An Ex-Expat’s blog

Spring seeems soooo far away.

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Its trash collection day and our neighbor across the street has their cans out for collection.  Given that most of the side roads still have not been cleared, think these'll be out there for a while.

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I believe I've got  a possible dislocated right middle finger (great) From shoveling the snow which has buried us but good. Its crooked at the first joint and I can't bend it back. Called Aunt  (isn't nice to have a doctor in the family?) who told me to splint it ( found an old elementary school ruler of son's and wrapped it up with leftover lacrosse stick tape- yeah its not elegant but...) and wait a day or two before seeing a doctor, hence typing is shall we say... awkward at best

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Wife missed work yesterday, but took her to work this morning. The interstates are maybe 75%, but the even the main roads are still a crap shoot.  Told son he'll be lucky if he see's the insuide of his school  this week.

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Finally got wife to bring out the headset/microphone she in a fit of rage over son's using the Xbox, ripped away and hid (nice role model there), and son put Skype for a test ride.

Pretty cool, though I see there are some unintended consequences.  First is the webcam.  Wife was very unhappy that she felt she had to be rooted at her spot because she might be in the cam's felid of vision.  Second is surrounding conversation.  The part on the other rend can pick that up.  Last wife was anal about who son was having his conversation with; she has visions of old sexual predators lying in wait to snare unsuspecting teens. So I had to embarrass the hell out of son to ask who he was talking to.  Yeah the webcam imaging is not seamless, but compared to back in the day at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, when we'd have teleconferences using state of the art stuff with very jerky imaging,  its not bad for a ill' old PC

Have added the one foreign employee at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1 who told me to get on Skype to my 'address book'.  Have told my friend in Nagoya to download Skype on to her computer so I can connect (Hey, if you are reading this, get with it!). But doing a name search of friends and relatives who I thought were tech-savvy, I got a nope, nope, nope, nope, nope & nope again.  Hmmmmmmm.

Comments, anyone?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704533204575047370633234414.html?mod=WSJ_business_LeftSecondHighlights

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2 comments

Son got this in the mail the day before yesterday.

Dear Applicant 001

He's taken it better than I thought he would and better than I have.  I had thought this was THE school he wanted to get into and I liked the Japanese studies and 1 year study abroad program it has.  But for one of the few times his uncle, Pound Salt is right; Son's a.) An out of state applicant out of thousands of in-state applicants, and b.) So being, he's really got to stand out, which at least on his SAT/ACT test scores, he doesn't.

Pound Salt also told me I should look into Census 2010 jobs.  I did and took the testyesterday, for an 'enumerator' as the people who go door-to-door are called.  Pay is $20 an hour plus mileage which is more than I am earning now.

The test was a 30-minute 28 question test on simple math, data sorting and reading comprehension.  A passing score we were told is 10 correct out of the 28!  So what sort of people pass through????!!! How'd I think I did?  I'll be very surprised if I got more that 2 of the questions incorrect but hey.......

Why the wife can be so frickin' unpleasant:  Yesterday was a day off for her, but around 10:30 yesterday morning there's a call from her supervisor and the supervisor wants to know if wife can come into work today.  Wife says she'll be in and worked the 13:30 to 22:00 shift. 

I asked why, and was told her supervisor offered her this as a switch from her scheduled Saturday hours, which might be problematic this weekend if the weather folks are right with their snow forecast.  I remarked about how considerate I thought that was; if she has to bail this Saturday, she'll still have her 40 hours.  'Oh, no'.  I have it all wrong, I was told.  This was done so the company would not lose any $$$ if they have to tell wife on Saturday to stay home (that happened in December) due to the snow, and they can still get their money's worth out of her.    Living with a person who constantly views life as a glass half-empty really, really sucks.

Iyarashii, has a number of meanings, a Furoshiki word, as I call it, it this case, 'sneaky'

 Looked at my wireless bill for this month and see its $30 higher than normal and we have oodles of rollover minutes, so its not due to excessive blabbing or texting.  So call to find out and learn that our upgrade to 2 new cell phones, which were supposed to be free, wasn't rally free.  There is an $18 per line upgrade charge.  Now all our upgrade involved was the tech at the sales center taking out each off the SIMS cards from the phones we used, inserting then into the new "free" cell phones, and then going to their database to mate the SIMS cards with the new phones.  And that cost $18 per cell phone????!!!!!

Just because you've got a truck with all-wheel drive, it doesn't mean,

Ah, Honey, a funny thing happened on the way back from the store.

That Newton's First Law of Motion is no longer applicable.

(i.e., objects in motion travel in a straight line)

Have been following with some interest, the travails of my former employer, large international automobile manufacturer #1. 

First off, I have no firsthand knowledge about the issue, period. So don't ask about specifics. I have nothing to say, hold no smoking guns. That said, this issue just didn't rear its head from nothing, but symptomatic of  deeper problems.

The first is a bad case of hubris.  Very aggressive expansion and addition of model lines simply to be world  #1 reminded me of the story of the dog which chases cars down the street; once it catches up to the car, what then?  There are 2 new buildings at the company HQ which to me also bespeaks of hubris. 

Now these 2 buildings were built to replace 2 buildings that badly needed replacing.  But did they have to be built on the scale they are?  Both are opulent (read 贅沢), more suited for a company trying to put on its best face in Tokyo rather than the moors of  Koromo City, thus costly and are the tallest buildings for miles around. So the question was when I saw them was, 'Who is supposed to be impressed?'  The locals?  Don't think so. Everyone there knows and understands how important large international automobile manufacturer #1 is.  Visitors from abroad?  That would be a bit over the top  and so you impress a trickle of foreign visitors, what then?  All in all the mood reminded me of the heady days of the Japanese Bubble Economy. This to me seems a sharp diversion from a core value of 'waste not'.

I believe  there's been a separation from the core product.  In an effort to keep costs down, engineering for some components is now done by contractors.  This is not to say that these contractors slack off, but by taking this step a separation  is created in being directly, hands-on involved  with the product and being more of a manager.  The contractor just isn't a part of the system and corporate culture and that , I believe makes some difference.   There is physical separation too.  In one newer engineering buildings the floors are divided off  along the length of the floor.  People no matter where they working, being what they are,  given a physical barrier, are less apt to walk over to another engineering group to seek advice or consult on an issue. Likewise thorughout the entire technical center, one was once free to enter and leave buildings as one wished, needed to. Now, the entire complex is sercurity carded and if you don't have the right card, you don't get in.  Automobile engineering is a highly collaborative endeavor, which is one reason why I beleieve the Japanese have been so good at it. Putting up  physcial barriers  to me runs counter to this.

Perhaps  another part of the picture is a problem to any large organization,  the transmission of acquired knowledge.  Many of the engineering experts, who could talk  in detail about the working of a system or a technology from a to z are now gone or moving on.  A thing that struck me when I returned was that knowledge in some cases, was divided up by component with no one person being able to speak  about the system as a whole.

When I worked there, among the things that impressed me was the very tight  cohesion between managers.  Not surprising as when younger they  part of a then smaller group who not only worked together, but lived closely together in the company dorms.  These men have risen higher, been 転籍'ed out or nowまどぎわず.  As the company has grown, externally so has it internally and I wonder now how well this internal cohesion has held together.

Circling back a bit to the aggressive expansion, I wonder too if people and organization were stretched a bit thin.  The company which had the component in question says it made the part to specifications, which contractually they must do.   But supposing for a moment the part actually wasn't made to specs?  What happened then to the rigorous quality checks I was always told existed between the supplier and the moment the part was installed on large automobile manufacturer #1's assembly lines? 

From the articles I have read thus far, there seems to be much head-scratching over how this has been handled by large automobile manufacturer #1.  Part of this is cultural as neighbor Pamik might agree.  Assuming responsibility or責任, is to me a much bigger deal there than here for the word is far more loaded.  Have said often that if you want to pick a fight with a Japanese, call he/she　無責任 .  So I see many employees, managers  and the like who are involved in this, looking down into a yawning abyss and they could be very scared for they see their careers and lives on the brink of ruin. Unlike the U.S., at least, where if you professionally stumble and fall,  you can pick yourself up and start anew. Perhaps not in the same field, but one can start anew. Still not so in Japan. Work is life and life is work.  Thus for those directly involved, there is much personally at stake.

Also,  pinpointing the problem.  Again I know nothing of the issue, but can say that looking at a vehicle component and saying 'Ah ha!' is not always the case.  Sometimes the process is laborious, coming up with and proofing out the why's of why it happens and then thinking up and proofing out countermeasures.

In any case, the road ahead is just going to get worse; see they've been called to explain themselves to a House committee on 2/25.  This is a dubious first for them. Al in all,  this is probably the biggest corporate crisis since the strike they had in Japan back in the 50's

Went with wife yesterday to catch the morning matinee of Avatar.  Frankly it left me and wife very underwhelmed.

To me, the plot was basically a warmed over "He Who dances with The Wolves'.  And towards the end, the movie got downright trite, i.e., when the Deus Ex Machina of the planet's beasts come to help save the day.  Now that I think about that, I wonder if that idea wasn't lifted from some Japanese manga--eiga.

To be sure, the computer animation was impressive but Disney and Pixar do equally good work. I am glad we did not waste our time standing in a line and paying full price for the movie.