Last Day at the Office

Today was my last day in the office. It was a fun day in that I was got to pass out thank you gifts and try to communicate in Jinglish with many people I will probably not have the opportunity to see again, but it was also a nerve racking day because I had to give a good-bye speech in Japanese.

From the day I first started to work in Japan I have been preparing for this entry as I contemplated daily the pros and cons of the Japanese office.

Pros of the Japanese office:
Toilets with heated seats and a flush noise for privacy
A Cafeteria
Mandatory 5:30 departure on Wednesdays
A locker room
Being able to take a nap during lunch hour
A convenience store in the building that opens during lunch and dinner
Windows that open

Cons of the Japanese office:
The desks are not tall enough for my legs to fit
It takes 8 minutes to walk from my car to the building, uphill
The computers average 5 years old
Having to wait for a shared CAD computer, or arrive early to get one
No trash cans
The Air Conditioner temperature is set at 28C
No Drinking fountain
Cigarette vending machines and a smoking room inside the office

Rudeness by Oblivion

I blame my recent annoyance with what I consider unintentional rudeness in combination with excessive patience and politeness around my office on my anticipation of going home. Three examples:

The copy machine / printer is capable of making copies, printing, and receiving faxes at the same time. However if someone is waiting for copies or a scanning job to finish they don’t budge an inch from the machine causing a line of people waiting to retrieve completed print jobs to build up. People waiting to grab a document out of the tray will wait silently rather than fishing their arm past to reach the tray.

The sidewalks are just wide enough for a single lane of pedestrian traffic in each direction but people walk two abreast at any speed they please preventing those is a hurry to get past. If someone approaches from the opposite direction one person will drop back to single file letting them pass, but immediately resume their position blocking anyone behind from passing. The common way to deal with this is to tailgate until an intersection then quickly jet past.

There are signs on the stairwell doors that suggest knocking before opening a door given that they swing into the stairway. I put the percentage of people who actually knock at 50. Doors are never held open and many people open doors just wide enough to barley pass through so any person close behind is forced to open the door from scratch.

Blood Types

On the application for access to Toyota one of the questions is the applicants blood type. None of the other questions stood out to me as unusual and the application inst that long, it requests things like address, company, license plate number, and the reason for requesting access.

Wikipedia has an extensive article on the history of why blood types because important in Japanese culture. Personally I don't know my blood type, I have attempted and failed to donate blood twice, but the Red Cross still cant tell me my type. The Japan Times also has an article with more information about the cultural importance of blood types.

OT Pay

It is Typical for employees of a Japanese company to work a lot of OT (or it was prior to the current economic conditions). I am paid hourly in Japan, so working a lot of OT should be a good thing right? I just calculated my OT hourly rate and it is equivalent to what I made as a lifeguard in college.

...I wrote this post several months ago near the start of my assignment and just after the economy started to get really bad. Since then I put it one hold while I debated if it was appropriate to post something about my salary. Considering that my salary is divided between the company in Japan and the company at home, excluding OT which is paid only in Japan I think that the lower pay for working OT is the interesting thing to consider, rather than the actual OT rate...

Expensive Week

I have two work parties coming up in the next seven days. Despite the mysterious food, awkward communication and often pure confusion of attending a party with my co-workers, they usually turn out to be enjoyable. The first upcoming party is a wedding reception for my ICT advisor. W is marrying an OL from another department in the company and they are having a party, which they are calling a wedding reception, for coworkers. They wont actually be getting married until the following day which makes the title of the party is a bit strange. Guests pay the equivalent of $60USD for women and $65 for men to attend the reception with gifts being extra on top of that. A, who is a friend of the bride invited me to go in with her and 3 others on an electronic photo frame to which she will upload photos from the party. So I am expecting my total cost for attending this event to be around $80. I initially tried to sneak out of going but W caught me off guard when he approached me to ensure I had RSVPd since the invitation was e-mailed in Japanese.

The second party is a going away and Thank You party for Y-san who was in charge at the company in America before returning to Japan last Summer. Y-san will be moving to a different company in the group. Of course I would like to thank him, but the cost of the party in his honor is $70USD and the menu is Shabu Shabu which doesn't have a place in my diet. I felt obligated to attend and T convinced me when he was able to contact the restaurant about preparing me a veggie meal. It is usually against my principle to have food adjusted to fit my dietary preferences, but this adjustment supposedly also comes with a price adjustment.

I can tell myself that life is about experiences, but that is hard when I think about how I was holding off on buying a new bathing suit yesterday that I could have bought in multiple colors for less than the total of these two parties.

Rose Sented Sweat

It was an especially humid and sticky day in the office today and the 4th floor CATIA room had a smell to match. They guy sitting next to me clearly didn't use deodorant. I don't mention this out of some American prejudice about people from other countries having bad hygiene (I am currently reading David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day -- see page 221 for a reference). Most of the youngish people I work with smell just fine and take extensive steps to stay that way including brushing their teeth or reapplying deodorant throughout the day in the office locker room. I have been told that some older people in Japan use deodorant without an antiperspirant, but the offending guy today couldn't have been wearing either. I found his poor hygiene especially contradictory since he was wearing a Rolex so clearly he considers how he presents himself.

At lunch I mentioned the smell to A and she sympathised and taught me about a gum marketed to remedy BO. The gum is called Otoko Kaoru and supposedly it changes the smell of your perspiration.

Denji ha boushi Aprons

I was warned in advance of starting my assignment that many of the OLs link wear aprons. The common explanation around the Michigan office was that these aprons are worn so that the OL has plenty of pockets to store any items she might need handy to excel at her job; maybe a stapler or three-hole punch? This explanation didn’t satisfy me, after I started to notice that some OLs don’t wear aprons and some female engineers do, so I asked A and M for the real story. It turns out that these aprons are electro-magnetic protection aprons (電磁は防止エプロン) focused on protecting reproductive health and are not in common use outside my office. I didn’t find any information in English but I did find some interesting Japanese sites with amusing images.

Death Announcements

I've been in Japan long enough that I managed to get subscribed to the office e-mail group for Death Announcements. It is pretty unfortunate when I put the contents of an e-mail into a translator to discover that someone in the PPT department had a spouse who just passed away or another person in PE just had a parent who recently died. As far as I can tell from the translation the e-mails also include information on where money can be donated to help the coworker cover expenses.

Sleeping on the Job

A few days ago I was surprised to enter the office rest room and hear snoring. It seams that the heated toilet seat was so relaxing that it put this poor women right to sleep.

Get Your Personal Hygiene Products...at Work?

There appears to be some sort of Drugstore delivery company that provides service to my office. Strange? A few weeks ago I noticed coworkers getting packages delivered to their desks by the which, in clear packaging appeared to be products normally purchased at a drugstore. My suspicions were confirmed today when a sample of blotting papers, q-tips, and Band-Aids, from said Drugstore, was delivered to my desk by an OL.

Company Jackets

Since the weather has gotten cooler company jackets are out in full force. With the economic issues, the heat has been turned off in the hallways but no one can complain when given a jacket to keep warm. It seams that the engineers from each company in Japan have a signature jacket provided by their company. These jackets are required uniform in the labs, but commonly seen throughout the office.

With this arrangement it is easy to identify, contract workers, suppliers, and customers without having to squint to see their badges. I dislike the fit of my jacket, but follow the When in Rome rule and occasionally wear it. For many of my coworkers the company jacket seams to be a way to show company pride, from what I gather they are just a letter away from a varsity jacket.

Monotony is Setting In

All I’ve got today is a complaint about the office cafeteria, which in fact isn’t that bad. Everyday it’s the same, check out the glass display case of food available that day, pick up a yellow tray and grab some blue chopsticks. (Go Blue!) While the color of the chopsticks is the same, the lengths are often not. As if it isn’t hard enough for me to eat slippery noodles with chopsticks, I‘ve often got to do it with mismatched lengths.

Parking Lot Shrine Update

This morning when I arrived at my parking lot, at the usual time, there was a group of approximately 30 people headed into the Shrine. I haven't seen anyone near it for the past two months and Wikipedia reveals no Shinto holidays today, so what's the occasion?

Selling Less Cars Leads to More Traffic?

Economic Slowdown　⇒　Reduced Car Sales ⇒ Production Cuts ⇒ OT Limits ⇒　Huge Traffic Jams as everyone in my office is forced to arrive and leave the office at the same time. Today in my team's after lunch meeting we were informed that we would be divided into groups allowed to arrive at 7:30 or 9:30. In an office with a set arrival time of 8:30 and bells that support the schedule ringing all day long, it will be an interesting office culture change. Prior to this announcement a new lane was added in and out of the plant, and all lanes were designated as one direction during arrival and departure times, but apparently neither of these changes had enough effect.

Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa.

At the exit of the office cafeteria there are two folding tables that are, presumably, rented to vendors. One of the tables is always occupied by a women who sells small snacks and drinks, the other is often empty but sometimes used by various travel agents. One of the travel agents took to saying Konichiwa (good afternoon) to each person who passed by and soon the snack women picked up on this idea. After several weeks of crying Konichiwa it has been shortened to the point where only the ...Wa is audible. Now I sit through lunch listening to ...Wa. ...Wa. ...Wa. I'm hoping the vendors have a change of heart in the New Year and stop the ridiculousness. If they don't, well, I'm on vacation and wont have to listen to it for 10 days.

Wash your hands and...

...Gargle. I just inadvertently got the story on the gargling that I witness going on in my office bathrooms everyday. Apparently from a young age children are asked, "did you wash your hands and gargle?" after emerging from the bathroom. It is a common Japanese belief that keeping your throat moist will help keep you healthy.

Daily Meeting

Besides vacuuming, the other thing that happens every day after lunch is a team meeting, which in my group is actually a two team meeting. The highest team member present mumbles some things, while his assistant nods in agreement, when the speaker is finished everyone bows and goes back to their work. I have yet to understand what is said in one of these meetings, but still attend every day.

Bonenkai

Last night was my department holiday party, a Bonenkai. It was held at a restaurant in Toyota City and attended by about 60 of my coworkers. Apparently it's tradition for the freshman members of the Global Department to perform skit.

Dinner was cook-it-yourself style, a mix of vegetables cooked in boiling stock that actually turned out delicious.After dinner we played a game of Bingo with a chance to win a Wii, I ended up winning handkerchiefs which everyone uses around here (a topic for another blog entry), so they will make a good souvinear.

Company Calendar

Today I received a 'gift' from my company, a 2009 calendar with fitness tips and healthy recipes.Each month I get a new exercise using household items like the mop above, pillows, books, shopping bags, etc.

Evidence of the Economic Down Turn

At 7:00 pm on a Monday evening just a few people remain in the CAD room. Our allowable OT hours have been cut to the point where even cheating the system, many of my coworkers have 'run out' of available OT. The Japanese government limit is 80 OT hours per month, prior to the economic problems the company maximum was 45 which could be exceeded three times per year. Starting in October everyone's allowable hours were reduced according to a formula involving how many hours the group averages and how much the company need to cut to meet a requirement set by Toyota for all of the Toyota group companies. My OT limit for October was 30 hours, and in November it was reduced even further to 15. At first I was disappointed but now I wouldn't want to go back to 45.