ジョブを楽しむ (Let's Enjoying the Job)
It's been three months since I gave up my career as the best English teacher to ever grace Okinawa in exchange for a marketing/customer service gig at one of Japan's leading internet companies. Time sure flies when it's spent in front of a computer playing Facebook and iPhone games, writing copy, and answering hundreds of emails a day. It's definitely been a huge change from my leisurely summer/fall days where only an hour or two of my time was taken up by working and the rest was either used to look for work or enjoy getting sunburned at the beach.
These days I'm up at 7am and out the door by 7:20 to catch the bus in front of Yonabaru Elementary School. While I should be using the 40 minute trip to study Japanese, I usually wind up just playing on the DS, listening to music, and avoiding eye contact with the various old people and school children that seem to frequent my line. I have this sneaking suspicion that most people think I'm military and wonder what I'm doing on the bus instead of driving around in my Y plate Hummer or something.
I get into work around 8:20. I don't check my email first thing when I sit down. No, there are more important things to take care of. Things like beating people down in Words with Friends and tending to my Animal Land. When everyone else in my department rolls in, that's when I figure it's time to be productive.
I love my co-workers, at least the one's I directly work with. They're all super nice, patient, and, with the exception of maybe two people, super awkward. We're the only department that has to use English on a regular basis. They all know English pretty well. Yet they don't have enough confidence in their own abilities, so our conversations are always a mix of Japanese with some English thrown in when I don't understand them. If they are forced to speak primarily English, they get worried about making too many mistakes. It's kind of cute, and not at all unexpected. I'm sure English would be a hell of a lot more widely spoken if everyone wasn't so worried about saying something that sounded a little off.
The rest of my co-workers are still a mystery to me, and I suppose I'm still one to them, too. I'm sure everyone knows me by now. It's not like there's any other bearded black dudes walking around to confuse them. They just don't normally talk to me unless they're drunk off their asses at a party or something. Sadly there ain't no nomihodai specials during office hours. I've started writing my Facebook status messages in Japanese as a way to practice what I've learned/am learning at work, and I think some people are starting to take notice. Maybe I can be upgraded from "That Random Black Guy" to "That Random Black Guy With the Terrible Japanese Facebook Status Updates".
The only thing about work I wish I could change, obviously, are the hours that keep me out until 10-11ish every night, especially since it means I get zero sleep every night and like half the people in my department are either going to or are thinking about quitting now due to stress and exhaustion. When one of your co-workers bursts into tears and claims she hates working in English, you've got a problem on your hands.