Return of the Blogger
Thanks for everyone that put up comments and let me know that you have been reading up on my life over here. It inspired me to write today’s blog since I have been pretty lazy about it. I haven’t written anything on my blog for a while mainly because I had nothing new to report. When I first got here, everything was new and exciting but slowly I started to feel homesick and the honeymoon stage wore off. I went to work then came home, bought some movies and studied Japanese. On the weekends I went out and got drunk with my friends. Pretty much the same thing as back home but I can ride my bike home and get piss ass drunk. But like anything its gets old after too long and I got tired of being stupid every weekend.
The weather started to get really cold here and I don’t like being out in the cold all night. So lately I have been chillin at my friends Tim’s house or staying home. We use utorrent to download our favorite tv shows to his computer and watch them together like a big happy family. Almost like the old days when you only had one tv so everyone had to watch together. I watched seasons 3 and 4 of “The Wire” possibly the best show since Sopranos and 24. I also starting playing a few new sports that I have never played before which is quite unusual for me since I thought I played every sport in my youth. Well I don’t think you can call them sports but leisure activities. Darts at the local bar is a must for us these days. They have these great computerized machines with all kinds of Dart games. The other one was Frisbee golf which is just like golf but you throw a Frisbee. They have par 3 and 4 holes at the place we went to. You have multiple Frisbees for different length throws and accuracy.
My American co-worker left me to go back home to Buffalo NY. It was sad times but also a lot of fun. We had lots of parties and dinner with students to say good bye. The last month he was here we screwed around a lot and work was a lot of fun. Now that he is gone it’s not as fun but I do get a lot more work done. I also think I have connected a lot more with the Japanese staff because I have just gone with the “cant beat them join them” attitude. Even though I think some of the things they do are totally ridiculous and a waste of time I have no one to bitch about with me so there is no reason to fight it. I just do it and laugh about it to myself. Where as before we would ban together and complain together until they met us halfway. But by myself complaining and making a big deal about things reminds me of my old coworker in FC. He used to always complain about everything and I found myself disgusted that I even contemplated being that guy in the office. So now I just smile do what I’m told and make my suggestions heard. As I’m here longer they start to realize that I am an intelligent individual and most of the time when I suggest something it will make an improvement in the work environment. The Japanese work ethic is extremely hard but the management style is based on the shit rolls down hill philosophy. The top sets ridiculous goals that are unattainable and yell at the subordinates to make the deadlines. The middle management relays the message and the shit rolls down hill. Only the foreigners have the balls to voice out that this is ridiculous and a waste of time. But most of the time the Japanese coworkers just say “Gambatte” we can do it and “Shogunai” can’t be helped. When then person at the top makes the correct decision it works very well and a large company can work at one. But if the decision is wrong then there are no checks and balances to correct the mistake. I know that in America we have different problems but it’s interesting to have a totally different business philosophy.
Other things at work that I have noticed, Japanese people have a really hard time being opinioned and are the most polite people in the world. Which is why everyone says Japanese is really complicated, simple Japanese is easy but the more polite you speech is the longer and more difficult it becomes. I also noticed English is the same. If you want someone to help you at work you can either say “Finish by 5pm or Excuse me but we will need to have this report done by the end of day and I would really appreciate it if you could have it to me in a timely fashion.”
The weather started to get really cold here and I don’t like being out in the cold all night. So lately I have been chillin at my friends Tim’s house or staying home. We use utorrent to download our favorite tv shows to his computer and watch them together like a big happy family. Almost like the old days when you only had one tv so everyone had to watch together. I watched seasons 3 and 4 of “The Wire” possibly the best show since Sopranos and 24. I also starting playing a few new sports that I have never played before which is quite unusual for me since I thought I played every sport in my youth. Well I don’t think you can call them sports but leisure activities. Darts at the local bar is a must for us these days. They have these great computerized machines with all kinds of Dart games. The other one was Frisbee golf which is just like golf but you throw a Frisbee. They have par 3 and 4 holes at the place we went to. You have multiple Frisbees for different length throws and accuracy.
My American co-worker left me to go back home to Buffalo NY. It was sad times but also a lot of fun. We had lots of parties and dinner with students to say good bye. The last month he was here we screwed around a lot and work was a lot of fun. Now that he is gone it’s not as fun but I do get a lot more work done. I also think I have connected a lot more with the Japanese staff because I have just gone with the “cant beat them join them” attitude. Even though I think some of the things they do are totally ridiculous and a waste of time I have no one to bitch about with me so there is no reason to fight it. I just do it and laugh about it to myself. Where as before we would ban together and complain together until they met us halfway. But by myself complaining and making a big deal about things reminds me of my old coworker in FC. He used to always complain about everything and I found myself disgusted that I even contemplated being that guy in the office. So now I just smile do what I’m told and make my suggestions heard. As I’m here longer they start to realize that I am an intelligent individual and most of the time when I suggest something it will make an improvement in the work environment. The Japanese work ethic is extremely hard but the management style is based on the shit rolls down hill philosophy. The top sets ridiculous goals that are unattainable and yell at the subordinates to make the deadlines. The middle management relays the message and the shit rolls down hill. Only the foreigners have the balls to voice out that this is ridiculous and a waste of time. But most of the time the Japanese coworkers just say “Gambatte” we can do it and “Shogunai” can’t be helped. When then person at the top makes the correct decision it works very well and a large company can work at one. But if the decision is wrong then there are no checks and balances to correct the mistake. I know that in America we have different problems but it’s interesting to have a totally different business philosophy.
Other things at work that I have noticed, Japanese people have a really hard time being opinioned and are the most polite people in the world. Which is why everyone says Japanese is really complicated, simple Japanese is easy but the more polite you speech is the longer and more difficult it becomes. I also noticed English is the same. If you want someone to help you at work you can either say “Finish by 5pm or Excuse me but we will need to have this report done by the end of day and I would really appreciate it if you could have it to me in a timely fashion.”
posted by ksokada at 5:49 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the updated dude...merry xmas
Post a Comment
<< Home