Category: Work

I was just issued this “staff support book” which outlines employee duties, good work practices, and various other goodies which are causing me great joy, because they are the best example of Japanese corporate stupidity and herdthink. The page below is entitled, “E-mail Manners.” The previous page is “Fax Manners,” and the next page is “The Proper Way to Give and Receive Instructions.”

Now, in all fairness, the tips on this particular page aren’t all bad but the sample e-mail they show is just the worst example I can possibly imagine. For instance, everything from the line of slashes on down is a signature. Also, I find the lack of an “ijo” (END) on the bottom inauthentic since every other needless piece of fluff is included (what Nam refers to as “flower language.” I mean, for crying out loud, the meaningful content of the message itself is: “I’d like to see you next week regarding the calendar we discussed the other day. It should only take an hour or so, could you please let me know a convenient time?” Do you really need twenty lines of text for that?
This is an actual case of ?manners? getting in the way of work; I do receive a lot of e-mails formatted like this and I can tell you that when reading a long thread of messages in a reply, it really gets tiresome.

One sad fact of business on a salaryman level is that an inexperienced vendor is infinitely preferable to an inexperienced client – you can always slap down a vendor, and the inexperienced ones often come back for more. Plus, slapping makes them tougher. A tough vendor is your best ally during a 15-year long economic depression.

When you are pulled away from your workstation by the ISO 14001 auditor for an impromptu interview, the correct response to the question, “Do you know your company’s environmental policy?” is NOT: “Uhhhh… I dunno, dude, like, Save the Whales?” In fact, since this is Japan, this reply may not be interpreted as amusing at all.
Pray for me – I’ve been flagged to be interviewed tomorrow morning.

Must die.
Please God, make them go away. I asked one of the girls why she was all smiles today. She said it was because the new fax machine we ordered came in this morning. She said its sparkling newness was a good omen for the rest of the week.
Oh. Well then.
The thing is, I can’t figure out if she was high on the reefer and making fun of me, or if this is just a sign that the Japanese take their trademark happy worker bee thing a bit too seriously.

I caught a guy walking off with my umbrella during lunch break. I was like, hey yo what the fuck, that’s my umbrella. The guy knew I had him, but decided to weakly claim it was his umbrella. Yet he did not protest when I snatched it out of his hands and left him in the rain. Asshole.

That goddamn line from “Under Pressure” is running around in my head again. An omen, perhaps.

I’m on another business trip. It’s late, I’m sweaty. In a suit. Wasted from a day of picking up on the subtle nuances of Japanese corporate doublespeak, flipping the sentences backwards and into another language, then funneling it down the client’s ear.
Now I’m back at the hotel with several hours worth of work ahead of me and the shrill ring of an alarm clock not mine own to look forward to in the morn.
Time to sign off, folks, but before I go, let me give you the Buddha’s One True Way to get an annoying fat gaijin perv in a middle management position to leave you alone and quit dropping hints like, “so what are Jap girls like?,” and, “so what’s the deal with those hostess clubs we passed earlier?” over a business dinner:
When he gets all drunk and alco-sentimental with your boss later on and lays pictures of his kids on the table, echo everybody’s remarks about how cute they are and what a lovely family he has, then lean over the table and hiss, “God hates sinners.”
Note: It’s all in the

What is Nigari?
Nigari is a liquid extract left over from the processing of tofu.
Nigari is rich in minerals and is claimed to be an excellent dietary supplement.
Supposedly, the high magnesium content of nigari works in the intestines to block the absorption of fat into the body.
Nigari is claimed to be especially effective when taken with foods rich in B vitamins such as pork or mushrooms.
Nigari is poured over food before it’s eaten; some people say it’s tasteless, and others claim it’s slightly bitter.
Nigari, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, is a huge health fad in Japan.
I also think nigari is a damn good way for tofu companies to make money on what was once probably considered a waste byproduct. Maybe the health claims aren’t so far off. Another byproduct of tofu manufacturing is okara, a substance very high in fiber and very good for you, which unfortunately smells and tastes like shit. An old friend of mine once told me that when she was a kid, a truck from a local tofu factory would come by her school every week to drop off free okara. The kids would all run away from it screaming because they hated eating it so much. But I digress. You are thinking, “what the fuck is J getting at?”, and “hurry up and tell us more exciting tales of tofu.” Okay, kids:
Today in the company cafeteria, I chose a seat near the windows, as always, so I could look at the birds in the trees and be extremely jealous of their carefree lifestyle, as always. I sit by myself because if its one thing I’ve learned over the years at a big Japanese company, it’s that talking about work shit over lunch break doesn’t feel like much of a break at all.
A group of guys from another section intruded on “my” table, and this ridiculously irritating hippie health-fad slave among them pulled out a bottle of nigari and started pouring copious amounts of it on each person’s food, squealing in an incredibly annoying tone of nag, “try this out, it’s NIGAAAARI it’s TAAAASTELESS it’s GOOOODFORYOU.” When he got to the person who had sat down next to me, he accidentally poured some in MY bowl of miso soup (which I had taken off the food tray earlier and placed on the table between myself and the guy next to me). I was thinking, “what the fuck!”, and probably went bug-eyed in disbelief, but didn’t say anything at first (that’s the old “fitting-in at overseas office” function kicking in). Actually, the whole table was kind of in disbelief that this dumbass had tainted my food. This is Asia; the unwritten rules are that you don’t fuck with:
A. Another man’s bowl of rice
– or –
B. Another man’s bowl of soup
*curiously enough, main dishes and side dishes are fair game if you ask first OR the other person doesn’t notice
So now we have a situation because homeboy has fucked with my bowl of hot fermented soybean goodness and is totally unapologetic. The fucker tells me, to the horror of his friends, its GOOOOD for you.
Ten years ago, this guy would have been eating teeth. Five years ago, he would have at least been wearing soup. Today, since I was in such a good mood, what with the birds in the trees and, admittedly, since I’m not nearly such an asshole anymore, I resisted the immediate urge to kill. Half of his friends were apologizing on his behalf while the other half told him to stop being such a dickhead, and I eventually agreed to let him buy me a new bowl of soup (his friends insisted on it). That was strangely embarassing, so when he went to buy it, I made a big show of licking my thumb and sticking it in his bowl of rice.
His friends went along with that just fine, and he never figured out why everyone kept giggling throughout the meal.
//
I suppose the moral of this story is, “You can take the man out of the asshole…”