Office Space, minus the TPS reports

I have been here for about 6 months and I realize I haven’t really talked directly about work much. That might be due to the fact that it generally isn't a smart idea to talk about work on your blog (especially when it doesn't require a password), but none of my co-workers, or anyone in Gifu Prefecture for that matter, is going to read this, so what the hey, why not? Although not nearly as entertaining as the antics at Dunder-Mifflin, there are a couple folks with odd quirks, and so I present to you The Office: Japanese Edition (not to be confused with the SNL skit featuring Steve Carrell).

Job Description/Place of Employment: I work at a conglomerate of schools, both of which are referred to with the same abbreviation, I then A then M then A then S. (Now my blog won't show up on search queries for the school. If you search the acronym properly though, they have an English website where you can get a better idea of what type of school it is). There is a two-year vocational/technical school, and a two-year Master’s Degree track graduate school. The schools are technically separate entities, with separate admissions and rules, etc. They are both, however, run by the same administrative division, of which there are two offices, the General Affairs Office and the Educational Affairs Office. My desk is in the Educational Affairs Office, but I receive work from both offices, along with the Center for Media Culture, and random professors. Most of my job involves translating from Japanese to English, although sometimes the reverse is necessary. Thus far I have translated everything from employment contracts to student project descriptions to any number of mail correspondences and school announcements. I also interpret for one of the foreign professors at faculty meetings and during major project presentations by students. Apparently, come April when the new school year starts, I’ll also be interpreting for the weekly “information design” class that professor will be teaching, so that should be an interesting change of pace.
Up until this year, the school employed two CIRs, but due to budget restraints was cut to a single position. So I was expecting to be swamped, essentially doing two people’s work. Not so. Apparently before it was just two people doing one person’s work. And even then, most days I don’t have enough work to keep just me occupied. To be fair, the work comes in waves, and I've certainly had days where I'm swamped. But for those slow days, what do I do all day?

A Typical Day: I arrive at my desk, wake up the computer, and connect to the network. I check my gmail and then my work mail to see if anyone has sent a translation request since the day before. If I have something to do, I’ll give it a once over and let it mull around in my head for a bit. At some point, I check facebook, and generally leave it logged in all day, so I can check for updates periodically when I’m super bored. I also ended up chatting with Maria and/or Alaina (a friend who is a CIR up in Nagano Prefecture) on gchat, or with any number of random people on facebook. Another major method of killing time that I used up until early December was to study kanji for the level 1 JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). I preferred this method since it was still an activity that was beneficial for doing my job. It was technically “training” and improving my language skill, so I didn’t feel guilty about it. However, there is only so long one can continuously stare at different kanji before one’s brain turns to mush, so I mixed it up by checking Japan and U.S news sites in an attempt to stay somewhat abreast of current events. I was getting quite sick of kanji, though, so once the JLPT was over, I put kanji on the back burner. What I have been doing lately to pass downtime is…what I’m doing right now, writing blog entries! The past few entries have also mainly been written while at work. So basically, I’d say average, my work day is about 30% work-ish like behavior and 70% killing time. This is pretty much what I would say has been the biggest disappointment. I rarely feel like I’m truly having to use my head, and a lack of challenge translates into a lack of motivation. I’ve accepted the job for what it is, though, and it could be a lot worse, I could have pissy co-workers, for example. Thankfully, although not without their quirks, they are mainly chill folk who let me do my thing. For the sake of anonymity, and just to amuse myself, I’m going to give each of my co-workers nicknames. Japanese offices are organized into little clusters of desks. My office has two clusters, one of which is far from full. My cluster, however, is at full occupancy.

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Mouse Drama Queen Chief
Me Supervisor Mr. Sensei
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The desk is set up so that Mouse and I face each other, etc. At the head of the office is the section chief, not to be confused with Chief.

In a better effort to convey the work atmosphere, I know introduce you to the cast of The Office: Japanese Edition

Mouse- She sits across from me, and was given this nickname simply because, well, she looks like a mouse. She has something that looks similar to a bowl-cut for her hairdo, and I don’t think would be flattering to anyone. She is extremely quiet and has only ever talked to me one about something other than work. Even when the others in the office are having a rousing conversation about something, she’ll keep her nose to the grindstone, only raising her head to offer up a related fact or two if the situation calls for it. She is also known in the office for being very healthy. In the summer when I first got here she would have a little “juice-box” of black vinegar every day, which is supposedly good for you.

Supervisor- Less of a nickname and more of a fact…she is my supervisor, and sits next to me. This is a deceiving title in that, within the office, she has no real title, and certainly isn’t a “higher-up.” One of the many things she deals with in her job, though, is whatever red tape there is with the JET program. Also, if I have a question or concern regarding work, I ask her. So she acts as sort of a go-between, I suppose. She is quite nice and relatively laid back. She is never really looking over my shoulder, and in fact, doesn’t seem to care what I’m doing, which means I have the freedom, to say, write a blog post during downtime. She also tends to talk a lot with Drama Queen, who sits across from her. They’ll often talk about different diets, or certain foods that are supposedly good or bad for you. Even I can tell they are just talking out of their ass, but Supervisor will always give advice to Drama Queen as if she’s an authority on the subject. “No, no, you need to stir your oil COUNTERclockwise before you fry your pork, then your cholesterol won’t go up.” (Not an actual quote) Again, though, she’s a very nice person.

Drama Queen- Unlike supervisor, who I guess to be in her thirties, I’d say Drama Queen is in her 50’s, thus all the talk about health, etc. She is given this nickname because she makes a huge deal out of almost everything, has over the top reactions (she could probably be on Japanese TV), and whines a ton. Granted, she deals with the budget, and professors are less than punctual with deadlines and have unrealistic expectations, so she has reason to be bitching (which puts her a step above Wallin), but still, she could stand to exercise some self-restraint.

Chief- He is the assistant to the office head, and thus slightly higher up than the rest of us underlings. He has a title in Japanese, but everyone just tacks on “chief” (cheefu in J-speak) onto his name. Most of the time, this guy is nearly unintelligible. He speaks in the back of his throat and barely opens his mouth. When people arrive in the morning, they “Ohayo gozaimasu!” (Good Morning!). Since this is somewhat long, most people don’t bother saying the entire phrase, maybe just the second half. This guy takes it a step further by just doing this weird sort of half-hearted grunt/hiss when enters the office. He certainly captures how I feel when I walk into the office in the morning, so I give the grunt/hiss right back. I feel ya buddy. He also likes to attempt English sometimes, and by far has the most proficiency aside from Supervisor.

Mr. Sensei- This guy is the definition of a bureaucrat. Rules are there for a reason, and they must be followed…and part of his job is to make sure they are enforced. He was a high school teacher for most of his career, and only recently got transferred into the office work he’s doing here. It is this teaching background that leads everyone to tack –sensei onto his name. He taught Japanese in high schools, so he is a stickler for “proper” sounding Japanese and he extensively uses honorific and humble forms in his daily speech. He gives the full “thank you very much” when someone throws the lights back on after lunch, or for other mundane things. I understand being polite and saying thank you is a good thing, he is just always so formal about it. In general, he is very Japanese, and gets really excited over traditional stuff. He also talks to himself, mainly muttering about how he’s busy, has no time, or needs to get work done. Although I’m sure he has plenty of work to do, I can’t help feeling it’s part of the Japanese tendency to put importance on looking like one is busy/working hard, whether or not you are actually busy.

The Actual Chief- He is the office head for the Educational Affairs Office where I work. I couldn’t really think of a good nickname for him. He’s really chill and quite affable in general. He's always cool about me asking off days, so he gets a thumbs up in my book. I also like the way he speaks, especially on the phone. He'll throw "desu ne" (you see?/right?) after every other word in a sentence. It makes him sound like a smooth operator, always in control of the pace of the conversation.

The Librarian- She sits at the other cluster in the office, and only pops in once and a while when she isn’t off running the library. I have yet to figure out if she has a personality.

The Wild Card- As anyone who watches “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” knows, every group needs a wild card. This guy wasn’t around when I first got here, and sits at the other cluster by himself (except for when The Librarian is actually around). All of a sudden he started showing up for a few hours at a time a couple months into the job. Apparently he had been in the middle of an extended leave due to mental illness/depression. He has supposedly been through rehab or in some sense gotten better, but he is super quiet and has no personality that I’ve been able glean. For all I know, he might not be better, just faking it, and might relapse and go apeshit at any moment. Thus, The Wild Card. “I cut the brakes, WILD CARD, bitches!!”

Those folks make up the Educational Affairs Office, which is connected to the General Affairs Office, which together make up the Administrative Division. Overall, the General Affairs Office is much quieter, so I’m glad to be where I am. There is an honorable mention within that office:

The Youngin’-I shouldn’t really be calling him this myself since he is a couple years my senior, but he is the only other person still in their twenties. We don’t have a chance to talk about stuff other than work very often, but he is cool to talk to and we have exchanged music CDs since we both like rock music. It’s currently my turn to make him a CD.

There is yet another office, the Center for Media Culture, from which I receive work. This office only has a few people in it, one of whom gets an honorable mention.

Festivus- She gets this nickname mainly because she is quite the festival enthusiast. I went sightseeing up north with her soon after arriving in Japan and she was also nice enough to take Jon, Sarah, and I to a temple offering “festival” as well. She is super nice, always willing to help or give advice on things to do and see, and generally has interesting stuff to say.

The Nurse- The school also has a nurse/counselor, although she also spends time doing secretarial work at her desk in the General Affairs Office. She is extremely jolly and, as one would hope for a counselor, easy to talk to. She once had me translate a children’s book so she could read it to some elementary school kids in English. While doing that, she brought out some tea and candy, and we ended up chatting a bunch, getting me out of more time in the actual office. Yeah, I think we’re going to get along. She’s big on food in general, and a couple of times her and the cleaning ladies have made daikon mochi (rice paste w/ minced radish, which I’m not the biggest fan of) and kinoko mochi (rice paste dusted with a slightly sweet powder that tastes vaguely of peanut butter, which I love). So we could just leave the office to go grab a freshly made snack. Yeah, I probably milked that into a half hour break.


The Student Body- Between both the Academy and the Institute, there are maybe 120 or so students. For the Institute, the half that my work mainly deals with, maybe has 40 students total, about 20 per graduating class, and there are almost as many professors. Most people I’ve talked to seem nice enough, but as students, who are supposed to be creating some sort of worthwhile project during their stay here, I can’t say I'm impressed. What leads me to start on this little rant is the Master’s Thesis presentations that I had to interpret for a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure if this is a comment on the quality of graduate work done in just this school, or Japan in general, or if it’s just me not being used to what a humanities graduate project consists of, but I’m pretty sure their presentations would get you laughed out of the room by professors of any discipline back at Madison. Almost all of them just read straight off of a script or their computer screen, speaking quickly in order to jam as much pointless info into the time limit as they could. This made it impossible to interpret properly. The professor I interpret for was up in arms the time due to the low quality of work and wasted potential. Honestly, there were a number of presentations that wouldn’t have cut the mustard as a term project for an undergrad class, let alone for a master’s degree. It seems the students really don’t have enough guidance from the professor’s and even when they do receive guidance, like “Hey, this idea isn’t going to make a proper thesis, you should think of something else” or “You really need to do more research about your topic, this is all really shallow analysis” the students simply don’t listen and continue to do it the way they want, which is to say, in a misguided, lackluster fashion.

All of this will be moot, though, if the school isn’t able to justify its own existence to the prefecture, which is in the middle of chopping its expenses to balance the budget. As I mentioned before, there are technically two schools, the vocational and the grad school. The decision was handed down late last year that the vocational school would be dissolved in two years, after students admitted this year have safely graduated. There were apparently proposals to get rid of both schools all together, but thanks to some smooth talking by the school president and a few profs, they re-branded the grad school with a different focus and at least postponed its demise. This new direction the grad school is taking emphasizes creating projects and technology that can be of use to local industry and provide a more tangible benefit to the prefecture. A major part of that is iPhone app development. So most students as least managed to tie-in how their project could be related to or potentially implement the iPhone. What happens when the next big thing comes along and nobody gives a hoot about iPhone apps? Well then they’ll be up shit creek without a paddle. But I guess as a stop-gap measure it at least ensures the school’s existence for another couple years…not that anything put out by this year’s graduating class looked like it would be all that enticing to businesses, so the axe may be coming not too far off after all.

Thankfully, though, not so soon that I won’t have a job next year. I just got the papers back from the prefecture approving me re-contracting for another year. A second year is all the further I had planned on staying on JET program, so at least that is happening. Now I’m hoping the school will hold on long enough for me to have a successor so I don’t have to figure out what to do with an apartment full of stuff when I leave. Ugh, enough about work for one day.

*Recent Update* Earlier today, one of the Korean students at the school came in about getting his visa extended. The only catch, his visa expires TODAY! And he was laughing about the situation. Hahaha, get it? Yeah, neither did my supervisor, who has to deal with that sort of thing. How do you not remember how long your visa is good for?! And did he think it could be done in the half hour before the visa office closed? (He came in at 3:30pm) Not sure what that dude was thinking. My supervisor just screamed "baka!" (idiot!) after he left. Wallin, can you shed any light on this one?