Wake, work, sleep, and repeat

Time goes on.

So... I have completed my first week working for a Japanese company. My thoughts? Well, the first thought I have isn't even of work, its of the crammed train in the morning and the desire to move closer to work minimizing the time spent commuting. I hop on the bus at 7:12am and then I am literally squeezed onto my first train at around 7:30am just to be birthed from it at around 8:30am, just in time to run up some stairs and squish on another train for 20mins. The total time from home to work is roughly 2 hours. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. So I plan to get a nice cozy apartment close to work asap.

Regarding the actual work at East West Consulting. It consisted of a small amount of training and a huge amount of personal training through trial and error. My objective for this week was to "obtain an assignment". Assignments are given to EWC by very large outside foreign companies and all we have to do is locate potential candidates for them to employ. So I spent a huge amount of time foraging our database for companies and calling and meeting with them. I am pleased to say that I have obtained an assignment and am now looking for program managers.

All that can really be said at the end of the week is that work is work, and I am somewhat relieved to have a job but I know my weekends will quickly become more and more precious. This weekend was fantastic. Guillaume has a very good friend who has just arrived from France. His name is also Thomas and we all went to Shinjuku to show him around a little bit. BUT, upon walking around for all of 5 mins we found an Izakaya that was $10 all you can drink for 2 hours. We decided that this was too good of a deal to turn up so our night started a little earlier and a lot cheaper than we had planned (which is great for me because $10 is about my budget limit at this point in time). Entering the Izakaya, they saw three large foreigners come up stairs and one of them said in Japanese "they cant come in here". This is very typical, simply because they don't think we know any Japanese and certainly cant read it. All it took was a well pronounced "konbanwa" and we were escorted right in as they complemented our skills. Apparently we were the first foreigners in this establishment. Anyways, against the waitresses advice we ordered a delicious dish of chicken covered in "uneatable" peppers. Guillaume having lived in Ecuador for 6 months last year likes to show off his pepper eating skills. Upon receiving the dish he went straight for the red guys. He ate about 1/4 of an entire pepper, his face went bright red and he quickly started coughing. Thomas and I laughed and then both reached for a pepper. Boys being being boys things quickly became a contest and the waitresses all stood around laughing as we all ate as many of the peppers as we could. Gulliaume eventually killed the fun and almost himself when he stuffed several peppers in his mouth at once. He started hiccuping uncontrollably, couldn't speak, and could barely breath. He required a large dose of milk which was quickly fetched by our new friends. After this incident things were settled down and our time came to an end and we stumbled out into the bright lights of Shinjuku. We wandered around for a while before we decided to head back to Guillaume's part of town. This was a good decision because we found a fantastic little Jazz bar to relax, chat, and listen to great music. Ahh what a weekend, although I have found that my French is improving faster than my Japanese at this point. Not quite what I had in mind, but I am sure that my mother who is headed to France later this week would appreciate my skills.

Now, its approaching dinner time and my host father will shortly be sending their Dog "Hina" to come and fetch me so we can enjoy a beer before feast. Hina really is incredible, she will fetch just about anything. She seems to have a fantastic memory, or maybe Japanese is easier for dogs. She will fetch your cell phone, socks, tissues, and just once my tooth brush. But maybe the cutest part is how she has a little plate that she carries around while we eat dinner. She will come up and lightly remind you that she has her plate as you eat. I'm not one for begging, but how can I resist this? (that's her raincoat)


So, yes I must go, eat, and prepare for another week.
Thanks for reading... and if you know any good program managers who speak Japanese and English pass em my way.

I'm Back

To all those who wonder

Well…. As most of you know after living in Nagasaki two years ago I fell head over heals for the land of the rising sun. It is a culture that I found a great deal of respect for, it is after all a country filled with respect. There is a sense of being here that one cant really explain with words, and most don’t even understand upon visiting. This something surely is related to the 'Wa', but this isn’t a philosophy lesson so I will leave it at that. After a teary departure at the Seattle airport I arrived in Tokyo and was greeted by my good friend Yuka, whom I met TA-ing at the U of I (Her wonderful family has allowed me to live with them). The first night back here was awful, it was muggy, hot, I couldn’t sleep, I wondered what I was doing… I came over here with no job and barely any money. I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. If I cant deal with these worries and stresses how will I ever make it to be successful in the real world? I knew I would most likely find a job teaching English and I kept thinking "how will teaching English in Japan help me in my future? I should be making power moves through the difficult business world of the US." I had to continually to remind myself there was a lot more to why I was here. There was this element of the culture, which had inspired me so much, continuing to develop my speaking abilities is something that will only open more doors for me down the road, and I am young and there is no time like the present to experience life, any new experience is a new lesson and that’s what, to me, it is all about. I wonder what I will learn this time?

I had several interviews (mostly at English schools) arranged prior to arrival, which was a comforting thought. I arrived on Saturday the 13th of September and the first interview was on Tuesday. So, come Tuesday morning I departed the house at 12pm (the invitation to the interview had said “interviews will be held from 12pm-5pm” ). I arrived at the location and sat and waited, an Australian guy finally walked up, greeted me, and he asked if I was Thomas Bailey.
“yes” I replied.
“Thomas the interview started at 12pm, sorry we didn’t get a chance to reply to your email about the time check”.
You see, I had been a little hesitant that they would have people show up at random times throughout the day for interviews, so I wrote to the school to make sure it would be appropriate for me to show up at 2pm because I hadn’t been assigned a time. Who has a 5 hour-long interview with someone you only know through a resume? They never responded and so I showed up at the time I had told them I would be there. Lesson #1, ALWAYS show up to things of importance at the EARLIEST possible time. This was a big blow to my already smoldering confidence about the decision to come back here. I got home that day and had a hard time putting a smile on my face. However, I still had the American Apparel interview to look forward to.

The American Apparel interview went extremely well. It was conducted in Japanese and I managed to get through it without even asking them to repeat what they had said once. They have shown interest in hiring me to their team in Shibuya. In the mean while I have had several other interviews. I have heard back from a couple places and had to reject a couple. I received an offer from a rather sketchy fellow from Taranaki, New Zealand whose resemblance, both physically speaking and personality wise to David Brent (link) had me holding back the tears of laughter throughout the interview which consisted of extremely cheesy and self promulgating speeches and demonstrations. I thought he would be hilarious to work for but his over zealous persistence on me signing the contract and lack of "professionalism" did nothing but send me running. I had another interview with East West Consulting on Friday and I found myself in the "hot seat" once again. I didn’t really have any anxiety about this interview due to the fact that A. I enjoy interviews and B. didn’t really have an expectations. I was greeted by a very serious young lady from China who proceeded to give me the initial 3rd degree, it went very well. She then did a mock call with me where I had to convince her to consider a change of career. I used some of the logical argument strategies I have learned over the years and apparently I did well because when we were finished she fetched the owner of the company. He then came in and we sat and chatted. He was from Oregon and has been to North Idaho on several occasions, he has also visited New Zealand and our thoughts about Japanese society are very similar. We got along quit well, he asked me to come back for some trial calls on Monday. I came back, made some trial calls in Japanese and he made me an offer that day. I told him I needed to think about it and that I would be in touch. So I went home, thought about it, and went back and signed the next day. I was given a tour of the office and was quite impressed. It was a place filled with suits in their late 20’s early 30’s all from different countries and speaking different languages. It promises to be a new and interesting experience.

In between all of these interviews I have had a lot of time with my “host family” and other friends who live in and around Tokyo. One particular friend Guillaume (from France) is a friend I met in Nagasaki a year ago. We have gone on several excursions around Tokyo for Buddhist temples and really accomplish nothing other than the repeated realization of just how massive this city is.

Today is my last day of freedom before I join the Japanese work force. Apparently I have made an impression on the neighborhood, today I was woken up by my host mom because a neighbor (a woman in her late 60’s) whom I had met at the local pool the other day had put together another (the third) basket filled with all sorts of goodies for me, and this time a very fancy traditional Japanese dish was included in congratulations of my new job. God only knows how she found out I have been employed. I am the first foreigner she and her friends have ever met and they were all very surprised by the fact that I can speak the “impossible language of Japanese”. After being closely monitored as I ate her gift I sit here again completely stuffed. But, I am very happy. Japan is lovely, in every sense imaginable, I am overjoyed to be here. Lets hope this is my attitude tomorrow when I arrive home from work.