Welcome to Japan!

Well, I’m back in Japan and I’m getting used to working instead of studying/playing. I’m enjoying my work, even though I’m pretty busy all day long (for example, today I got on the train heading to work at 9:13am and I got on the train to come home after dinner at 9:13pm).

My work at Japanesepod is basically re-organizing the older podcatsts. I’m currently working with the old “Beginner” lessons and trying to turn them into a curriculum. It’s a huge task, but I have a lot of input (I’m pretty much organizing it how I would do it) so it’s very interesting. Plus, I’m listening to podcasts about Japanese for pretty much 8-9 hours a day, so I’m improving, little by little.

Our office is pretty small; we located on top of a cell phone store (5 floor) in downtown Akasaka (across the street from a large shrine), which is the main business district of Tokyo, right in the heart of it all. We share floor space with a translating company, and our section is “walled” off by a row of tall plants. There are a handful of other interns, and a total of about 12 people working for Japanesepod. At any given time, though, there are about 8 people there (others either are only work night/morning; are in the recording studio; or only working part time).

On Tuesday, everyone was going to be there for the whole day, so we needed to reorganize our desks to fit everyone. Peter, our boss, spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out the best way to move the desks—everyone had their own opinion until he finally said, “We don’t need 4 people trying to figure this out.” We ended up moving the desks so that 4 desks “faced” each other, because this way there was the most space for people to sit.

Yesterday, when we came in, the boss of the other half of the room (the translation company) came over to express a concern. This guy’s name is Robert and he’s Polish, but he speaks Japanese, (everyone else in his company is Japanese, and he speaks Japanese all day long) English, Polish, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin) and Korean. Anyway, he comes over and speaks to Peter in hybrid English/Japanese and explains that the company boss (the guy who owns the 5 floor and the 6 floor) came by the day before and saw the new arrangement of desks and insisted it be changed. Unbeknownst to Peter or anyone else at Japanesepod, it is against company policy to face away from the shrine. We explained this was the only formation where everyone could have a desk, but they literally wouldn’t let our desks face each other. When I came in today, the desks had all been rearranged in a more “feng shui” appropriate style. Our business was actually interrupted because the most productive way to form our desks was “disrespectful”. Welcome to Japan!