Japanese companies have a lot of rules are “procedures” that western companies, lets face it, don’t.

For example, when you leave the office to go to lunch or out for a meeting etc, you have to say “Ittekimasu“, which kinda means, “I’m going out, and I’ll be back“, to which everyone has to reply, “Itterashiai“, which means “Thanks for telling me, have a nice time and we’ll see you later“, or something.

Then when you leave at the end of the day, you have to say, “Sakki ni shitsurei shimasu“, – “Excuse me for leaving before you“, and everyone calls back, “Otsukuresama“, which is, “Thanks for you’re effort, you must be tired.“, or something like that.

There are a few other things people call out, for example at the beginning at end of the morning and evening meetings people say stuff, but still haven’t worked out what it is, so I just sort of mumble something that sounds similar.

There’s also obviously, being Japanese, various levels of formal language and business language, which are either longer versions of casual Japanese, or completely different. e.g. “Wakarimashita” is, “I understand“, “Wakatta” is casual, and “Kashikomarimashita” is what you say to the boss or a customer.
“Kashikomarimashita????” what’s that all about.

I had my welcoming drinks party last night, went to an Izakaya with 3 work colleagues and drank and ate a lot. Then on to a bar for more drinking and more eating! Japanese people don’t stop eating all evening! Never seen so much food. I guess it’s like the Spanish and their tapas, lots of small dishes and snacks, to compliment the whisky cocktails.

They paid for everything at the izakaya and we split the costs in the bar, so a pretty cheap night out

It’s the weekend now, so gonna try and relax a bit.

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Post tags: Japanese language, Working in Japan

Commuting with all the other salaryman at 8 this morning got to my work early so I could be shown around.
It’s a small company, only about 11 people, but only one guy speaks English (he’s half Spanish). The boss speaks English, but doesn’t want to with me – wants me to get up to speed with my Japanese! Yikes.
Every morning there’s a meeting, and I had to give a brief introduction – very embarassing (and I found out later, I should have stood up. No-one told me. Doh!).

It gets worse. Next week I have to give a 5 minute “omoshiroi speechi” – interesting speech. On anything I want. Double yikes!

The work itself is fine, so far a doddle, except that the pc is obviously in Japanese, and it’s using Windows Vista – which I’ve not used before, and it’s shockingly different to XP, so I don’t know where anything is, and I have to learn the Japanese for all the options.
Microsoft have even f%!&ed about with Word to make it seemingly, less user friendly, so it takes me ages to use that aswell. Doh!

Nice people in the office though, went to lunch with a couple of them to a small Japanese restaurant. One of those where you put ￥500 in a machine, which spits out a receipt and you give it to the waiter, and about 2 minutes later he gives you a plate of TonKatsu (deep fried Pork cutlet), rice and miso soup. I think it might be their regular lunchtime haunt. Guess I’ll be going there a lot.

Brain’s all shot to pieces now, but got to do a bit of studying before bed. Gambarimashoo!

Related posts:

1. Hello Work!
2. Working in a Japanese Office

In particular, the dole office, Department of Health and Social Security, etc. is called, Hello Work.

Hello Work! How are you?
Good? Well me too, thanks, sitting on my arse watching Japanese variety shows was beginning to suck, come in and have a cup of tea.

Well I can say now, Hello Work.
The Japanese company I had the Japanese interview with the other day, said yes – or rather Hai. I start Monday! aarrghh. Bit soon.

This period of unemployment has been the busiest I’ve ever had, only had 2 lie in’s in 2 odd weeks, and sometimes had to get up at 6am (I’ll get on to that in a minute).

Very scary. My Japanese is way not good enough, got to “step up my game” as Americans tend to say. Apparently I might have to go to morning meetings each day, and understand what’s going on! Bugger. Still, very excited about the job (and about having a job!).

Related posts:

1. Working in a Japanese Office
2. Jim The Salaryman

Some time in February, a few hundred quid appeared in my bank, courtesy of the Man. Ooh, lovely, I said, that`s nice.

A month or so later, a letter appeared from him, saying I owed him some cash, due to not paying enough tax last year. Which I found hard to believe as he seemed to be taking a hell of a lot each month, and I didn`t even finish the tax year, I was 3 months short.

(As an aside, Japanese income tax is a lot less, about 6%! compared to around 30% in England – also, their sales tax is only 5% compared to VAT of 17.5%. They do have extra local tax, which I have to pay next year, but so far I much prefer my pay slips here – don`t feel like it was completely worthless working the whole month. In England, think you have to work till about May before you start earning any money for yourself in the year!).

Anyway, where was I…oh yeah, tax man wants his money.

So I filed the letter away, and hoped he couldn`t be bothered to get a flight here and find me.
Then just yesterday (5 months after coming to Japan, 4 months after receiving the rebate), I get another letter saying he`s going to give me some money back (the same amount as I got in Feb, so I guess he just forgot to post the letter). No mention of the money I owe him…so guess I should just keep on waiting.

(Spent the money by the way)

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© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2006. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Tax, Working in Japan