterday, and after work today I headed to an electronics shop near my office to check it out and play with it a little. My first reaction: “Wow, that really is small!” My second: “. . . and totally not worth the money.” Call me a parsimonious old miser, but as much as I’d love to own a Micro (and rub it tenderly across my naked flesh), for now I’m more than content with my SP. Maybe if I haven’t yet come to my senses in six months or so when the price drops a little, I’ll reconsider it.

4. Ouch
You know that it’s been a bit too long in between visits to the gym when the day after you finally go for a workout, you can’t lift your arms above your head. Putting on deodorant this morning was a bitch.

5. Zzzzz
Well, I’ve finally put up some more photos from past visits to the Tokyo Disney Resort. They’re beyond typically dull, but here they are:

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You know, that was actually pretty fun. Straight and to the point, enables me to cover a variety of topics in a single post, no need to delve too deeply into anything – perhaps I’ll copy Patrick more often (although not too often, I promise!).

I had incredibly grandiose plans to put up quite a few posts this week, but unfortunately my situation at work has been completely insane recently with big things going down concurrently in both the States and in South Asia. Thankfully, tomorrow is the last work day before the summer holiday, which means that I’ll finally be able catch up on some much-needed R&R.

Seeing as it’s quite late and I can barely make sense of what’s appearing on the screen in front of me as I type this, I’m just going to post one link and one photo and then call it a night.

The link is to a list of common giongo, which are Japanese onomatopoeic words. Giongo are used far more often than their English counterparts; in fact, most people tend take advantage of any and every opportunity to use them instead of actual words, which is mighty frustrating to the beginning Japanese learner, who has no idea what those seemingly silly sounds mean [yikes, where’d that alliteration come from?]. Anyway, here is the list, courtesy of the good doctor known as Dave, conqueror of Tokyo and shooer of cats.

Now, on to the photo. The other day I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Tokyo Disney Resort gallery that I set up last month, so I’m going to try to prepare some additional typically boring photos to stick in there in the near future. For today, though, I offer you a photo of one of the brazing furnaces at my company’s plant in Ibaraki. Were you to stick your hand in there, a-chi-chi-chi!! would probably be the giongo you would use as the flesh was seared from your bones in a matter of seconds.

And with that, I sleep.

One of my coworkers was scolded by his boss today for not wearing a tie. The guy was just sitting at his desk quietly doing his work, when all of a sudden his boss started telling him off, saying, “When you’re at work, you must wear a tie!” and “If we were called to an urgent meeting, we’d have to wait for you to put on your tie!” My coworker apologized profusely and proceeded to retrieve the tie that he keeps in his desk drawer and put it on.

I guess that means my company has officially rejected the Cool Biz campaign.

It serious is ridiculous, though. All day long, the AC is blasting, yet we’re all sitting around with our sleeves rolled up and ties loosened, sweating like pedophiles on a playground. What’s a person got to do to cool off around here?

So there I sat, at my desk. It was late, far later than I had intended to stay at work. The office was silent except for the constant hum of the air conditioner and the occasional shuffling of papers by my equally-exhausted coworkers.

I had just spent several hours straight working on the translation of what I was told was a very important letter. After a long series of rewrites and revisions, every word, every subtle nuance of the original Japanese had been skillfully transcribed into English, leaving nothing ambiguous. I printed out the final version, took the stairs up to my boss’ office and handed it to him with a weary smile. I would soon be going home, where my lovely fiancée would no doubt be waiting.

Five minutes later, the silence of the office was broken by the ringing of the telephone on my desk. I answered with slight hesitation. It was my boss, informing me that he had decided to rethink the letter and therefore he wouldn’t be sending it out tonight after all. “Let’s continue this tomorrow,” he said. “Have a good night.” As I replaced the receiver, I couldn’t help but chuckle at my pitiful plight. “Ah, the life of a translator.”

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Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all before. Nothing’s changed and nothing ever will. If only I were paid by the word or by the hour, rather than the paltry flat fee that I receive for my unwavering obedient servitude.

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I haven’t taken many photos recently. Although I’ve never really had an eye for photography, I’ve always at least made an effort to try to take interesting photos (”interesting” in this case meaning “crap”). However, lately everything I snap seems so dull, so uninspired, so out-of-focus. The truth is, though, that words alone obviously can’t keep this site afloat, so here’s an example of an aforementioned dull, inspiring and out-of-focus photo:

And with that, I sleep.

This past week, the Japanese government kicked off its new “Cool Biz” campaign to encourage central government officials to shed their suit jackets and neckties during the summer months. The campaign, launched this past Wednesday, was designed to help employees work comfortably following new air conditioning restrictions put in place to reduce electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions to aid in the fight against global warming.

Despite strong support from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the public response to the campaign thus far has been somewhat lukewarm, especially among the more traditionalist members of the population. Most Japanese businessmen feel that suits and ties should be worn at all times — even during the hot and humid summer months — and that casual business attire reeks of unprofessionalism and poor manners. In addition, many still carry bad memories from the fashion nightmare that was the short-sleeved suit, which arrived on the scene following the 1979 oil crisis and was promoted heavily by former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata.

While I definitely agree that it’s beyond ridiculous to have to wear suits during the stifling Japanese summer, unfortunately I don’t see the “Cool Biz” campaign gaining widespread support, especially in the private sector. In a society rooted firmly in ceremony and tradition, in which every member must wear a uniform (literal or symbolic) to identify their status in order for social interaction to be possible, it’s going to take more than a government initiative to get people to change. I would imagine that even if the ozone layer depleted to the point that the sun’s rays literally scorched the earth, Japanese business men still would not leave their post-apocalyptic subterranean dwellings without first donning navy blue jackets and paisley neckties over their radiation suits.

In my office today, the thermostat was set at a cool 22°C (72°F) and all employees (myself included) were wearing suits and ties as usual, as we will be for the rest of the summer. Even if we underlings were to take it upon ourselves to dress in a manner appropriate for the heat, a swift admonishment from our superiors would no doubt follow, and all of our ludicrous notions of comfort and a perspirationless-free work environment would be immediately abandoned.

I swear, it would likely take an act of almighty Godzilla himself — the total destruction of all formal business attire in Japan (perhaps through collaboration with Mothra) — to get Japanese salarymen to even consider changing their dress habits. Oh well, at least they look passably presentable most of the time; I suppose that’s all that matters (to them).

Last week, my company installed a time card reader in the office where I work, effectively allowing The Man to monitor my every move (those goddamned fascists!). Lame jokes aside, the introduction of the use of time cards has allowed me to bear witness to a certain curious behavior that I had seen in previous offices here in Japan, but had completely forgotten about: people getting up out of their desks at the official end of working hours, swiping their time cards, and then sitting back down and continuing on with their work.

You see, ever since I’ve been working here, the powers that be in the upper echelons of my company have been trying to reduce the sheer amount of overtime that is racked up each month. The continued stagnation of the Japanese economy has left nearly all firms looking for ways to reduce costs, and with labor costs being most companies’ largest expenses, they are the primary target. However, the catch is that while employers are eager to reduce the amount of overtime wages they pay, they don’t want their employees to actually work any less.

The result is what is known as saabisu zangyo — “service” or voluntary unpaid overtime. Japanese law forbids companies from not giving compensation for overtime work, however despite the fact that the average employee works anywhere from 2-5 hours of overtime each day, companies don’t want to have to pay for it. Thus, the employees, demonstrating their fierce loyalty to the company and reflecting the comprehensive conditioning they underwent during their formative years, take it upon themselves to limit their documented work hours, all the while working far beyond the conditions stated in their contracts. It may sound utterly ridiculous to the average Westerner, but to the employee of a Japanese company, the benefits of such behavior (being seen as a team player, a higher likelihood of promotion, good comradery with colleagues, etc.) far outweigh the downsides (less contact with family members, increased stress, reduced personal time, etc.).

Of course, none of this actually applies to me, since I’m only a keiyaku shain (contract employee) and thus my contract is similar to that of a manager (i.e., the work must get done no matter what), meaning that all of my overtime is saabisu. However, the positive side of my situation is that I exist somewhat outside of the standard company organization, so unlike everyone else, I don’t have to dedicate my entire life to the company. It sure would be nice to get paid for the full amount of work that I do, but on the other hand, I have a life outside the office, which is more than I can say for most of my colleagues.

Anyhow, it’s the end of the week and I’m beat. Too much zangyo, once again. To anyone who’s interested in reading more, here’s an article about unpaid overtime in Japan, as well as one about what it’s like as a foreigner to work for a Japanese company. Fun stuff.

Continuing my office’s grand tradition of going out drinking in the middle of the week, last night my officemates and I hit the town for an evening of drunken revelry. Originally scheduled as a hanami party, the noticeable lack of sakura turned the event into a second kangeikai for the new guy in our office. This time, however, all staff were present, including the top managers and the mighty shacho himself.

Over a bland meal at a Chinese restaurant off of Aoyama Dori, we quickly and merrily descended into the pits of drunkenness by means of numerous pitchers of beer and more shoukoushu (Chinese rice wine) than I want to even think about. Naturally, things became a tad rambunctious as the evening progressed. Two of my coworkers who had both spent a few years in the U.S. as university students soon began making use of all of the colorful obscenities that they picked up during their time there, much to the chagrin of the older staff members who were proficient enough in English to understand what was being said. Here’s an example of one of their heavily-accented exchanges:

Drunk Guy 1: “Why the fuck aren’t you drinking, bitch?”
Drunk Guy 2: “Man, what the fuck you talking about?”
Drunk Guy 1: “You know what I’m fucking talking about, bitch. You keep filling everyone else’s glasses, but you aren’t drinking shit!”
Drunk Guy 2: “Don’t fucking talk to me that shit, motherfucker! I’m drinking more than you are!”
[Continues ad nauseam]

After the meal, the majority of the revelers departed for home, leaving just six of the most wanton of our group to head to the nijikai (second party). There’s a particular Chinese hostess club in Akasaka that my boss is apparently quite fond of, so lo and behold, that’s where he said we would be going. The place was decent enough — it had the archetypical dim lighting, velvet couches and middle-aged salarymen busting out old enka tunes — but the slightly haggard appearance of the women in their sleazy outfits combined with the fact that the only thing to drink was cursed mizuwari (whisky diluted in water), the experience was far from enjoyable.

Thus, in order to pass the time while my boss was living it up chatting with his favorite hostess and the two drunk guys were busy carrying out a new series of energetic exchanges based around the words “bitch,” “shit,” and “motherfucker,” another coworker and I set to work flipping through the karaoke songbook and picking random songs to viciously butcher to the displeasure to our fellow patrons in the bar. Finally, after a number of pitiful pop tunes and a utterly horrible rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?,” my boss declared that it was time to go. We made a quick stop at a nearby ramen shop for a hearty dose of hangover prevention before hopping into cabs and heading home, where I sleepily arrived shortly after 2:00 a.m.

As one might expect, it was pretty quiet in the office today, as many quietly nursed hangovers and we all fought to stay awake following last night’s adventure. The total tab for evening came out to be about US$680 for dinner (for 16 people) and another whopping $1000 (yes, one thousand) for the waste of time at the hostess club, of which my share was calculated to be $10 and $70 respectively. Thankfully, they chose to break down everyone’s share in terms of rank (one of the few benefits of living in a rigid hierarchal society), and thus the managers had to foot the majority of the tab. Had that not been the case, I just may have had to resort to blackmail, taking advantage of the crappy keitai pics that I drunkenly snapped of my boss getting friendly with one of the hostesses. I guess now I’ll get to save that for another occasion.

Last night, some of my officemates and I went out for an informal kangeikai (welcome party) for a guy who was transferred to work in our office in Tokyo. As our decision to go out was a bit last-minute, none of our usual haunts had room for our group, so we ended up going to a chain izakaya near Shibuya station called Kaasan. Kaasan means “Mother” in Japanese, and the chain markets itself as providing homely fare prepared with a motherly touch. Accordingly, the kitchen and wait staff are composed entirely of matronly middle-aged women who dote on customers with a maternal demeanor whilst supplying them with large quantities of alcohol and reminding them to finish their vegetables.

Since it was a Monday night, we all decided to limit our intake of alcoholic beverages, but achieved varying degrees of success. It’s actually a tad difficult to keep track of how much nihonshu you’re drinking when someone refills your cup after every sip. Nonetheless, we all made it to the station afterwards without anyone puking or passing out (which is quite an accomplishment in itself), and parted ways.

Upon returning to my apartment to find Judy sound asleep, I realized that I had to return a DVD to the video rental shop before midnight, and so I headed back out and managed to get the DVD into the hands of the cashier with about three minutes to spare. As I walked past the station on my way back to my apartment, I happened to pass by a guy who I’ve seen many times playing the saxophone and trumpet (albeit not at the same time) beneath the elevated train tracks. Feeling somewhat chatty after my numerous beers and countless glasses of sake, I greeted the guy asked him, “Do you play here often?” (which, in retrospect, does indeed sound like a cheesy pickup line, much to my dismay).

We chatted briefly about our respective backgrounds and time in Japan, and I learned that he was originally from New York and had spent the past 15 years in Tokyo. Unfortunately, within minutes the conversation quickly took a turn towards one-sidedness and the guy began to rant and rave about everything from the film industry to the American government to the lamentable prevalence of ignorance among the youth of today. He seemed like a rather intelligent guy, but he was definitely on a different level than most “normal” folk. I’m hesitant to just pass him off as some whackjob, but when people advocate the overthrow of the government and say paranoid things like “Don’t you see? They don’t want you to know what’s going on!”, it certainly makes one wonder about their mental stability. I barely managed to get a word in edgewise the entire time, but since I’m not the type to rudely interrupt others when they are speaking, I ended up standing there for over an hour listening to his tirade.

Since then, after having thought a bit more about some of the things that he was saying, and considering the depth of his knowledge and analysis of each issue he mentioned, I’ve come to realize just how intellectually inactive I’ve become in the last few years. I definitely felt more socially aware when I was in university (although I forwent the traditional scraggly facial hair, “Free Mumia” pin and other clich´s), but in the years since, while my knowledge and understanding of social issues and world events have increased considerably, I’ve found that my priorities have shifted a bit and I no longer focus as much energy on them.

Could this be due to disillusionment? To laziness? To having become complacent from living in a society regrettably known for its ignorance and shallowness? Perhaps it’s just from growing older and now being in a position where I’m relatively comfortable enough to enjoy the small pleasures in life, rather than dwell upon the inequalities and injustices in the world. Or maybe I’m just a bad person.

I suppose my biggest question is: Why do my coworkers insist on getting soused in the middle of the week? My head hurts.

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My apologies for the particularly inane ramblings as of late. I promise I’ll be back to writing about boobies and eccentricities in Japanese society and whatever else shortly. In the meantime, why not take a peek at this video of J-Pop super-group and fodder for Japan’s legion of pedophiles, Morning Musume, squeal and squirm as they watch a clip from the Japanese film Ringu.

Apparently there are few pleasures in life comparable to that attained from scaring young girls.

I am so glad this week has finally come to an end. . . it’s been a long one.

This afternoon just after lunch, my boss came to me with a request to translate the lengthy minutes from a meeting he attended earlier this month into English. “Can you finish it within today?” he asked in such a way that make it sound like a demand rather than a question. I figured I was up for the challenge and immediately went to work on it.

Seven hours later, I was nearly finished and looking forward to saying “osaki ni” and getting the hell out of the office, when all of a sudden, the telephone rang. It was boss, instructing all of us to pack up and get ready to go out drinking. My coworkers promptly began shutting down their computers and tidying up their desks. Five minutes later when my boss came strolling in, everyone was putting on their coats while I remained seated at my desk, frantically trying to finish up the translation. My boss came over to check on my progress, and upon seeing that I was nearly done, he said, “Good, please email it to me when you’re finished. I’ll send it off tomorrow.” And with that, he and all of my coworkers headed out to go drinking, leaving me behind, alone and feeling dejected in the empty office. Eventually, I finished up the translation, send it off, locked up the office and headed home.

It was a bit of a depressing way to end the week, but at least tomorrow’s Saturday, and unlike my coworkers, I won’t have to spend the day in the office finishing up work from tonight.

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I haven’t yet had time to go through the photos I took in Asakusa last weekend to see if there’s anything worth putting up, so in the meantime, here’s a photo of a defaced political poster featuring Hideko Murakami and Shintaro Ishihara (the governor of Tokyo) that’s posted on the side of a building near my office. There’s a high school in the area, so it was probably some of the students who did it, but I’m sure if Ishihara were to ever see it, he would likely blame it on the evil foreigners.

What’s worse than having to work on a national holiday?

How about having to work late on a national holiday?

Yes, while most people in Japan were off enjoying the first day of spring, yours truly was stuck in the office with the rest of the worker drones until the late hours of the night. Even the slave drivers who share a building with my company and whose employees never seem to go home had the day off today (the lucky bastards). My colleagues, of course, toiled on, silently patting themselves on the back for being “hard workers” for working on a national holiday. I, however, could not enjoy the same smug satisfaction, as I don’t subscribe to the typical Japanese belief that working longer = working harder.

Anyway. . . the weather was pretty nice last Saturday, so I headed over to Asakusa to play the part of a tourist and do a bit of sightseeing. I took way too many crappy photos, and I’ll probably put a few of them up later this week (consider yourselves forewarned).

In the meantime, here’s a photo of a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) shop in my neighborhood that, through a humorous example of poor planning, appears to share neon sign space with a soapland offering bath play for ¥10,000 (about US$95) plus a discount for early morning customers (doors open at 7:00am).

[For anyone who doesn’t read Japanese, the two red portions read ソープランド (= soapland) and とんかつ (= tonkatsu).]

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).

Last week, I had to go up to my company’s main plant in Ibaraki for several days of meetings with visitors from an American firm. Although I probably shouldn’t admit this, the meetings were painfully dull and reminded me of just how overwhelmingly NOT cut out I am to be a businessman.

I had heard that a new intern named Jason had arrived last week from the States to work at my company’s head office, and so I organized a small, informal kangeikai (welcome party) after the final meeting in order to meet him and to hang out with some of my old coworkers I hadn’t seen in a while. Well, as typically happens, the four-person dinner quickly tripled in size, and once alcohol was thrown in the mix, madness ensued. However, rest be assured, it was good madness (like mud wrestling). Even better, since no managers were in attendance, not once did any of the several conversations taking place concurrently ever turn to the topic of work.

Unfortunately, being the only person who had to return to Tokyo that night, I had to duck out early and just managed to catch the last train back. But for everyone else, the party continued until late into the night. The next day brought hangovers to all (except me), and Jason, the guest of honor at the festivities the night before, called in sick.

Good times.

Here are a few photos from the welcome party, but please excuse the poor quality — my skills with a camera are even worse after I’ve had a bit to drink:

On Saturday, Judy and I met up with a couple of my officemates to go bowling. It was the first time that I had been bowling in several years, and the first time that Judy had hung out with any of my coworkers ever. Despite the hour-and-a-half wait for an open lane, the rest of the afternoon was a lot of fun and we enjoyed three games of bowling and one slightly poorly-received joke about “superior ball handling skills” (it seems the expression doesn’t translate very well into Japanese).

Afterwards, we went to dinner and, in the Japanese tradition, imbibed a number of alcoholic beverages. As this was the first time for these particular coworkers and I to spend time together outside a work setting, we were able to get to know each other on a more personal level. At one point, the conversation turned to the topic of work (surprise surprise) and I was amused to hear some my officemates’ opinions about our company and some of the other people we work with. It was definitely a relief to learn that I am not alone in some of my gripes about working there. Apparently Japanese offices are miserable places for Japanese people to work, too.

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Here are two photos from the bowling alley, one of my coworkers and the other of the funky Japanese bowling shoes we were wearing:

I haven’t even been back at work for a full week yet, but I’m already starting to slide back into my old routine of working 13-hour days. I cannot let that happen.

The reason for my overtime tonight relates to a little something known as “the challenges of cross-cultural communication,” also commonly referred to as “dealing with gobbledygook-talkin’ weirdos who smell funny.”

You see, two years ago one of the managers in my company — my former boss, in fact — was dispatched to our joint venture company in the States to help improve operations. Yesterday we received a letter from the American president of said venture containing an extensive list of employee complaints against the manager from my company; apparently he has been undertaking his role as Executive Vice President a bit, shall we say, “unconventionally.”

I’m not at liberty to get into specifics, but as I read through the incident reports in preparation for helping to draw up a response from our side, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how poorly the Japanese management style doesn’t work in America. Sure, you have sucessful management practices that took the business world by storm in the 80s, such as just-in-time production, kaizen (continuous improvement) and the 5S, but beneath the stoic exterior of the typical Japanese businessman lies an uncharacteristicly immature and erratic underbelly.

Therefore, whereas the American side of our joint venture decried actions such as shouting at and shoving employees, throwing objects and wildly striking machinery with a hammer as “unacceptable conduct,” I see them as what they are: aspects of Japanese management that are little-known outside of Japan (well, except for the hitting-things-with-a-hammer part).

By now, most of the world is familiar with the rigid hierarchy in Japanese society. The adherence to theis hierarchy is even more severe within a Japanese company: underlings kowtow to their superiors’ merciless demands and superiors berate and scold their underlings like misbehaving children (mid-level managers can go from superior to underling and back within an instant without even so much as a bat of an eye).

While I personally have never been on the receiving end of such treatment (I reckon I would react in a most un-Japanese of ways), I have beared witness to maniacal displays of managerial tyranny time and time again throughout my company. There’s nothing worse than sitting quietly while your coworker is subject to a five-minute public tirade. . . um, except maybe being on the receiving end on one yourself, I suppose.

Anyway, my company finally created a generic response to the letter, which of course had to be translated by yours truly (once again, despite the fact that my company has an official translator and it’s not me). None of the people on the Japanese side seem to have any problem with the manager’s behavior, but rather are trying to focus on why he chose to act in such a manner, i.e., what the American employees did wrong to evoke the manager’s reaction.

Ironically, during the course of the entire year that I worked under that manager, not once did I ever see him put on a display such as those mentioned in the list of complaints. Maybe he’s just dealing with culture shock as a result of being forced to live in the midwest.

It’s funny how you can be away from work for a few weeks on holiday, but as soon as you get back it feels like you never left in the first place.

Despite the piles of work that greet me each day, I’ve been making a concerted effort to spend less time at the office. So far I’ve only been marginally successful, but I’m going to keep up the fight. I can’t go back to spending all of my waking hours at work.

Must not. . . become. . . Japanese!

Anyhow, I’m kind of short on time at the moment, so I’m just going to throw up a few photos from my trip back to California. Even though I carried my camera with me nearly everywhere I went, I regrettably took precious few photos.

Here are a few that I actually managed to snap of some friends:

Well, I found out the results of my TOEIC exam today. Unfortunately, despite being a university-educated native English speaker, I did not receive a perfect score. Hence, from this day forth until the day that I cease to exist on this earth, I will carry around the shame of my failure like a severely disabled evil Siamese twin whose encumbering mangled form frightens small children and eliminates all chances of intimacy with members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, for that matter).

Thankfully, however, I did manage to get the highest score in the company. . . so it looks like I at least still have a job (I hope).

Actually, because I got the highest score in the company, I was contacted by the General Affairs Department and asked to write up a brief statement offering my advice for the best ways to go about studying a foreign language to be sent out to everyone who took the exam. So yes, because I got a relatively high score on a test of THE LANGUAGE THAT I HAVE SPOKEN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I am now the expert on studying foreign languages. Funny how that works.

Well, all I can say is that it’s a darn good thing that no one in my company knows that there’s also a Japanese proficiency test. . . .

After working 12-plus hour days for nearly two weeks straight, last night I reached my limit. I stood up, said “fuck it,” threw my laptop across the room, punched my boss in the face and then proceeded to set my office on fire.

Well, in my head, anyway.

Murderous fantasies aside, I did actually manage to leave the office at 6:30 yesterday without having to resort to bloodshed or violence of any kind. As I passed through Shibuya station on the way home, I saw this:

Yes, that’s right, soon-to-be-released Sony PSPs mounted on the wall for all to gawk at and splooge upon. Apparently, Sony has somehow managed to overcome the delays in the development schedule and the issues with battery life and whatever else to be ready for a release in a little over three weeks from now, just in time for the holiday season.

Suuure they have. I’m sure there’ll be loads of game titles by available then, too.

Oh well, I reckon that the release doesn’t really affect me very much, anyway. Ever since failing to ever beat the original Super Mario Brothers back in elementary school, video games and I have had a somewhat acrimonious relationship. In fact, in the 10-year period between 1993 until 2003, I probably played video games a grand total of about five times. That all changed last year, however, when Judy gave me a GameBoy Advance SP for my birthday. I now give that thing more attention than I give her!

The PSP looks pretty nice, but I don’t see myself dropping 200 bucks for one any time in the near future. Actually, what I’ll probably do is wait until both the PSP and the Nintendo DS have been released and then compare the two. Only then can I decide which will become my new bride.

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If you’re interested, you can see a few photos from the PSP display in Shinjuku — which looks arguably cooler — by clicking here.

It’s funny how whenever you think things are really bad, they almost inevitably get worse.

My situation at work has reached the point where I am spending nearly all of my waking hours sitting my desk. I can’t even remember the last day that I didn’t work over 12 hours. I’m perpetually exhausted, I’ve been losing weight and my girlfriend is seriously starting to hate my guts because I’m never home. Last night I even dreamed about work! Ain’t the life of a salaryman grand?

When I first set up this blog, I never planned to write anything about my job unless it was about something interesting or funny that happened, like the time at a drinking party when one of the managers in my department got utterly shitfaced and donned a wig and fake breasts and spent the majority of the evening sitting in the corner caressing said appendages. Or the time when I was out drinking with that same manager, and he said the following to me (in English): “My hobby is pubic hair.”

Man, I miss working with that guy.

But I digress. The fact is that no one really cares about the crap that other people go through at work, and since I have the writing ability equivalent to that of a autistic toddler post-shock therapy, there is no way that I could make my current situation sound even remotely humorous. Therefore, I believe that a little copy/paste action is called-for.

The following was written by Stereolabrat, who so eloquently expressed what many of us feel but are unable to effectively put into words:

My company likes to piss in my mouth. It’s quite refreshing, once you get used to it, I mean who doesn’t like to drink a tall glass of piss, right? Every morning, I go to work with a parched throat, looking forward to the urine that will be waiting for me at my desk, right next to the coffee my boss ever so gently shat in.

(Read the entire thing here.)

I hereby nominate her for the title of Funniest Biatch on the Internet.

Anyway, if your spirits need uplifting, why not check out this site, which demonstrates why you should probably avoid gettin’ busy in the back seat. (NOT work safe!)

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By the way, if you’re wondering what the title of this post is all about, click here.

Last week, one of the managers at my company returned to Japan from a one year stint at one of our American offices. On the afternoon of his first day back, he announced that he was thirsty and was going to get something to drink. When he came back, a 1-liter bottle of Coca Cola was clutched in his hands. My officemates reacted with a mixture of amusement and subtle consternation over his beverage choice.

The next day, the manager once again left the office in the afternoon and returned with a bottle of the fizzy American devil water. Upon questioning, the manager admitted that he had come to like the stuff while he was living in the States and now drinks it regularly.

The bedlam that followed was insane. . . everyone in the room simultaneously launched into a tirade about how unhealthy cola is and how he should quit drinking it right away and drink only Japanese tea if he’s thirsty. It wasn’t just what they said, either, but how they said it: with a fervor so intense that one might think that he had just returned from Burma and announced that while he was there he developed a fondness for chasing the white dragon. Talk about hammering down the nail that sticks up!

I can only imagine the reaction I would receive if I were to come back from lunch one day with a meal set from McDonalds, complete with a greasy hamburger, Coke & fries! Hmm. . . actually, they’d probably just say, “yappari amerikajin da na” (”Naturally, you’re an American”).

Did you know that many Japanese companies have beds/cots on-site for employees to grab a few winks when they are forced to work overnight? Many also have arrangements for discounts at nearby hotels for employees who can’t return home because they worked so late that the trains have stopped running.

Just a little bit of trivia for you this evening, as I sit in my office at 11:00 at night, rapidly succumbing to the combination of exhaustion, hunger and stress. God forbid, I betray the company with my lazy American ways and put off anything until tomorrow morning!

Anyhow, I just wanted to let everyone [all two of you] know that last night I set up a nice sortable archives page for this site. The coding would be far too difficult for a numbskull like me to come up with on my own, so I found a nice plugin instead. You can check it out either by clicking here or on the word ‘archives’ on the menu on the left.

I also installed an anti-spam plugin in response to the onslaught of comment spam that I have been receiving lately from a particular spammer advertising a certain online card game (the tosser). The only problem is that the there’s a chance that legitimate, non-spam comments won’t make it through the filter (as has already happened at least once). Therefore, if anyone tries to post a comment and encounters a message saying that you have been banned from commenting because you’re a no-good, stinkin’ spammer, please just email me at the address on the ‘about‘ page and I’ll try to set things right.

Okaaay, time for me to regresar a mi casa. Have a good night!

Coming from an English-speaking country, something that I had never heard of before I moved to Japan was the TOEIC exam — the Test of English for International Communication. If you don’t know what the TOEIC exam is, here’s a blurb from the official website:

The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. With over three million test-takers per year, the TOEIC Test is the world’s leading test of English language proficiency in a workplace setting.

TOEIC is a major deal in Japan. Despite the fact that it only evaluates listening and reading abilities (there are no speaking or reading components), the test-taking culture here is such that nearly every businessperson who is involved in international business in any way is likely to have taken the test numerous times, and has his or her job prospects, salary and advancement opportunities based heavily on his or her score.

My own company holds TOEIC exams twice yearly and all employees are — to put it nicely — “encouraged” to participate. You see, the company has a reward/penalty system in which an employee’s performance is compared to his previous scores: if he scores more than 5% higher, he gets a bonus in his next paycheck; if he does about the same, he gets nothing; and if he gets more than 5% lower, he gets a reduction from his paycheck!

Sounds a bit harsh, don’t it? Worse yet, all employee results are posted company-wide so everyone knows how everyone else did!

Up until this point, my only involvement with the TOEIC exam was limited to a two-week intensive prep course I taught at my company back in the fall of 2001. However, this year my new boss thought it would be “funny” if I were to try it, and so he signed me up. . . .

Thus, from 9:30 to noon this morning, I was in the conference room upstairs taking the first exam I’ve sat since university. And it was an English exam — yikes, talk about pressure! I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face if I don’t get the highest score in the company. Sure, I’m a native speaker — but I’m also a dumbass! The score results probably won’t come back for a couple of months, but I can only imagine the ridicule I’ll face if I don’t get a perfect score.

Well, at least it wasn’t a Japanese proficiency exam — I wouldn’t even stand a chance!

As I write this, I am the last person remaining in my office. What is normally a noisy, bustling room is now uncomfortably empty. The only sound to be heard is the gentle hum of the copy machine.

Man, I hate working late. It’s Friday night, and although the mood was right and I was gonna have some fun, show you how it’s done, I ended up having to forego enjoyment, nourishment and requiescence in order to finish up my damn work.

I don’t even know why I was given a complex 5-page report to translate from Japanese to English. . . technically, I’m not even a translator. God forbid I finish it on Monday. . . Japan would surely be swallowed up by the sea were I to break the wa that badly.

You know, the “work” ethic (read: “time spent at the office” ethic) is one aspect of Japanese culture/society that I will never be able to adapt to (or even understand, really). Forget about personal lives, families, friends or getting any kind of enjoyment out of life — we cannot disappoint shacho!

I swear, the Japanese obsession with perseverance and doing one’s best seriously reaches masochistic levels. Thankfully, my cracka’ ass affords me some leeway. . . I can’t imagine living my entire life under such pressure and self-sacrifice. It certainly leaves no question as to why the majority of middle-aged Japanese men are miserable old gits. . . .

Anyway, time to go home. Have a nice weekend!

Working 12-hour days suck.

I was at the office until after 9:00 last night and then later stayed up until 2:30 in the morning making golf clubs out of cardboard boxes for Judy’s students (don’t ask). Today again, I worked until 9:30.

My brain stopped functioning long ago, and I think I may have soiled myself some time around 8:00 or so.

Okay, this isn’t the latest I’ve ever worked by far, but TGIF, you know what I mean?

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Why don’t you celebrate by watching Japanese girls bitchslap one another? Amateur vs. Actress!

Not only was I forced to come in to work on a Saturday, but at the moment a typhoon is raging violently outside.

Here’s hoping I make it home alive!

So last night the president wanted to go out drinking yet again, and so everyone in my office promptly and without protest sacrificed another evening with their families to appease the almighty shacho. Thankfully, I was able to get out of going to the nijikai (second party) and got to go home “early” at midnight (the others apparently stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, despite it being THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING WEEK).

Although I limited my imbibation to but a few beers and a glass of shochu, I somehow still woke up with a bit of a hangover. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a problem (seeing as showing up for work with a hangover is a sign of pride for the salaryman), but unfortunately, the first thing on my morning agenda today was a trip up to the company headquarters two hours away for the yearly physical exam. It was pretty standard (pee in a cup, hearing test, chest x-ray), but the experience was exponentially worse than usual due to the crappiness of my condition.

Amazingly enough, however, I somehow managed to score a perfect 1.5/1.5 on the vision test (apparently 1.0/1.0 is the 20/20 equivalent). Now, my vision isn’t normally that good, so I’m left pondering whether the results were despite the hangover or because of it. Perhaps beer goggles are the way to go in times when high-precision vision is crucial: brain surgery, assassin sniper work and, of course, checkin’ out the honeys.

I just found out that I’ve apparently become a verb.

Not in a very interesting way, unfortunately (such as, “I wanna jeff you all night long, baby“), but in a way that I suppose is uniquely Japanese.

You see, the language here can be difficult to pronounce at times (even for native speakers) and so it’s very common for words and phrases to be abbreviated, especially loan words from other languages as they tend not to follow the same sound system. For example, “sexual harrassment” is transliterated as sekushuaru harasumento, which I’m sure you can agree is quite a mouthful. Therefore people use “sekuhara” to describe the national workplace pastime.

Anyway, as the only native English speaker in my company, all English documents are proofread and revised by me before being sent out. I received an email by CC today written by the company translator about one assignment in which she wrote that the “jefuchekku” (”jeffcheck”) had been completed and she was submitting the final draft. I asked her about it, and apparently everyone in her office uses that term for my English checks (i.e., “Has this been jeffchecked?”).

Silly, I know, but I thought it was funny.

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Only one photo today — cute little Hello Kitty bouquets that I saw in Ginza on Saturday:

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been at work the past couple of weeks. . . I feel like I’m slowly metamorphosing into exactly the kind of stereotypical salaryman whose pathetic existence I pity. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start chewing Lotte’s ‘No Time’ gum because I won’t be able to take three minutes to brush my teeth in the morning.

There’s actually a word in Japanese that means “death from overwork”: karoshi. Companies here are known to literally work their employees into the grave. In fact, in recent years there have been several lawsuits from families demanding compensation for the deaths of husbands and fathers sacrificed for the sake of the bottom line. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near that point (yet). Actually, if I were to reach such a level, I reckon I’d be more likely to flip out and kill someone else rather than succumb myself. I’m just that sort of “take action” kind of guy.

Anyway, back to work. . . .

I’ll leave you with the last of the photos from Kamakura. Enjoy!

Man, it’s been a long week. With two very important meetings yesterday and today, the past five days have been a blur of pre-meetings, PowerPoint presentations, business cards and cheap hookers (well, maybe not that last one).

The good part is that the meetings went well and may have laid down the groundwork for some major global expansion in the next five years. The bad part is that I’m soon to expire from exhaustion any minute now. . . a two-hour train ride to my former office in Ibaraki and a two-hour ride back, both yesterday and today. . . three hours of sleep last night because my boss absolutely needed the minutes from the first meeting by the following morning and apparently assumed that transcribing 8 hours of detailed discussion would be a breeze for me, since “Jeff, your English is so good!”. . . and then, when I went to give him the minutes I had stayed up half the night working on, he decided that he doesn’t need them until Monday after all (!).

I can’t wait to just close my eyes and sleep.

Before that, however, an aside: this week I was reminded that living stereotypes are alive and well. The guests visiting my company were all very nice people, however they completely fit the mold of the stereotypical American: they were overweight, they were loud, they ate chocolate bars for breakfast, drank nothing but Coca Cola, and despite being visitors in a country known for its exotic and tasty cuisine, opted to eat at steakhouses both of their nights here instead of sampling the local fare.

All of my hard work throughout the past three years of trying to rid my coworkers of their misconceived notions about Americans — down the drain in a mere 36 hours. . . .

Within the rigid hierarchy of a Japanese company, the shacho (president) is the big man on top. When he says “Jump!”, you don’t just ask “How high?”, but also “For how long?”, “What should I think about when I’m up there?” and “May I please kindly fellate you afterwards?” Needless to say, whatever shacho wants, shacho gets. We underlings exist for the sole purpose of pandering to his every whim whilst taking it up the rear with a smile.

For example, yesterday evening, my coworkers and I were all busily engrossed in our work, when the president came downstairs from his office and announced that he wanted to go out drinking. The bedlam that ensued was highly entertaining — I’ve never seen people scramble so quickly to simultaneously shut down their computers, pack up their belongings and put on their coats, all the while responding enthusiastically to every word that came out of the president’s mouth.

The nomikai (drinking party) itself was pretty uneventful, but it marked the third time that I have gone out drinking in the past 7 days. Not a record by any means, but heavy drinking mid-week tends to throw one’s routine off-kilter. The president tolerated our lowly presence until he was satisfied with the outcome of the evening and then promptly departed, leaving behind ¥30,000 (about $275) to cover the bill. Upon shacho’s departure, a coworker of mine who had spent a few years in the States when he was younger immediately spat out, “All right, let’s get the fuck outta here!”

I still can’t figure out why it’s so hilarious when non-English speakers use foul language, but there’s no denying that it is.

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Here are some completely unrelated photos from Kamakura:

Last Friday, some of my coworkers from my former office in Ibaraki had a nomikai (drinking party) and so I took the two-hour journey up there to join them. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw that nearly all of the people there were high-ranking managers (i.e., OLD MEN). However, nothing blurs class lines better than alcohol, and sure enough, as soon as the initial kampai! had sounded, we were all headed down the primrose path to drunkenness together. Insults were hurled, drinks were spilled, sensitive topics were tactlessly breached and a good time was had by all.

Sadly, being the only person who had to head back to Tokyo that night and not wanting to be stranded halfway like the last time, I was forced to depart early and miss the obligatory visit to the hostess bar. What a shame. I was, however, pleasantly reminded that a two-hour train ride goes by far more quickly when one is inebriated. I’ll have to remember that.

In order to pass the time, I took some photos of my fellow late-night commuters. They’re nothing compared to anything on Mike Clark’s site, of course, but here’s a sampling:

Within the past few years, “global” has become a major buzzword in Japan and popular opinion seems to be that any Japanese firm that doesn’t declare itself to be a “global company” is behind the times and destined for failure. The company I work for, despite already having over 30 production facilities around the world, has recently joined in the globalization frenzy and has been doing all it can to “think globally,” as the cliche goes.

In typical Japanese form-over-substance fashion, the first step my company took was to add the word “Global” in front of every department name. Hence, the Marketing Department became the Global Marketing Department; the General Affairs Department, the Global General Affairs Department; and so on. This was considered a major step and was lauded within all echelons of the company. Apparently no one realized the utter pointlessness of it all.

The company’s latest endeavor in this globalization pissing contest has been the creation of a “bijinesu manaa” (”business manner”) database containing guidelines for proper business etiquette for interactions with non-Japanese companies. A few weeks ago, I was approached about helping to create a detailed guide to Western dining etiquette. You see, as the only non-Japanese person in my company, I am thought be an expert on all things foreign, and thus, despite being an ill-manner clod, I was consulted on every aspect of Western table manners.

After the guidelines were created, a few of the people in my office were assembled in the conference room to pose for photos demonstrating proper and improper table manners. The guide was posted on my company’s intranet site today and the photos are so laughably bad that I just had to share them. Here are some examples for your viewing pleasure:

[Note: In Japan, X (batsu) means incorrect and O (maru) means correct (like a checkmark in the West).]

Earlier this month my company announced that the name of my office is going to change from the Tokyo Office to the Tokyo Head Office. This being Japan, of course, the insertion of the additional word is a major affair, and thus everything from the wall plaque to the stationery to the business cards has to be updated and replaced.

A three-member team was created to prepare the new business cards: myself, a male colleague and a female administrative assistant. My company’s business cards are incredibly dull and completely unremarkable, so during the first group meeting my colleague and I discussed ways in which we could make the cards more visually appealing, or kakkoii (cool), as he put it. The assistant, however, was unable to accept the notion that such radical change could be suggested by anyone other than the management and merely hemmed and hawed equivocally until the meeting was over.

After several follow-up meetings, we came up with a slightly more sleek, modern design and submitted it to our boss just before the summer holiday. The new cards arrived yesterday, and with great excitement and anticipation (well, not really), I opened the box and removed a crisp, new card. . . .

And wouldn’t you know it, the top managers had vetoed the new design for being “too different” and no changes had been made except for the addition of the extra word.

Oh well. Here are some more photos from Okinawa:

The other night I was up late, flipping through the channels on TV when I saw that the 2004 K-1 World Grand Prix was on. Seeing as none of the other ten channels were showing anything even remotely interesting (late night Japanese TV sucks, too), I sat back and made myself comfortable.

Since I’m not really a big K-1 fan, I couldn’t help but find it funny how clichéd and caricature-like the fighters were. Among the contenders were the rotund former sumo wrestler, the Neanderthal-esque Eastern European, the stout Somoan, the muscled black heavyweight and even the lanky white pretty boy. Suddenly I was eight years old again, playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!.

Anyhow, after watching the competition, I came to the realization that on some primal level, very little ranks as high on the entertainment scale as watching two super-men beat the living shit out of each other.

On the topic of sculpted hardbodies, today’s photos are of the famous Kamakura Daibutsu (Great Buddha). Weighing in at close to 90 tons, this big bronze bad boy was originally constructed in 1252 and has withstood the tests of time (including a giant tsunami in 1495) to become the primary attraction in the historical city.

My company has just announced that effective August 1st, all offices and facilities will become non-smoking.

Nice.

After nearly three years of inhaling enough second-hand smoke to most likely guarantee a future onslaught of lung cancer, this is great news.

Now I’ll just have to wait to see whether it’s actually enforced.

It’s ironic that not two hours after I wrote the previous post during my lunch break the air conditioning in my office stopped working. It’s seriously like a frickin’ sauna in here now, minus the cedar and the naked men (or women if you’re lucky). My ass has now become one with my chair.

I swear, if I hear someone say “atsui ne!” one more time, I’m going to throw them through the window. At least that might create a draft.

Screw it, I’m going home.