Just when you thought it was safe to go back outside...That's right, more snow again this week! The weather here just can't make up its mind.
Hung out with Naoko this weekend because it was one of the rare times that our days off matched up completely (she works a 4 days on, 2 days off schedule. That means we only have the same days off every month and a half about). Went to McDonald's and she made a french fry happy face :D
We also went to Mr. Donut, where we found more happy faces. These ones, however, are just freaking creepy.
Dear god, why would you put that on something you were selling to people? That is the most terrifying thing ever.
Well, that kind of makes up for it I suppose...
Monday was taco party time! Just as a bit of backstory, there is almost no Mexican food in this country. I've been informed that I can find some in Tokyo, but that's about it. Because of this, most Japanese people I've met have never had any kind of Mexican food. The grocery store I shop at sells some taco shells and seasoning (although they're kind of expensive), so a few of my friends have expressed interest in a taco party. Sidetrack in my sidetrack: there's a party for everything over here. Seriously. Nabe party, takoyaki party, etc... Anyway, on Monday we finally decided to go for it. We only had about 2 days of notice and it was on a Monday afternoon/evening, so I invited about 9 people thinking most of them wouldn't be able to come. Of course, this meant that all but one or two accepted. Shopping for this stuff was a nightmare. Naoko and I had to go to four different stores (thankfully, she has a car), mainly trying to track down avocados, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. We found them, but the avocados were super green, the cheese wasn't really that suitable, and the sour cream had the consistency of cream cheese. Apparently all sour cream over here is like that. I also ended up spending about 5,000 yen, or around 60 dollars.
We found this amazing statue at the second store we visited. Naoko informs me that it's a "lucky boy"... okay.
Snacks! Naoko and I actually ate a fair chunk of these ourselves waiting for people to show up. The thing was supposed to start at four... first guests arrived at about a quarter after five. Whatever, we had movies to watch.
Taco stuffs! I actually made all of this aside from the guacamole salsa myself! I know, I'm amazed too. I say guacamole salsa, by the way, because the avocados we found were too hard to make into actual guacamole. Instead, Sarah just kind of put the ingredients together and roasted them for a little bit to soften it all up. No one complained, but I don't like avocado so I have no idea how it tasted seeing as how I didn't try it. Everyone said they had a lot of fun though, and it was somewhat hilarious watching Mika trying to correctly eat a taco. At first she tried to bite into it vertically, so Mac and I had to stop her before she cut her mouth up. We told her to bit into it with her head tilted, so she tilted her head... and the taco. I think there were some other pictures taken that had actually people in them, but they weren't taken with my camera.
Warning: long rant ahead. Don't bother reading if you don't want to hear a lot of bitching.
This picture actually has a lot of rage behind it. I purposefully put off posting last night because I was absolutely fucking livid and didn't want to say something I would regret. Sleeping hasn't helped the situation much. Long story short: management bullshit. Cherry blossoms bloom for a very short time in Japan. You can see them before or after, but they are only at their peak for about 7-10 days. Naoko and I have been planning a trip to Kyoto to see them during this time period. Right at the end of it, actually, because my company has certain "blackout days" where you can't request any of your paid days off, and they fall right in the middle of this period.
That's fine though, the 12 of April is after those blackout days, and I have the 10/11 off as my normal weekend. Naoko has the 11/12 off, so I figured "hey, that's perfect. I'll get the 12th off and we'll go." So I asked my head teacher and manager about it a week or so back. That's a month and a half of warning; well beyond the one month requirement for asking for days off. Their response was "we'll see what we can do", which set off alarm bells in my head, but whatever. So a whole week goes by without them saying anything. Finally, yesterday I just ask them about it. They told me that it's a really busy time of year and they don't really think they can give me the day off; most people can't really get days off at that time.
On its own, this is pretty annoying, but there's already a few things that made it worse for me. 1.) Why the fuck is it outside the blackout days if you won't let people take time off? Seriously. I based my schedule on your stupid fucking calendar assuming the blackout days were there for a reason. Apparently that's not the case. If it's such a busy time, you should alter the calendar to show as much. 2.) They weren't going to tell me. If I hadn't asked, they just would have kept ignoring it. For me, these escalate it to really fucking annoying.
But wait, there's more! March is a really busy month in Japan. It's the start of a new fiscal year, the school year is ending, and all kinds of things are happening. Because of that, everyone is really busy; including my school. This means they're asking me to work a lot of overtime. I'm scheduled to work on my day off in a week or two, yesterday I worked from 6 AM to 9:30 PM (had to wake up at 6 to hand out flyers in front of a high school in the freezing cold and rain, then go to a meeting in Yonago, then go to work), and I have another flyer day scheduled for the 18th. They're also weaseling their way out of paying me for this overtime in the following awesome ways: Saying I'm only working about 1/3 of the time I actually am. For example: the flyers this morning. I had to get up at 6 and didn't get back home until 9. That's three hours. They said I worked from 7:30 to 8:30. One hour. The meeting? Had to catch a train from Matsue at 10:30, didn't get back until about 3. That's four and a half hours. They said I worked 2. Part two of this "screw Thomas over" deal is them telling me to just come into work an hour later this Tuesday and next Tuesday. The meeting also partially overlapped with my normal work time, so they used that as well. So, I got to start work seven hours earlier than normal and I'm getting exactly zero hours of overtime because I get to come to work at 1 instead of noon two days this month.
Despite this absolute bullshit, I have not complained once. The way I see it, if I can help them out during a busy time, it's alright. I would still be doing the same thing even if I wasn't trying to get time off, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that was also thinking that they were going to be helping me with some time off, so it's only fair that I help them with some extra work. So much for that idea.
How does this all factor into the picture? Well, when I got back from the meeting, my manager had left the chips and the note on my desk. Don Tacos is something we've talked about before when I first mentioned tacos; they're a kind of chip. At the time I thought it was a pretty nice and thoughtful gesture. After my head teacher's reaction when I asked about the time off though, I see it as a cheap way to try to soften me up. They know they're fucking me over; it's really obvious from their body language and tone. Especially when my manager asked me to hand out flyers for a second day. He legitimately seems to feel bad. That doesn't change the fact that they're screwing me over though. And how do they try to make good? With a fucking bag of 89 yen chips. Yeah, I'm still pissed.
How tough was it to get the attendees to understand they were having a Mexican taco party and not an octopus (tako) party?
返信削除Why does it always seem like you get screwed by your work situation when I do? Not gonna bore you with that. I pretty much made them see things my way anyway. Good luck dude.
Surprisingly easy, actually. A lot of them speak good enough English that they understood, and for the others, I just told them it was a "Takosu" (Tacos) party. That pretty much did the trick.
返信削除Because management is always full of pricks that are fucking over their employees at all times? Man, I just spent like half of my weekly post boring everyone that read it with my complaining. By all means, bore away.