I Need To Vent + Final Week = Frustration In 7 Steps

With a week that has begun like this I have been cautioning myself to keep an lookout for the space above me. If the first two days have been any indication I’m waiting for a dump truck of shoes to drop. I want things to be running smoothly right now but considering my history with no getting this want when it comes to Company business I probably should have expected nothing less then the frustration chewing at my innards. So begins the dance: Frustration In 7 Steps:

Step One: I’ve become the Go To Guy for company move-outs and ins of former teachers. Let this be a lesson to you folks in volunteering yourself to people just itching to take advantage of your generosity. Yesterday I had to go to Osaka, move out one couple and move in another and only a few days before did I obtain a map to this apartment, was told I was moving in a couple and was given a meeting point not as simple as the train station. Last minute madness at this place is as good a guarantee as a silicon spotting on L.A. beaches. I had already been discussing things with the old couple who were going through their own last minute company errors and though I didn’t feel I could be much use to the new people what with not knowing the area well enough to take them anywhere outside the door (if I could find the door) I went down anyway. The old couple had very mixed reactions on their departure. This is normal, I believe. I’m going through them myself. They were having a free-for-all take what you want blow out of their apartment wears and despite my lack of suitcase space I managed to find myself carting home two bags of stuff. Anyway, the new couple arrive and of course they have questions and of course I cannot answer them as I haven’t been provided with any information. I basically just stand there looking like Goofy might look if asked to do trig. I don’t believe the new folks thought very highly of me and perhaps I should have explained more how little fault I am at for this but I couldn’t be bothered. Really, I just wanted to get back home.

Step Two: Well, that’s it, I needed a new bag. The stuff I had taken from the old couple fit into my suitcase but with everything crammed into there was a sizeable overage. On my trip to Osaka for the move out I went to pick up my plane ticket. My baggage allowance is not as good a helping as I’d have liked. I find it very peculiar that you can have a total of 100 pounds but it has to be broken up thus creating more of a load. I was allowed two bags, I only had one and it was either purchase another bag to stuff or pay $150 for the overage. Ouch! There was a used store behind the apartment, the rare Value Village type store in Japan, and they were certain to have bags and they did but they were asking a pretty bulky fee for used luggage I’d use only once. I figure I’d try my skill at bargaining the sales clerk down. I had found a sturdy bag but wanted a price knock-off. I’ve discovered that you can’t bargain with the Japanese. Whereas I’ve been able to knock off a buck or two from used books to new DVDs back home here I can’t even get a penny off an orange. This clerk was only a kid and he wouldn’t budge. I settled for a cheaper Adidas bag which I figured would do alright. Man, I hope I don’t get hit with that overage fee.

Step Three: This last week I’m teaching at my keyless school. What I mean there is that when I changed over back in September I was given four keys to four schools and one key didn’t work. I called for a new key, was given the runaround, I spent three months off and on trying to get a key, speaking with various departments and bosses, and eventually I said fuck it. Seriously, how hard was it to make a duplicate copy of a master key that was sitting in the same room as my supervisor. If they didn’t care then really why should I. I did tell them repeatedly that I feared one day coming to the classroom and the spare key in the mailbox wouldn’t be there and well low and behold…today it wasn’t! Resisting the urge to let out the bluest of blue obscenities followed by the customary “I told ya’ so” was tough. Seeing that empty mailbox caused the mountain, already trembling after yesterday’s unprofessional and unacceptable regard for new employees, to fall. I was pretty god damned pissed off. We had just over an hour before classes were to start and I was locked out because the company, after months of knowing of the situation, did not replace the key and somehow, I feared, I would be blamed for all this. Well no fucking way! I was not to take one iota of responsibility for their ineptness. It is far too late in the game for me to kick up a cloud of stink but should any fingers start pointing in my direction they would be broken, severed and chucked in Lake Biwa for the fish!

Step Four: Well, there was no use in standing there gazing at an empty mailbox in anger. The longer I waited to contact the company about this matter the more ammo they would have to use against me should they so wish. Herein lied another problem. How was I to contact them? I had no phone on me, certainly couldn’t use the classroom phone and there was no payphone in sight. Under us was The Relaxation Weed Space which was either a health spa or a hippie commune. I’d always wanted to take a peek inside. Now was my chance. I pulled open the wooden door and was hit by a cloud of perfume or maybe it was some sort of secret beautician spray but it was some powerful stuff. The room was light dimly and there was soft music playing. Well, so much for the hippie commune theory. I’d have been hit by a pot cloud and some Dead. A woman came around the corner dressed very neatly. Her eyes told the tale of shock as she looked at this long haired, bearded man in the doorway of her health spa. I’d have just considered me a really good prospect. Next comes the mime act I’ve become so used and this little playlet was entitled “I Need To Use Your Phone…Please”. After asking the usual question “Do you know English” which was followed by the usual reply “No” I managed to get my point across that I was the upstairs teacher, was locked out of the classroom and was in need of their phone. The woman handed me a cell phone and ushered me outside so not to disturb the patrons. I ring up the company from their door stoop and get the poor guy I always seem to get when company foul ups cause me to make phone calls like this one. I explain the situation, he stammers some and apologizes. I stress that I shouldn’t be responsible for this, he stammers some and apologizes. At this point we still had an hour to go before lessons started. I was told to call back in five minutes as he needed time to discuss solutions. The cell phone was dying. It was cold. Must keep down the anger. I call back and am told that they were still looking into it and that, for now, just wait outside of the classroom. Easy for him to say, he was in a nice, heated office. I assume…by the way the place seems to be run I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys were in a couple of refrigerator boxes in some back alley in Tokyo. After a failed attempt to enter the class via the side door, rolling myself under a fence to do so, I waited. After a half hour I decided to call back. This meant tracking down another phone. Across from the classroom was an office. I walked inside. There was a counter, a large wooden table, some office chairs and the rest of your basic office furnishings, bookcases, computer, etc. A heavyset man sat at the end of the table, his graying hair slicked back. A woman in pink greeted me. These two were much less receptive to my mime dance then the Weed girls. The man was a lot like a Japanese Scrooge…the mannerisms were very miserly. It didn’t appear as though they were going to let me use a phone when suddenly another woman entered to save the day. I imagine she was a client but whomever she was she knew enough English to communicate what I had been trying to communicate and she was nice enough to let me use her phone while she took part in a business meeting with Scrooge there at the end of the table. The woman in pink served me some hot tea. Clearly these people were annoyed by my presence but you have to respect the patronage of the Japanese, even if they won’t knock off a few bucks on your suitcase purchases. After about three more back and forth company calls I was told my first lesson was canceled, I was not to be held responsible as I had communicated many times my want for a key and that currently the building landlady was on her way over to open the door so that I could teach the second class. All parents, I had been told, were called and informed but one so I was asked again to stand outside of the class and wait…in the cold. Quelling…quelling… I had the lady who spoke English write up a sign for me in Japanese explaining the key situation to parents who might show up and I stood outside and spoke to her as she left the meeting. She asked me where I lived and when I said Canada she told me of her want to visit Anne of Green Gables. Ahhh, another Koji! I told her of my own trip to Anne Land and we shared a few laughs before she had to leave. She even offered to drive me back home as it was on the way but I had to stay. She told me this was bad business. I agreed. The one parent for the first now canceled class did arrive with her daughter, one of my favorite students, and I had to explain the situation. This bugged me to no end. I’d never been late, had a good track record and now, in my last week, my perfect record was blighted. Grrrrr. As the woman and her daughter were leaving the landlady showed so I invited them into the class to see if I could at least teach part of a lesson. The little girl chased her sister around the room with a flashlight as I called the company back. They wanted to speak to the mother (the CUSTOMER, to be exact) and the landlady for some reason wanted me to write the word “key” in her day planner and sign my name. Whatever, I’m out of the country in a week. I am absolved of all key responsibility.

Step Five: The lesson was still called off so the mother left with her daughter, the landlady scowled at me and left with her signed dayplanner and I began to prep the next lesson when a voice from behind me caused me to jump about seven feet. It was my supervisor. I was instantly on the defensive. Your supe, in my experience, only visits on a whim to give you shit and I wasn’t about to take it. In truth he was asked by the company to come and bring me a spare key. This, he revealed, had really put him off his day. Boo fucking hoo! I explained to him, as I had the others I had spoken to today, that everybody from his superior, to our help line to he himself have known about this key situation for months and yet here we were having to cancel lessons because, much like a lot of things here, the buck was passed and then swept under the rug. “So, this is my fault,” he said. “Yes, you fucking lazy sack of dog shit. Yes it’s your fault! You sit in the fucking office where the fucking master keys are kept, next to the woman who ensured me you’d be taking care of the keys and only a month ago you yourself told me you’d be getting me a new key and you stand there all wounded by my blame casting. Yes, you asshole, it’s your fault…it may not be all your fault but you can eat a big fucking chunk of it, you prick,” is what I wanted to say and though my actual replay was still rather heated it was nowhere near as biting as the above. So the battle began with the supervisor abstaining himself from responsibility with claims of being uninformed. This guy is just terribly lazy and sure he’s overworked and underpaid but damned if I’ve ever had a boss fuck up more then this guy. I guess I was shouting at him pretty angrily as he look to just want to haul ass out of the classroom. We would eventually make peace mainly because I understood that, in many ways, this company has screwed this guy over. He’s a young guy and he’s been shit on too. I buckled and though still angry we both agreed to side with one another in our mutual hate for mismanagement and disorganization in the company we work for. “I hate this place,” he said. “Just do this for the money,” he said. “I want to quit by the summer,” he said. Well, this was comforting. This guy’s my boss, right? Anyway, he went off to make a key, I taught my second lesson and in the only logical way to end the story he came back with a spare key for the classroom. Did you read that correctly? He came back with a spare key for the classroom…not for me. So, NOTHING changed. There is now once again a spare key in the mailbox but I STILL have no key of my own. This is where we started from!!!! Did they not learn anything from today’s incident? Three more days, I tell myself, three more days.

Step Six: And the balls of these people. A half hour later the supervisor and I are sitting down to supper in my favorite cheapy all you can eat salad bar place when his phone rings. It’s the company. They ask him if I am with him. He says yes. This is 8 in the evening, mind you. He passes the phone my way. I figure the wanted a better explanation of the day’s festivities but, no, they actually were asking me to cover a shift the next day in Kyoto! This is the very reason why I didn’t get a cell phone. What an unscrupulous way of doing business. I’m having supper for Christ’s sake and after a day of fuck ups you want me to do a favor for you? I mean, I couldn’t really say no, it was in the job description, but damn! I expressed my concern that I had already submitted my salary sheet and I would not be able to get my commuting costs back but these people didn’t give a shit. They have so many Japanese Teachers quitting this job they are like a boy with a bucket of play-dough trying to plug up holes in the Hoover Dam. Their desperation showed in their means and lack of tact in their contacting of me. Though I wasn’t saying no, once again I really couldn’t, I wanted some sort of confirmation I was going to get paid and in the middle of all this the supervisor’s cell phone went dead. Well this was a blessing or a curse I’d stew on all night. Did they think I hung up on them? Would I be going tomorrow anyway? I wasn’t about to leave the restaurant in the middle of my meal to contact them back. This was not an on call job, I told myself, and it would have to wait until morning.

Step Seven: But I tried to call anyway when I got back home. There is no way they would be in after nine but at least I could honestly say I tried to phone them back. I picked up my phone. Placed it to my ear. My God, I’d gone deaf!!! No, wait, my phone was dead. Oh yes, I had asked to have it disconnected today. I hardly used the thing anyway and didn’t really want a phone to begin with. It was no real lose. I flicked on the computer in my normal coming home ritual and settled down to some email. What? What’s this “cannot connect to server” shit? Try again. Same. Sinking feeling starts to creep in. I reboot. No change. Damn it! The phone line and the Internet were connected to each other and with the cancellation of one the other had been rendered useless. After spending an hour latching onto and getting dropped from wireless connections, moving around the apartment with the laptop trying to just keep a connection, I gave up. I just want to go bed. I hear falling shoes have mercy on the sleeping man.