A Week At Work
I haven't posted as much about my adventures over the last few days, primarily because I haven't had as many. See, the whole point of this trip is for me to be working. When I'm working, I'm not being a tourist. A few interesting things can still happen, though. mizkit always says that it takes five things to make a post. Let's see if I can come up with five...
We had dinner one night at the food court in the Lazona mall at Kawasaki station. Chris and the girls seem to like it a lot. To me, it seems like a standard food court with a few minor differences. It was very crowded, like the food courts back home at peak time. Of course, we were there at dinner time, so maybe it was a peak time. The tables and chairs are a little smaller and a little more packed together than in the States. Probably the biggest difference was that none of the vendors appeared to me to be part of chains; they didn't have the polished glitz of a major restaurant corporation. The menus were, of course, in Japanese with bits of English tossed in.
On Monday, I erred at work. I was at the customer's site. Generally, I write software on my laptop and occasionally copy it onto a memory stick to be transferred to the customer's computer for testing. In the mid-afternoon, the engineer I usually work with was away for a while, so the engineer there to babysit / help me wasn't as familiar with the setup. I wanted to transfer some files over, but there was nothing showing up on the monitor of the computer normally used for this purpose. The computer's power was on, and there were lights on the keyboard. During our chaotic investigations, I tried clicking the Caps Lock to see if the computer might just be wedged. The Caps Lock light didn't blink, so I went with my theory, reached over, and rebooted the computer. This was a Mistake.
The engineer helping me was immediately upset by this. I apologized, and backed away as she brought over another monitor to try and figure out what was going on. As we found out when the other engineer returned, the monitor just had a hidden power button. No one has complained that any substantial data was lost, so I don't think it was a disaster. But I've been told in very clear terms that I'm not to touch anything except for my company's computer. The engineer also brought her manager over, and I apologized again to the two of them. As they left, they were both backing away and bowing repeatedly. Apparently I've been introduced to the Japanese cultural rituals for apologies, the hard way. ☹ Subsequent e-mails and discussions indicate that no permanent damage to the relationship was done, though.
I've eaten lunch four times now in the Toshiba employee's cafeteria. The first three times I bought food there, but I'm going to be bringing in my own food in the future. The cafeteria is very busy and rushed, and doesn't include cues for visitors who don't speak Japanese. Given time to peruse a menu--or even to sound out the names of things as written in kana--I can figure out what's there. But it's just too rushed. Although I ordered items that I thought ought to be close enough to my kashrut standards, after the fact I'm suspicious that all three meals had pork in one form or another--either as a seasoning in the sauce, or as a component of the "hamburger". It's easy enough to bring in sandwiches that I buy in the train station, instead.
I'm getting more comfortable with the train system. Wednesday, as I was walking out of our apartment building, I pulled out my phone and opened Google Maps™ to get train routing information. My phone crashed, hard. So, I headed to the train station and followed the same route as I had taken the previous day. It took a half hour for my phone to finish rebooting--Android wanted to "optimize" all the apps, whatever that means--so I had to change trains all by myself. Ooh. Aah. As with many things in Japan, I'm slowly approaching grade school-level competence.
It's very noisy and crowded here. I don't know if that's an urban life thing, or something special to Tokyo. Part of the problem is that our apartment is surrounded on three sides by train tracks, so there are trains going by every minute or two. The train stations and streets are very crowded. I don't remember things being quite this dense when I lived in San Francisco. Clearly, I'm used to the suburban lifestyle.
The weather continues to be relatively nice. It's humid--which I don't mind--but not as hot or rainy as expected. There's been some mist, and a couple of times I've emerged from a building to discover that the ground was wet. But there hasn't been any uncomfortable heat or even moderate rain, yet.
If I'm writing about the weather, I must be done...
We had dinner one night at the food court in the Lazona mall at Kawasaki station. Chris and the girls seem to like it a lot. To me, it seems like a standard food court with a few minor differences. It was very crowded, like the food courts back home at peak time. Of course, we were there at dinner time, so maybe it was a peak time. The tables and chairs are a little smaller and a little more packed together than in the States. Probably the biggest difference was that none of the vendors appeared to me to be part of chains; they didn't have the polished glitz of a major restaurant corporation. The menus were, of course, in Japanese with bits of English tossed in.
On Monday, I erred at work. I was at the customer's site. Generally, I write software on my laptop and occasionally copy it onto a memory stick to be transferred to the customer's computer for testing. In the mid-afternoon, the engineer I usually work with was away for a while, so the engineer there to babysit / help me wasn't as familiar with the setup. I wanted to transfer some files over, but there was nothing showing up on the monitor of the computer normally used for this purpose. The computer's power was on, and there were lights on the keyboard. During our chaotic investigations, I tried clicking the Caps Lock to see if the computer might just be wedged. The Caps Lock light didn't blink, so I went with my theory, reached over, and rebooted the computer. This was a Mistake.
The engineer helping me was immediately upset by this. I apologized, and backed away as she brought over another monitor to try and figure out what was going on. As we found out when the other engineer returned, the monitor just had a hidden power button. No one has complained that any substantial data was lost, so I don't think it was a disaster. But I've been told in very clear terms that I'm not to touch anything except for my company's computer. The engineer also brought her manager over, and I apologized again to the two of them. As they left, they were both backing away and bowing repeatedly. Apparently I've been introduced to the Japanese cultural rituals for apologies, the hard way. ☹ Subsequent e-mails and discussions indicate that no permanent damage to the relationship was done, though.
I've eaten lunch four times now in the Toshiba employee's cafeteria. The first three times I bought food there, but I'm going to be bringing in my own food in the future. The cafeteria is very busy and rushed, and doesn't include cues for visitors who don't speak Japanese. Given time to peruse a menu--or even to sound out the names of things as written in kana--I can figure out what's there. But it's just too rushed. Although I ordered items that I thought ought to be close enough to my kashrut standards, after the fact I'm suspicious that all three meals had pork in one form or another--either as a seasoning in the sauce, or as a component of the "hamburger". It's easy enough to bring in sandwiches that I buy in the train station, instead.
I'm getting more comfortable with the train system. Wednesday, as I was walking out of our apartment building, I pulled out my phone and opened Google Maps™ to get train routing information. My phone crashed, hard. So, I headed to the train station and followed the same route as I had taken the previous day. It took a half hour for my phone to finish rebooting--Android wanted to "optimize" all the apps, whatever that means--so I had to change trains all by myself. Ooh. Aah. As with many things in Japan, I'm slowly approaching grade school-level competence.
It's very noisy and crowded here. I don't know if that's an urban life thing, or something special to Tokyo. Part of the problem is that our apartment is surrounded on three sides by train tracks, so there are trains going by every minute or two. The train stations and streets are very crowded. I don't remember things being quite this dense when I lived in San Francisco. Clearly, I'm used to the suburban lifestyle.
The weather continues to be relatively nice. It's humid--which I don't mind--but not as hot or rainy as expected. There's been some mist, and a couple of times I've emerged from a building to discover that the ground was wet. But there hasn't been any uncomfortable heat or even moderate rain, yet.
If I'm writing about the weather, I must be done...