Christeph: On the Lam

I am so far out in the boonies technology-wise, I think I have gone back in time. My laptop is running on Windows 98, and it has a floppy disk drive. On my work station in the board of education, internet explorer doesn’t work for me while Netscape does. I feel like I:m trapped in 1999. Dude, what happened to Japan being 5 years ahead of the curve? I guess that only applies to Tokyo, and it:s up to the rest of the country to catch up.

I:m writing this from work, and as you can tell, I:m having a little trouble with this Japanese keyboard. I’ve totally given up on quotes and left handed capital letters.

Apparently, until I begin my school visits, I am required to put in a 7 hour appearance at the board of education (BOE) every day. Let me stress that there is no work yet for me to do. Yesterday, I asked what was on the agenda for today. I was told to write my self-introduction, which I will share with my classes. I asked what I should do for the other 6 hours and he was basically like “sit there”. Just to be clear, I explained that I had a computer at home, and that I could write my self introduction there, and then be productive for the rest of the day. “so you would rather that I come in and sit with nothing to do rather than work at home?”, to which my boss answers, “well, you can always take a personal day if you wish”. Dude! I had heard that attendance was important in the Japanese workplace, perhaps even more important than efficiency or utility. So, yes, I had been warned in advance of situations like this. But it still pissed me off. Why should I have to take vacation because my boss doesn’t have anything for me to do? AARRRRGGH.

I guess I shouldn’t complain about getting paid to do nothing. I just hate feeling like I have no choice in the matter. At least I discovered today that I have access to the internet as long as I stay away from flickr or any email provider. I do have access to the email that our department uses, but it is a group account, and anyone can see what you send or receive. Very Big Brother to my American sensibilities. Privacy does not seem to be a big concern here among officemates.

There are about 10 people in my department of the boe, and we sit in little desk clusters. All the men have the same manner of dress about them; short sleeved white button up shirt, tucked into dark suit pants of some sort. Very little variation. I happened to wear this on the first day of work, and I commented to my boss how we were wearing the same thing,and he thought that was very funny.

At work, I sit right next to my boss. He picks me up from home every day and we drive the 30 minute commute together. Another nice man named Sato-san drives me home. I bet they are totally itching for me to get a car. Next Monday and Tuesday my boss is on holiday, which means I am automatically on holiday too unless I can figure out how to get here on public transportation.

The house, I’ve gotta say, is pretty groovy. It’s a little two story number with two bedrooms, so plenty of room for guests, if you’re not picky about bedding. There’s also a kitchen, and a small cozy living room, complete with kerosene heater and tatami mats. Hygiene spaces are creatively distributed throughout the house. We have a mysterious machine that both washes and dries clothes; this is right next to the room where you shower/bathe. Apparently the entire family shares the bathwater in Japan (not all at once, I’m guessing), so you’re supposed to clean yourself in the shower before you get into the tub. Then in the rear of the house, there is a little urinal room (!) which you step through to get to the toilet.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Ambiance, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.