10 hours to kill

I got a new job recently and started to go through all my files on my PC to clean off any personal stuff I may have had on it since I started back in 1998. I came across a little story I had wrote while I was on my way back from my first international business trip to Japan. Started reading it and thought you might enjoy it as well. So - here it is....



10 hours to kill. I’m on my way back from my first business trip to Japan and this is just about the longest time I’ve ever spent on a plane. Going to Japan from America, my flight was nearly 12 hours. Try sitting in a kitchen chair sandwiched between the wall and an old Japanese businessman for 12 hours. Now you feel my pain.

My laptop says it is 1 am, this would be MST. but my watch I have been wearing in Japan the past week says it is 5 pm. I’m not so tired now so I thought I would document a little about an average day I had at Daifuku eFA factory in Komaki, Japan.

As I came in to work this particular morning, I was kicking myself because I had forgot to pack my umbrella. I really needed it today. The 5-minute walk from the dorms to the train station was not too bad. However, the rain must have picked up during my 10-minute walk from the station to the office, and walking up to the doors of the ugliest building in Komaki, I noticed that Greg and I were the only ones with out one.

Just as I sit down to my computer, I hear over the intercom system what sounds like a doorbell tone, but more of a tune. Do de do do…do de de do. That is the 8 o’clock bell to get to work. 5 minutes later, a song starts to play and an old mans voice starts the morning exercise routine that lasts about 5 minutes. 15 minutes after 8, another tune plays to say if you are not here, you are late. This is when the office gets dead quite and the only sounds you hear is the sound of the heater blowing its hot humid air into the long narrow office, and the rain falling thru the exposed drain that is funneled down the exposed columns along the sides of the room.

The laptop I am working on has a 14” screen. Not too big, but definitely not the smallest one here. I am sitting at a small desk, maybe 2’ by 4’, with the drawers underneath it on both sides of my legs. It is a flat gray color. Very dull. My chair is not cushioned, but it is a cloth chair on wheels. At least 2 of the 5 wheels need attention badly. They are very squeaky as I roll around on the blue tile floor that looks like it is never seen a mop. My desk is in the middle of a row of 5 desks that are placed end to end and are facing another row identical to it. Behind the screen of my laptop is a gray 12” partition that separates my workspace from the worker in front of me. So each set of desks occupies 8 workers, and there are 8 sets of desks in the middle of this long office. At the ends of this office, there are cubicle walls, which are about 5’ tall and surround a large conference table. These are the ‘conference’ rooms.

Each worker has the same books and charts occupying nearly every inch of their workspace. The men are dressed in the same light two-tone green jackets identified as their uniform, and is only to be warn at work. All wear glasses that magnify the redness in their eyes that obviously comes from suffering for the company. Long messy hair and dirty pants tell me they are here for only one reason. To suffer just like their boss does. The men are expected to stay until their manager leaves. The manager is expected to stay until his manager leaves. He is expected to stay until his manager leaves, and he does not leave until 8pm because he too is suffering for the company.

The women her are machines. They are all to look the same in their uniforms, which are not to be worn to or from work, but only at work. They are to act like machines, which sit and do work. Machines don’t talk to anyone, they don’t look at anyone, they don’t read e-mails from friends, and they do not talk on the phone. They sit at their desk and work. If they get tired, they sit at their computer and close their eyes while they hold their head up with one hand hold the mouse with the other. This is ok, because they are at their desk, and appear to be working and suffering like the rest.

Do de do do….do de de do. That is the 12:00 tune saying it is lunchtime. The manager of the group walks over and turns the lights in the office off as nearly everyone else gets up and walks to the cafeteria across the shop. A few remaining employees check their mail, surf the Internet, or put their heads on their desks and sleep. I go to lunch.

We walk thru the darkened and deserted factory between the white lines that define the walkway, past the restrooms, outside and to the cafeteria building. I make a pit stop at the restrooms and try not to touch anything while in there. The toilets are really urinals embedded in the ground. This is typical Japanese. You really do have to squat to do your thing, the toilet paper is really wax paper on a 4” roll. And watch your wallet so it does not fall in either. The urinals are typical American urinals. No paper towels or rolls to dry your hands, so you use your handkerchief you are to carry with you everywhere for a number of reasons, one of which, to dry your hands. And to top it off, this restroom is worse than the one at the gas station in the middle of nowhere that never gets any attention.

Speaking of getting attention, every now and then, when I entered the restroom, there would be a tiny old Japanese lady hunched over wearing a dirty pink outfit, yellow rubber gloves holding a bucket and scrubbing brush, cleaning like she is suffering just like the office workers. She is just part of the restroom and no one pays any attention to her and you just go about your business. This is really interesting when you come across two of them together cleaning and chatting away like they are having coffee together and spreading rumors.

As I digress…I was off to lunch.

Entering the cafeteria I get thrown back to my school lunch days. Just like the person in front of you, you grab a tray off the stack, grab a pair of chopsticks from the large cup, and slowly shuffle your feet along until you get to the food. The food is prepared in small bowls and plates by tiny old Japanese ladies, who, as you approach them, the holler out loud, (in Japanese of course) “welcome to our cafeteria, thank you for coming in!” This, to the everyday employee, is expected and not appreciated. To me, it was fun to hear, and I liked to hear it. I grab my bowls of soup, my plate of breaded chicken with rice, and a small bowl of rice. I grab a cup and quickly, have to decide, “hot” tea today, or “cold” tea. I go for the hot because the drizzling rain still has not let up.

The room is filled with green jackets and dark blue uniforms sitting at separate tables. The men occupy about 90% of the cafeteria, while the women use 2 or three tables in the back corner where they can finally talk and gossip about their night last night and complain about their job. I have heard that in Japan if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you don’t talk about your relationships. Only gossip about others. If a woman does have a boyfriend, she may get fired from her job. The reasoning behind this, is because she will eventually get married, have babies, and have to quit her job to raise her family like every Japanese woman should, (not all do however).

I try to make it back to my desk by 12:45. This gives me 15 minutes to check my mail and maybe a few websites. Before I know it…..Do de do do….do de de do. The lights come on, and workers start to wake up and start the second half of the day, which will be identical to the first half. At about 4:45, a few people start whispering and I can feel the excitement of 5:00.

Do de do do…do de de do. 5:00! If the girls have their work done, they can now go home. If not, they continue to work as the see other girls walking out from the corner of their eyes. For the men, you have at least one more hour to go. If you are feeling lucky, you can leave, but I am here on business, and I have work to do. I will be here for another 2 hours. This is not so bad because I really have no home to go to, and no one to meet me anywhere. So I’m ok with working late as long as I can still think straight.

Greg and a few others are discussing dinner, in Japanese of course, and plans are made to go to Japanese BBQ style restaurant. It sounds good with me, and I am excited to go. We bring our work to a break off point, and start gathering our belongings together to leave. 3 of us pack into the back of a really, really small, mini-van type, car as Greg and the driver sit up front. The driver is one of the girls that work in the office that Greg became friends with last December when he was here. It really freaks me out to be crammed in the back of a matchbox size mini-van going about 40 MPH in the dark, in the rain, down a road big enough for only one of these cars, but is laid out to be a two-lane road. On top of that, we are on the left side of the road where all the world drives except America. Now this is excitement!

Walking to our table, I see others eating from a BBQ pit built in the center of their table set up to cook your own meet on and season as you like. The meat is brought to us all sliced up and ready to be thrown on the grill. Our group is big enough to sit at a table with two pits. It seems to be instinct for the girls we are with, to take control of the mixing of the seasonings and cooking the meet. The obviously enjoy this. The beer starts coming in liter size glasses. I kid you not. Liters! Everyone raises their large glasses… Koumpai! Cheers in Japanese. We all touch glasses and drink. What great way to end the day.

Three hours and 38,000 Yen later (about $340) the Japanese manager we are with pays for dinner and Greg and I get taken back to dorms where we crash in our own rooms just big enough for a bed, a TV, a desk, and a closet to hang our clothes in.

I’m out by midnight, but 3:00 comes really quick and the jet-lag still is lingering enough to wake me and make me fight to go back to sleep. I eventually do, but now the thoughts of my alarm not going off frighten me and wake me at 5:30. An hour early. So I lie there and just rest until I pull myself together enough to go thru another day identical to yesterday.