In an office as small as a closet with children’s toys strewn about on the floor I realized I was already thinking about my next chance to run. I’m a daydreamer through and through and every time I find a new place to rest I want to run. I’m restless and unsatisfied but maybe I should explain a bit more.
I recently got another job in Tokyo. I don’t really know what I was thinking, I thought that maybe this time would be different. I thought that this time I wouldn’t find myself constantly disassociating on trains and hyperventilating when I’m alone. It’s our job as humans to keep on seeking the next thing to give us comfort and satisfaction. Maybe some people can be content in their work with just getting by and I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. That is not for me.
Well let me start by saying that this company lied to me. It’s not surprising given the fact that so many companies in Japan that are hiring “foreigners” for a lack of a better word, are not exactly invested in your best interests. Imagine that. I went through a bunch of less than savory interviews with other companies including being harassed by a man named Rick.
The funny thing is my gut instinct was telling me that there was something wrong with this company and that it just wouldn’t go the way that I had planned. That’s the problem with plans… they have the ability to fail and in that they are fleeting. But I ended up going through with everything and I thought I was signing up to be an admissions counselor at an actually established K-12 school which is a serious glow up from being an Eikawa (English conversation school) teacher who is as good as garbage nowadays in Tokyo.
Fast forward to my first day on the job. I have made the grueling 90 minute commute and I got sucked up into the human vacuum which I refer to as the morning train in Japan. Toes stepped on, asses touched, elbows in stomachs. It’s like joining a mosh pit every morning except there’s no sick rock music to accompany it, only really pissed off people who will literally fight you to make it to work on time.
But alas… I made it to the office! The start of something new. Inside the school was another form of chaos which comes in the form of small children with sticky hands. Their screams echoed throughout the school and made my head spin and my stomach churn. Kids are my fucking kryptonite. I got shown off to the second floor were I met the HR manager who seemed to be about 12 years old dressed in jeans and sneakers— a far cry from the monochromatic suits I’ve been used to wearing for almost 2 years.
She then tells me that she’ll be taking me to meet my boss which is at another location. My naive ass thinks that they must just have a separate building for admissions staff, I mean they’re an established school, right? Yeah. No.
We end up at another school completely which is almost a 20 minute walk from the station which anyone from any large city in the world will know is business suicide. This start up school which is a sister school to the company I thought I was joining has a total of 3 students since its opening 6 months ago. You’ve got to be kidding me.
After receiving basically 30 minutes of job training from another scatterbrained individual I would be calling my boss from here on out I was thrown to the wolves making cold calls like it was telemarketing from the early 2000’s. The company thinks that outreach is best achieved through phone calls and generic Facebook posts which to me shows an obvious lack of understanding of basic marketing in 2020. Besides, none of my coworkers know Japanese and they all moved here like 2 minutes ago.
So that’s almost how I came to find myself in a closet sized office staring at the ground disassociating from my reality and probably wishing I were anywhere but here. Prior to the disassociation session I was in a car with one of the school’s executives. He had asked me to come over to sit in on a pitch meeting with a Japanese magazine company. The ride over was painful and he had a driver like he was Mr. Park from Parasite. The Big Boy Boss executive was sitting in the front seat alternating between cracking his knuckles and tapping his foot. I tried my magic skill of disassociation and contemplated jumping out of a moving car and making a run for it.
The representative who came over to pitch to us was a young Japanese man with shaky hands who reminded me of so many of the fresh graduate students that I had seen as an English teacher. He told us this was his first time using business in an English setting. The Big Boss Baby proceeded to fire rounds of questions at him in a heavy Indian accent and at that time I knew it was game over for our young Japanese friend. The Boss Baby started tapping his foot again. I contemplated flipping the table over.
Every time one of the women in the room tried to raise a question or a valid point boss baby spoke over them because you know— women should just shut the fuck up. I chose to be quiet and emit my strongest bitch energy. If crossed by Boss Baby I knew that I would lose my job and I still need to pay the bills this month.
About 30 minutes into the pitch shaky leg got up and left. He couldn’t even be bothered to stick around for the end. What a cool and friendly guy. The poor Japanese representative was now tripping over his English and he seemed like after this meeting he might go cry in the men’s bathroom.
I walked the Japanese representative to the door and I started chatting with him in Japanese. He seemed immediately relieved to hear me speaking in his language and he told me about how nervous he had been. I told him he did a great job and to not be worried about anything. He smiled.
I felt for him. He was, after all, just a guy trying to do his best. But big boss babies tend to overlook those of us who don’t have personal drivers and a Rolex. That Japanese guy’s anxiety resonated with me because I’ve felt that anxiety for the last 2 years of my life. It really fucking sucks.
After the most unprofessional excuse of a meeting I’ve ever seen we got back into the car. Turns out Mr. Boss Baby has a young daughter who attends the school he manages.
She begins to speak, “Daddy, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day! Can we—“ She is silenced with a shush.
He’s also a really fun dad it seems and an overall good human being. I’m so glad this clown is paying my salary. When we get back to the school I retreat to the closet sized office where I sit in a toddler chair and begin to disassociate to my monkey brain which has no intelligent thought.
Like Morrisey said in one of his greatest songs, “In my life, why do I give valuable time to people who don’t care if I live or die?”
I really wanna fucking know why. Why the hell have we created a world in which we waste the greatest amount of time on people who are absolutely useless to the development of our lives? Just for money? Just for survival?
If I was able to spend even half the hours I have spent working on actually working on developing myself as a human I’m sure I’d be much better off than I am now. I just want the chance, the time, the slight opportunity to get myself back on my feet instead of being stressed and bossed around by people whose names I can’t even remember and I don’t even want to remember.
I want to dedicate my time to my art. My passion. My loved ones. I don’t wanna dedicate my time to board meetings and business emails that will eventually be eroded and forgotten.
I don’t want to be eroded and forgotten too.
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