Passport - Six Years in Japan

I've been wondering for awhile how to get through six years in Japan on this thread without boring myself rigid. I think this might be the way (see right). It's a clear, zip-lock bag with a series of fairly random mementoes of the time. If I pull them out one at a time I might just be able to cope with six years in Japan.











Item One: Mug shots
Don't we look happy corporate drones? Both of us are wearing corporate lapel badges and our serious faces go with our serious suits.

At the end of our time in Japan I was working in the Head Office for Nova (an English language instruction company that has since folded) answering the phone (oh the glamour). I caught the subway to work at 7.00am. Every teacher who was sick in Western Japan (3-400 schools) called me and said they weren't coming, and then I had to call every teacher in Western Japan who was having a day off and ask them if they would like to do some overtime. Sometimes people said yes, but mostly they laughed and sometimes they were rude to me. It sucked.

My first rule when I took the sick calls in Japan was to be polite and sympathetic. Other people answering the phone went for cold and rude. There were two reasons for this rudeness. Firstly, a lot of people calling in sick were just slackers and caused us a lot of work, and secondly, it was a big no no in Japan not to go to work. You were expected to drag yourself in under any circumstances. As a consequence there was no sick pay. Even if someone in your family died you were allowed leave only a strictly determined quota (a week off for a spouse, one day for an uncle, that kind of thing). While I was in Japan I had no sick days in five of the six years we were there.