12 posts tagged “japanese”

On a professional networking site I belong to, there's an interesting discussion going on about experience in workplace bullying in Japan.  

I've put my own 2 cents in as  have others and the comments together, make for an interesting picture.

For myself, I cannot say I was the recipient or workplace bullying while in Japan, but I saw plenty of it.  In my own opinion it was tolerated for many reasons.  One cultural; or 'gaman　根性' (have I just made up a new word??).   Another is the idea that this is tame ni naru stuff, or tough love much like a supposedly long-gone master apprentice relationship  of old that one would otherwise be  surprised to see alive and flourishing in even a large Japanese company.

Yet another is cold calculus; that the bully may be what he/she is and is making life miserable for those who report to them, but that objectives are being met, and if it means bullying, so be it.   An personal example of this was the chief engineer tasked with the responsibility of rolling out the first in a series of now a very successful luxury car line.  He already had a 'rep' as being  a  difficult person to work for.  I can still remember well the day I had some business at his department and when I arrived, he was red-faced and screaming at the top of his lungs at his underlings, who were seasoned engineers in their own right, as if they were school children.  And they just hunched over and took it.  But the initial launch was a roaring success so,....

Last I feel is that even today, with some fluidity in the job market, an employee in a Japanese company still has nowhere else to go. Sure they can request a transfer, but the approval for that comes from the manager, who if is the bully.....

And  final observation, these people are not turned into workplace  monsters  as they pass through the corporate portals at a company's 入社式, its nurtured and enabled waaaaaay before that.

There were a couple of books mentioned.  Fear and Trembling, is a novel I am going to try and find, which covers I am told 職場いじめ  . The other, a book I have read,  is called The Accidental Office Lady which also touches a bit on職場いじめ.

Had a small incident last Friday night which highlights my wife's glass-half empty frame of mind, or perhaps something that I being what I am, Caucasian, may not be attuned to feel.  I realize its difficult to put a reader 'there' as tone of voice and body language are an important factor, but here we go.

Son has gotten a number of gift cards for national restaurant chains, which he has never used and said to me he didn't care if we used them. So Friday, late afternoon, picked up wife from work and headed to a nearby Macaroni Grill.

We were greeted by a twentyish woman a Caucasian, who is probably there for the summer only and shown to a small rectangular table.  The area in which this table and others like it was overly dark for our tastes (like to be able to see the menu clearly as well as see what comes out of the kitchen later). We looked at each other, and I asked her in Japanese if she wanted another table. She said she did and pointed to a better lit booth- that BTW was for a much larger party. Note: the restaurant was not even half-full yet.

So we told the woman we wanted different seating and moved over to the booth.  I sat down as my wife did, and flatware rolled up in a napkin and a menu was placed in front of me and for my wife- and here is the point- the greeter more or less tossed the flatware and menu where my wife was sitting, as she was turning to leave, with all too casual "Enjoy your meal".

Now wife was upset as she feels the whole incident happened because she is not Caucasian.  I don't see it that way. The factors just don't add up. 

First, the DC metro area is a pretty culturally diverse area and thus that sort of behavior just wouldn't fly. Second, generation-wise this greeter was not there so to speak, as far as holding any prejudices towards Asians. 

My take on it is that she/we had the bad luck of getting an immature employee without the slightest sense of work ethic or customer service (I don't buy the 'Well its not what my 'real' job is going to be. That's bullshit.  A job is a job and one applies oneself to providing the best to the customer, whoever they may be). Who decided to throw a passive hissy fit as we had the temerity to express our own wishes as to where in the restaurant we wanted to be seated.

I did not leave it at that, poor customer service is poor customer service and there was another large problem; our server gave us someone else's bill, a bill more that $20 over ours and we would have paid it if we had been less sharp.  Put a note outlining our experience on the corporate site and will see what if any response we get.

Not an easy thing as I discovered.   Knew coming in it wouldn't be, but was not prepared for the stuff that can muck things up.

2 weekends ago, got an e-mail from a translation company in NYC, wanting to know if I could do translation work on some stuff for a Japanese corporation.  Said 'yes' and was sent 4 or 5 files.  Thought I could get to them, BUT, with the high drama of the wife created  leaving for Japan, (Why do I have to make EVERY frickin' decision for you?!!) the fridge going up and the car threatening too, well, could not sit down and focus.

Wrote a note to the coordinator explaining what had happened and apologized.  Get a mail back, and it seems they still need help, so worked on, in peace,  the 2 files I actually had time and quiet to do something with and then sent them back this morning. 

Perhaps the greater lesson is though that I am not personality-wise, cut out for at-home work.

With much trepidation, wife is now off to the land concerned more with an unquantifed risk of a flu virus, spread by 'carriers' from 'infected' areas, than it is with a unpredictable, belligerent country a mere hours away by plane.

Arrived early to allow time for lines at check-in and 'security'. Check in was not really a problem.  The lines of departing passengers awaiting their turn through 'security' were long.  Part of the issue is the design of Dulles Airport.  It was built in 1962, in an age when air travel was simpler and civilized. Thus access to the departure terminals/gates is a bit choked.

While waiting for the wife to get through and on her way through 'security', it struck me; the manner in which the departing passengers were directed this way and that by the TSA people, through different lines reminded me of how cattle are driven through stockyards.

After much teeth gnashing on my part, and "Oh what'll I do" on her part, wife's trip to Japan is still on. She'll just impose on herself, a one week quarantine, again thanks to her hare-brained mother, in Kyoto. She found a mansion offering a one-week rental, the one she chose, near Kyoto-eki.  I could think of worse places to be for a week.

And with yesterday's events, the North Korean nuclear test and yet another missile launch, Perhaps the lemmings there will wake up and realize there are far more serious issue to deal with than cases of flu?

The fuss- the unbridled mass -hysteria which seems to sweeping Japan was up to now, a curiosity.  My wife plans in a few days to travel back to her home to attend a  family 法事, but now her mother says, she should not come, or if she does come , she stays away from the house she grew up in for at least a week.

My jaw dropped when I was told this .This is an uninformed, knee-jerk, overreaction fueled by news reports of a problem, which right now affects only 0.000022% of the entire population.  I can speak for my family that it the situation was reversed, the doors would not be shut to me.

Yes, flu, any strain of flu can have severe consequences for the very young, the very old and others with respiratory issues, but in the greater sum of things, even if one did catch it, its just the flu, not the Bubonic Plague.

And then there is the 'foreign' element added in that an otherwise carefree and happy Land of Wa can keep itself free of any such blight simply by shutting down in effect, its avenues to the outside world.

If I sound angry and frustrated, it is because I am.  Its hard not to be in the face of stupidity.

In short some foreign workers are being paid to leave Japan on the condition they never ever return to Japan to seek work.

Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face!  As part of a business trip back to Japan, I was taken for a meeting with reps from a seat belt company in 滋賀県 and later was given a tour of the factory.  Saw much and learned much from the tour, but what really impressed me was that the only Japanese I saw on the production floor were the班長's.  Everyone else were foreign workers. 

So if these guys go home, there will be Japanese willing to step up and perform the 3K (汚い、きつい、危険) jobs?

Saw this on a Japan news webpage and sighed.  It's not the first time I've, heard about such either and its heartbreaking; that it happened of course and that the police were unwilling/unable to do anything before it came to this. 

True stuff like that happens here too, but at least victims here have the option of going to the authorities and ask that a restraining order be issued.  Ok, that also may not completely deter, but at least its a legal option/protection that I have always wondered if it is available in Japan to someone harassed/stalked.

And as this not the first time an incident like this has happened, I am again left wondering where the public outrage is.  Seems that in The Land of 再発防止there is more than just utter かわいそう and move on.

In an article yesterday on developments at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, there was mention of  the use of  くんas an honorific.  Now this puzzled me as it been my understanding that as a general rule  くん is used by a person addressing another person who is deemed socially 'inferior' (yes, I also realize it's used by parents to a young boy, or between close friends as a term of endearment). Thus as opposed to さん,様, or  殿 it does not elevate the person addressed but rather 'puts them in their place'.

I asked the in-house cultural expert and got a tirade of 'How long did you live in Japan/have you spoken Japanese?!, which was not helpful, but 'くん is an honorific, dummy'.  Technically I guess it is, but I can't get past the cultural, social connotations either (If the truth be known though, when I was a  係長 at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, it was a secret wish to call my  部下asくん . ;-)  )

And there's the humorous aspect too.  At Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, there was a   課長who we foreigners dubbed ばかもん M., Not because he was stupid, but because he had a very, very short fuse and we knew this fuse was lit when he would shout, ばかもん ! at the unfortunate soul standing before him.  The thought of me going up to him and saying     あの、Ｍ君、相談がありますが。  and visualizing the look on his face is enough for a whole day of inner grins.

Given the vagaries of traffic around here, when you get in the car, you never know what you'll find yourself caught up in. So I usually leave early to pick the wife up from work and today, I arrived about 20 minutes before she was scheduled to get off.

Stood in the large aisle that passes by her dept., the pastry dept., for what it's worth, and waited until she came out.  Now the store arrangement  is open, customers can watch as pastries are prepared and of course the employees can see who is outside in the aisles .  I slowly walked back and forth, aware, but ignoring that the other people working  in her dept., could see me; I mean hey, I don't give a rat's ass if they are watching me or what they may think.  But not so the wife.

She comes out and,　　

ね、おねがいだから、店のまえで立てないでよ。格好いいおとこならいいけど。

？？！！！！？？？？！！！、ええ！いまいったことはなにを！？

そうよ、人相がわるいからみなが「変」と思ってる。

私の顔は普通だよう。

自分がそうおもってば。

Niiiice.