Category: Work

This week is marked by extraordinarily hot weather. I think the French heat wave that melted the cheese and boiled the wine in 2003 decided on a Japanese vacation this year. It’s a wet, constant heat that makes me slow and irritable… My snapping at people is suffering from delayed reaction times; I’m nowhere near the top of my game, although the ear wax dribbling down my sideburns might make some killer organic candles.
Surfing around the expat blog scene, I’ve begun to notice that a lot of people are leaving Japan. Many already have. Is there something you should let me know? Is Rumsfield secretly planning a nuclear strike on the hospital where traitorboy Jenkins is being treated? Will Shoko Asahara pull a (stinky) remote detonator out of his butt and push the (red) button, awakening the 600 ft vibrating kokeshi monster that will stomp its way from Kamikuishiki-mura all the way to the Shibuya ward office? Please, please let me know. This “work” shit is getting B-O-R-I-N-G, quickly.
//
Update: I just had a flashback of Matilijah Junior High days, when I corrected our geography teacher’s pronunciation of “Tierra del Fuego.” Yeah, I got picked on after class for that one. Priceless: The teacher’s name was Mrs. Pugh (pronounced “pee-you,” not “pug”). Also, my history teacher was a white supremacist who taught us that Japanese-Americans who were interned during the war got “a free ride.” Somehow that didn’t jibe with tales of financial ruin and broken families I had heard from close relatives, so I got my parents involved. I got picked on after class for that one as well, but somehow I knew I had done the Right Thing.
NOW WILL ONE OF YOU ASSHOLE BUILDING MANAGERS TURN THE FUCKING AC ON “TURBO-MODE” OR DO I HAVE TO DAYDREAM ALL THE WAY BACK TO FUCKING KINDERGARTEN?
o shit i’m late for a meeting. lates.

Conversation between me and my boss 5 minutes ago:
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Boss: Mr. Justin, what is deductive reasoning?
Me: [Heh] Well, let us start with what it isn’t. It isn’t a fish. It isn’t a guitar. It isn’t a beverage conveyance….
Boss: [blank look] Uh.
Me: …nor is it the ozone layer, a rotary engine, or a tasty octopus…
Boss: [annoyed] Ah…
Me: …ain’t the Pope, the Queen, or anything in between…
Boss: NONONO MR. JUSTIN. I ask you, what is “deductive reasoning?”
Me: I was in the middle of telling you.
Boss: Oh. Sorry. Continue, please.
(30 seconds later)
Me: …not with a fox, nor in a box…
Boss: STOP! I look up in dictionary! I hate the fucking English! (storms off)
///
I am only here to serve.

Sweat is dripping down from my scalp, running over the back of my neck, and soaking my uniform’s collar. The sunlight is so intense today that it’s hard to look out the windows. The lab next to our office is very nice and cool so everybody escapes there under the pretense of doing experiments. Please turn on the AC in our offices you cheapskate motherfuckers. Out of thirty five or so employees who work in this office, only myself and two others remain.
Our beloved manager must have Moroccan ancestry or something. The guy is sitting tall in his Enterprise chair and never seems to sweat at all, even in August when it gets crotchrottingly humid in Japan. The girl on phone duty looks like she has succumbed to heatstroke or dehydration, which would be bad for her but good for me since I could stop willing a heart attack on myself just to be able to ride in a nice, air-conditioned ambulance and sue the company for inhumane working conditions… Ah, who am I kidding, anyway? If that shit was possible, somebody would have done it by now, right? Right?
Update 1: I found my own “experiment” to run. Yay.
// Hypothesis: If you hook up enough batteries to a flashlight bulb, it will explode.
// Method: Hook up a shitload of batteries to a flashlight bulb.
// Observations: Very bright flash.
// Conclusion: The filament burns out, but the bulb does not break. Next time, try MORE POWER.
Update 2: The guy nest to me was using a heat gun and he (accidentally) singed the hairs on the back of his fingers, creating the most nauseating stench… I’ve cleared out of the lab for a while because the smell is recirculating.

Mondays. I fucking hate Mondays. I am muttering this weekly mantra as I walk into a meeting with a problematic vendor yesterday morning. After greetings, bowing, and the compulsory 30 seconds of silence, I open with a blunt: “Your parts suck, Suzuki-san. One in every twenty are failing incoming testing. This is unacceptable.”
“But Yoshida-san, you asked for them to be made as cheaply as possible…” he offers, weakly.
It is time to unload with both barrels: “Never at the expense of quality. Never. Did we ask you to make shitty parts, or inexpensive parts? Because if the last ten years of recession has taught us anything, it is that these two qualities are not mutually exclusive. We have 50 million Chinese vendors knocking on the door, just begging to take over any work you can’t handle.”
“But Yoshida-san, any such parts could not be stamped MADE IN JAPAN,” he replies weakly. This is set-trip number one. He may still actually be under the illusion that sub-component origin makes any difference to anybody at all. Since the part he makes is at no point visible to the consumer this tactic is doubly weak. Plus, he obviously has not looked at his parts under a microscope like we have.
“You have raised another point we need to discuss, Suzuki-san. You are cold-stamping the MADE IN JAPAN on the parts after the molding process, which is causing hairline fractures in the underlying structure and possibly even resulting in part failure. This stamping, which we silently allowed but never gave initial approval for, must stop immediately.” It is Monday and I am tired of educating these spoiled sons of rich industrialists that have never truly been weaned from the bubble days of decades ago. I find that the local mom and pop operations, lean and hungry from scrounging for any jobs for years on end in a demanding marketplace, often work out better in the long run.
“Just who do you think you are? You just happen to be handling this account on a temporary basis! I’m not used to working with people like you, I work with top procurement officers at Sony, Matsushita, Canon…” Thus begins set-trip number two, and I’m in no mood. The “people like you” remark is a thinly-veiled insult. He’s calling me a dirty foreigner, the cultural equivalent of landing on Go To Jail in today’s business world. His sales partner, silent until now, immediately switches into damage control mode with deep bowing and apologies, trying to over-volume his boss, who’s still verbally recounting Major Corporations and Deals of Days Past. I am still in a kind of shock from the racial slap-in-the-face and find it hard to stay in the room. It is Monday, and I am within swinging distance of somebody I truly despise, close enough to smell his halitosis and watch beads of frothy spittle erupt from his lips as the bout of verbal diarrhea sputters to a violent, yet inevitable end.
If I were in a different type of organization, this is around where I would demand a finger. But this is mere fantasy. Instead, I walk out and go to Procurement, and ask the manager in charge of the account to go down and negotiate.
Later, the manager reports he was surprised to find the vendor agreeable to all of our requests. He asks what happened in the meeting before he went down, as Suzuki-san was atypically silent and his underling took control of the whole meeting. I explain what happened, including the gaijin insult. “Well,” he replies without missing a beat, “maybe you should try that more often. Sure makes my job easier!” He winks and punches me on the arm. Bastard.
I fucking hate Mondays.

I figured it was about time to really let you know my feelings about your bowels… There is definitely something wrong with them. Today I walked into the men’s restroom with no intention other than spraying down the urinal with golden love, but the smell emanating from your stall brought tears to my eyes. Tears, man – it was that bad. Just what the hell are you eating for breakfast? Besides onions and cheese, that is. Those were fairly obvious. Did I also detect a hint of garlic? I can’t be sure, because the stall next to you was also being used, and I’d never blame an innocent man for another person’s fumes.
Now, before you make your reply, I want you to know that I am fairly well-versed in this subject. I have pondered deeply on my ceramic chair of thought for hours on end about related issues (in between finishing three issues of Popular Science or Motor Trend, that is). I know, for instance, that my best efforts on the throne can cause immediate evacuation of my house and the surrounding area, yet never really bother me. I think everybody develops a natural resistance to the smell of their own shit; for guys this can even sometimes be a special attachment or, dare I say, fondness (damn, it feels like betraying Guild rules writing these words). Indeed, I feel that “separation anxiety” is a commonly understood yet unspoken factor in the peculiarly male-centric habit of bathroom reading.
But, my friend, even factoring in the effects of people always thinking that their own shit don’t stink (and by extension, thinking that everyone else’s smells more), your performance today blew the top off the stankometer. Moldy, rotting, pungently torturous, what-the-fuck-crawled-up-and-died, posilutely THE BOMB stanky. Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined had nothing on the steamy pile you bequeathed to the company plumbing. And it wan’t just me who thought so – one of the cleaning ladies walked in to scrub the urinals donning elbow-length rubber gloves and a white surgical mask, took 2.5 steps into the room, and upon encountering your sarin death fumes, abruptly performed an about-face and exited.
When I left the john, she was standing outside trying to explain to her boss at the cleaning cart why it was a good idea to take out the trash today before cleaning the restrooms, without actually referring to your anal atomizing. She looked to me for support as I passed by, and all I could say is, “oof,” while trying to clear my nostrils.
Dude, your tapeworm collection is rotting or something.

It’s never a fun thing to have to deal with yakuza because of a fuck-up created in your own procurement department.
Before Golden Week, the stupid noobie manager in Procurement, down the hall, decided to use a local company to mold parts for our products and went by their office yesterday afternoon for a friendly chat because the parts never arrived. He ended up coming straight to our office crying and about to wet his pants after noticing matching Ferraris and a Bentley in the car park of their gated office complex.
Fuck. The dumbshit picked, out of all the experienced vendors located in and around Kansai, a goddamn money trap. My manager is determined to get out of any situation we may find ourselves in without paying a single fucking yen to these guys. I find it ironic that I know otherwise and will have to explain to him why at some point in time. They hired me for my overseas business skills, but this time it’s as local as it gets. Man, they really lit a fire under my manager’s ass. He’s been in meetings with higher-ups all day. These corporate mafia types know how to threaten big companies, because that’s how they make a living. These guys are small time, though. This can be squashed at the lower levels.
I am so sick and tired of these petty mafia fucks popping up all over. Always gotta be on guard out here on the island. It’s a goddamn yakuza retirement community. One accident with the wrong car, and your ass is seaweed fertilizer. Hell, I joke about it, but another manager in this room is still making monthly payments to a yak his daughter bumped into at a nearby intersection more than five years ago. Goddamn it.

Went to do the annual physical for work today. Came back with bruised needle tracks. It was frightening to watch this inexperienced nurse with sweaty, fumbly hands try to find a vein in my arms. I swear to god this chick was blind in a previous life, because she used that needle like a walking stick, tap tap tap on one arm and then the other. Frustrated by lack of success, she binded both my arms with surgical tubing at the same time and told me to open and close my hands and sit in a corner for a few minutes (bitch, my arms turned blue before you came back).
No longer willing to persevere with the standard setup, she pulled the QUEEN MOTHER OF SYRINGES from a toolbox of medical goodies and started waving it in front of my face, saying, “now this might hurt a little.” I started whimpering in protest right then and there – the goddam thing looked like a turkey baster with a really long bicycle pump needle fitted on it. In my mind, we had the following conversation:

“Now wait just a goddam minute – just how much blood do you need?”
“Just a bit”
“So why can’t you use a smaller syringe – the hollow tip of that needle looks like a fucking cookie cutter!”
“Why, you’re right. You know what? I’ve stabbed you so many times today, I’ll just collect the blood smeared on all the needles I’ve used and that should be enough for our purposes. You are free to proceed to the hearing test.”

In reality, of course, things happened differently. She sucked many shot glasses worth of blood along with half of my right bicep into that syringe like a Hoover and the high point of the entire day was that I got to yell “OOOW! YER SUCKIN’ TOO HARD!” in public and started trembling with the kind of laughter that causes physical pain (needle in arm), but is somehow worth it.
By the time my exsanguination was complete, there were fifteen other guys waiting to get poked and they all thought my outburst was pretty funny. Except for the next guy in line. He was visibly disturbed when Nurse Naomi started squirting my blood from the syringe into the vials.
Update: It turns out that about one in four people are getting poked in both arms by this angel of destruction. Those are some seriously horrendous numbers. I can understand that doctors suck at needlework, but for nurses this sort of incompetence is unforgivable. To my little sister who plans to start med school next year: Please take this advice. Practicing on lemons and oranges isn’t good enough.

Work screed alert: If my writing about work at a large Japanese electronics company doesn’t tickle your fancy, please take a minute to bite me (I’m tired of e-mails dictating what I can and cannot write about, particularly ones from “Japan experts”. Go and kiss chrysanthemums somewhere else.).
Now then. Suppose that you were late for work on the first day of the new fiscal year, and that you walked into the office as your co-workers were halfway through the “morning exercise” routine. Would you:
A. Enthusiastically do jumping-jacks with the rest of the sheep while moving toward your desk
B. Sit at your desk and wait for normalcy to return while starting up your PC
C. Upon seeing the madness as you entered the room, quietly slip back out the door and lurk in the john for a few minutes
D. Run into the room, scream “FIRE”, and run back out
I am not a total ovine quite yet as I chose B. A guy who sits close to me opted for A, and another opted for C. Now that I have had my ass chewed off for choosing B, I wish that I had instead chosen D. A brand new senior manager made a point of getting in my face about not performing the exercises, which would be fine except that he did it out loud so that everybody could hear, a full-on drill sergeant dressing-down. Luckily, the general manager, who is a great friend, stepped in and squashed the whole thing, ending with “Anybody else who can do the work Justin does is entitled to ignore the exercises as well, hell I might stop doing them myself.” As flattering as that statement was, about 50,000 red warning lights went off in my head at once and all I could think of was getting out from between two duelists. The room was silent. Nobody in the office is coming over to chat today. It’s days like this when I really look forward to my future life in Thailand, perhaps tending a herd of water buffalo or chasing flocks of birds away rice paddies with the kids.
I wish I had kids already. I would go home tonight and sit with them at dinner and they would ask what I did at work today. I would say, “kids, today daddy became a pawn in an inter-office power play!”
“Wow, coooool” they would reply.
Then I would relate to them all that happened today in detail and what was to be learned from it all. Which is, of course, “if you ever walk into an uncomfortable situation, scream ‘FIRE’ at the top of your lungs and run out of the room as fast as you can.”

Today is the last day of another fiscal year here. This is the first non-work related thing I have written this week. I am in spreadsheet mode and have no brain cells left for blogging. But I have much to write stored in my brain. Will attempt a post later in the week.

It is just past ten o’ clock and I am stewing in my own fumes. I ate a plate of spicy Thai pork for breakfast and it is now overly apparent that the secret ingredient was garlic. Normally I would have no complaint as the breath of death keeps perky morning office assistants at arm’s length until well past lunch, but today I have a meeting. With bigwigs from overseas. Overseas as in, “garlic novice” overseas. Heh.
I have popped a lemon cough drop in my mouth and it now feels as if I could marinate a chicken in there to make some exotic chinese dish. Hooray for honey-lemon eucalyptus. This should do the trick as long as I keep a lozenge in my mouth at all times.
Except that now I’ve started burping under my breath. Garlicky richness erupts from the depths… Guess I’ll show up at that meeting with some stakes and holy water just to get into my role – wouldn’t that be a first! I’ll completely redefine my company’s approach to hostile negotiations…