Category: Work

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…”

The company is making us go home at an unprecedented 2:00 in the afternoon so you just know we are in for a real beating. I haven’t been this happy since the fifth grade… Just waiting for that bell to ring…
In other news, there was another magnitude 4 earthquake here this morning. It feels like the world is going to end, and all I can think about is the recess bell.

I thought this kind of shit only happened in Amsterdam:
WRHA hands out free crack pipes
Crack fiends are people too, eh?

So I’m on a coffee break and the guy next to me says, out of the blue, “I wonder how many legs you can pull off a centipede without impeding its ability to forage for food.”
I’m at a loss for words, and I wonder if this line of thought has anything to do with the fact that he just got chewed a while ago out by the boss in front of the whole office for holding up production of a new product.
A few seconds later, in the same monotonous patter, he muses, “I wonder if its like one of those 16-wheel tractor trailers… If one or two go flat, there’s basically no effect…”
Well, that’s innocent enough, right? Typical engineer-type daydreams, I imagine.
Then: “I wonder if losing a leg is as painful for a centipede as it is for a human being.”
Well. I finished my coffee in record time, my friends…
Work issues. Gotta love ’em.

Back at work this week. What can I say. It’s wonderful – my coworkers are courteous and professional, and management is sincere and warmhearted. I’d much rather be here catching up on ten days worth of e-mail and mostly forgotten business problems than, say, in the halls of Montezuma or the shores of Tripoli. I mean, I don’t even think FedEx does pick-ups in some of those places – and I ask you this – what would your office life be without FedEx, you ungracious cur? I’ll tell you: It would suck very hard, and very hard it would be sucking.
OFFICE WORKER TIP O’ THE DAY
(limited to areas that have FedEx pick-ups) – by C. Buddha
The adhesive side of the transparent FedEx waybill pouches makes an excellent field expedient Lint Removal Tool. Simply peel off the paper backing and use it like you would normally use a piece of tape for the same purpose. That is, make repetetive pounding motions on the lint-ridden clothes in question and repeat wildly and incesssantly like a monkey on crack. With tape, this maneuver can take quite a while since it loses its stickiness after a short time and you need to keep tearing off new strips, but the huge (9′ x 12′) adhesive surface of the waybill pouches is awesome! Use this tip to awe your coworkers at company parties! Use all the time it saves you to pursue new hobbies! Best of all, do it all on your vendor’s dime! FedEx is raping you all the time with those prices, so GO GET SOME PAYBACK.
Update: It has been pointed out to me that this is all really unnecessary if you use a lint brush. Hmm… Okay supposing that lint brushes work as well as a sticky waybill pouch (how the hell should I know; I forgot such a thing existed), here’s the deal: If you have a lint brush at your desk at work, I can only retort that that’s pretty anal and you might make a good successor to Martha Stewart (except that I have the feeling Martha would probably like my little hack). If you actually carry a lint brush around everywhere you go, you need professional help (and it really WILL be your fault when your kid gets caught torturing small animals), but in lieu of paid therapy you might just try letting it all out once in a while – you know, like a monkey. On crack.

They really do.
I confirmed it today when they forgot to tell me about the “lithium leak” drill scheduled in the office next door. What happens is, well, they simulate a spill of hazardous substances. So when a man in a white space suit stormed into our office, I naturally thought he was coming for me.
“You’ll never catch me alive, copper!,” I screamed, and brandished a stapler most menacingly. Well, no. Actually, I just sat there in amazement and stared. Nobody else around me seemed to react much at all, even when he shouted, “ALL CLEAR!,” and stomped on down the hall.
Since no explanations were forthcoming from my coworkers, I have decided that it probably didn’t really happen. Somebody must have spiked my bottled water with psilocybin or something. I guess they’ve learned how much I hate the first mind-numbing day back at work after an extended weekend. How sweet.

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:
///
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.