Again?

I was home for just a few brief days after my last trip to Japan. Like home for two days and then back on the road. The good news is that I still have a job, the bad news seems to be that I'm absorbing all the travel that my terminated co-workers previously handled. While they didn't travel all that much, their little travel times, combined with my massive travel time, is equating to no time at home for me.

This week I'm back in Japan (after spending last week in California) where I'll stay for four days, then head back to the US on Friday morning. I leave here Friday morning, fly to CA, then present materials to our customer this Friday afternoon. Humm.....customer presentation after about thirty hours of being awake....bad idea.

Ema

In the Shinto religion the Gods are called "kami". Kami represents the spirt of the earth, the wind, mountains, so forth. When we die, the Shinto regligion believes that we become those spirts, the kami. Today one form that the Shinto use for their prayers to the kami is through Ema. Ema's are smalled wooden plaques upon which the living can make their prayers to those that are departed for good fortune, success on a test, and so on.

To me it was very similar to the candles in a Catholic Church.

Onsen-Scrubbing down

For many years I’ve wanted to experience a Japanese Onsen. (Check out Wikipedia if you want more information.)

I wandered into the Onsen entrance and parted company with my shoes and stuffed them in a locker. I check in at the front desk and they give me another key that straps to my wrist. This is a key fob, not an actual mechanical key. I opt to purchase access to the Onsen and access to the “bonus” floor so that I can experience further leisure activities. The bonus floor has extra saunas, extra ponds, chair massage and food that I can purchase should I be struck with the munchies.) They give me two pairs of jammies, one set for the main floor and one set for the bonus floor. My main floor jammie color is blue, bonus floor jammie is brown. I take my two outfits, plus two sets of towels, and head for the mens locker room.

While I had an idea of what to expect, it is still a bit shocking to walk into the men’s locker room and find that almost everyone is buck naked. Naked and talking, naked and drinking, naked and scratching, just naked and hanging out and shooting the breeze with each other, or not talking at all. Just…..being…..naked. Some of the men are watching golf on a big screen TV, with their jammies on, and some are sitting in towels watching the golf, some are sitting and reading, some dozing. Humm…. Just how comfortable am I being naked with a bunch of other men? Suddenly, I’m not so sure.

I opt to change in to my jammies and grab a sports drink (one swipe of the key fob) and pretend to watch a bit of golf while attempting to not hyper ventilate. I am the only Caucasian in the spa. I’m trying to read the printed material that they gave me when I checked it, but it’s no use, I know I’m really tense and stalling for time to avoid the unavoidable. The printed material gives me the layout of the Onsen, but it doesn’t give me etiquette of the water world. I putter around and continue stalling and then I head back to my locker, remove my jammies, grab a small hand towel and head into the spa area. I know enough of the Onsen etiquette to hold the towel in front of my precious bits, but that’s about all I know.

Immediately upon walking through the door I find an above ground well with water flowing into it from an overhead bamboo water pipe. There are small wooden buckets with long handles floating in the well. I notice that some of the men are wringing out their wet towels and since mine isn’t wet, I opt to dip it into the well. Strike one! One passerby gives me a semi-dirty look and makes quite an elaborate show of taking out the water bucket and pouring water onto his private towel. The whole time he’s doing this we’re looking each other in the eye. Ok, ok, ok, I understand, I fouled up the water with my clean and dry towel. I mimic him and head out towards the open spa area.

Entering the open spa area, I can see many different soaking tubs, each one containing a couple of men. Immediately to my left I notice six rows of small booths, for lack of a better term. (Check out the pictures here, http://www.galenfrysinger.com/onsen_japan.htm to get a rough idea of what I’m speaking of. This isn’t where I went, but you’ll get the general idea.)

I head to the back row of booths and select a spot near the corner. I very carefully ease my 240lbs onto the Lilliputian stool and drape my private towel across my lap to cover up the precious bits. Ok, now what? With extreme care, I am able to view, from edge of my eyeball, that my fellow shower buddies are hosing themselves down with their own private shower wands. Ah ha! I get it. Rinse down with these! Each stall has its own wand. There’s a petal to push to turn the water. I turn it on and start rinsing. Private towel falls to the floor. The water turns off automatically after ten or fifteen seconds. I turn it back on and hose myself down. I squirt some soap into my hands, get lathered up, and then rinse it all off, start to finish in about sixty seconds.

I steal a glace at those sitting around me and notice that no one else has finished, so I lather up again and rinse. 90 seconds start to finish. No one else has finished. I collect my tasty bits towel from the floor, rinse it off, wring it out and lay it across my lap.

I again watch my scrubbing mates and observe that everyone is really, really into washing them selves. I scrub again, and again and again. I scrub between my toes, behind my ears, every where that I can reach. No stone shall remain unturned eh? I see that my next door mate is standing up to rinse off, so I try that too. Not so good. I loose control of the magic wand and hose down my next door neighbors. Tasty bits towel falls on the floor. I hunker back down and put conditioner in my hair, which I never do, just to kill time. Notice that tasty bits towel is back on the floor. Pick back up, wring it out, toss it back over my lap.

After a solid ten minutes of scrubbing, I can’t take it anymore and I get up and head for the soaking ponds, covering up my tasty bits as I go with my hand towel.

Sleep? Who needs sleep?!?

I'm back in Japan this week. I flew here yesterday after spending the weekend in Ohio.

Everyone thinks that international travel is so exotic. In my case, that’s just not so.

My first bus ride (1:15 in duration) wasn't bad. I sat next to Grace, so the seats weren't quite so confining. (Time awake= 3 or 4 hours)

My first flight yesterday (2 hours) found me with a seat mate (coach) who aggressively wanted the entire arm rest and quite a bit of my reading space as well. Sleep time = 20/30 min. (Time awake= 6 or 8 hours)

Second flight (12:30 hours, in coach, in the back of the plane) found me wedged between two snoring, arm flopping, seriously leg twitching, burping, farting men. Sleep time = 20/30 min. (Time awake = 20 or 22 hours)

Second bus ride (2:00) wasn't horrible, but wasn't great. I was worried about missing my bus stop (a very bad thing when you don't speak the language!) so I tried to keep myself awake (Time awake = 22-24 hours) but kept nodding off.

I grabbed some dinner after I checked into my hotel. I'm sure everyone around me was pleased to be seating next to the foreigner who smelled like a goat, but I didn't care. I just didn't care.

I went to bed around 10:30PM and slept until about 3:30AM. The AC in my room is more of a theoretical concept than an actuality. I had it down as low as it would go, on the highest flow available, and it was still very warm in my room. The AC is just enough to take the edge off. I swear I always forget that when I'm staying in small hotels here. AC=reduced heat/humidity, not AC=total comfort.

Tick Tock

It’s hard to believe, but the majority of the department I've worked in the past four years will be terminated tomorrow afternoon. I will be the last man standing from this project. I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing or not, but I’ll still be collecting a paycheck, so I count it as primarily as a good thing. I was the last man standing from the last project too.

The layoffs were announced three weeks ago while I was visiting my folks. I was contacted by my manager, who requested that I return to the home office “bright and early” the following Monday morning for an “important discussion”. Having rode the layoff train a couple of times in the past, I opted to just tell the manager that it was ok to fire me on the phone and save us both the hassle. He laughed, just a little, and said that I was safe “this time”.

A summary of our subsequent discussion goes like this: “Sell something, sell it within the next twenty four months, or your fate will be the same.” This gives me a little breathing room, but not much. It usually takes about 18 months to process a customer from first contact to receipt of a purchase order.

I had a very awkward discussion with one of my departing colleagues last week. I most humbly requested that she transfer any electronic documents of interest from her laptop to my portable hard drive. Without bating an eyelash, she politely told me to stick it. Can’t say that I blame her either! How awful, not to just be terminated, but to be terminated and then be forced to hand all your work over to your colleagues on your way out the door. It’s the real world, but sometimes it’s an awkward world.

I have another colleague that I need data from, but I’ve opted to have our IT department hold his laptop (as well as the other lady’s laptop) after his termination rather than have yet another awkward discussion.

I tried to say goodbye last week, but it just didn’t work out. At some point today I’ll craft a goodbye email and send it into the void.

Are you kidding me?!?

Several years ago (http://roadwearybusinessman.blogspot.com/2007/04/training-escapades.html) I wrote about a few of my brand new customers. Last week, all of these customers were laid off by their company. Layoffs aren’t new to the industry this year. Everyone is doing it. What’s different with this layoff is that the customer terminated ALL the employees who know how to use the equipment my company sold them. (Someone is seriously brain dead.)

It’s kind of like terminating all the public bus drivers and then expecting the buses to run on time. Crazy, crazy, crazy. What’s amusing is that the manufacturing company that purchased the equipment from my company wants me to return to their facility and begin training a new batch of engineers. For free.
There is absolutely no chance of that happening. We’ve sent them a quote of about $700 per hour if they would like me to grace them with my presence. Now if they would only pay ME the $700 an hour, life would be much better!

Don't go

I walked my daughter down the wedding aisle this Friday past. We were both nervous or anxious prior to “the walk”.

I decided that my job was to try to set her at ease, as much as I could. I had thought about saying something serious during our walk, but I could tell she was on the edge of tears, so I opted not to say anything tear inducing. As we waited to begin our walk, I made light jokes, but what I wanted to say was “please don’t go jess, it’s too soon, and you’re just not ready.” Instead I made light pitter patter with my words, trying to weave a tapestry of relaxation around her on this special night.

What I really wanted was for someone to weave a tapestry for me. Weave a tapestry for me where I’m still innocent and believe that love is all it takes to make it in this world. Weave me a tapestry where everyone ends up happy in the end and we each receive that which we have earned.

What I really wanted to tell my daughter was “don’t go, it’s too soon, you’re just a baby and you’re not ready for this commitment.” Instead, I explained to her that my job was to walk her through the wedding chapel hall and then down the wedding aisle without her twisting an ankle or falling over. I explained that I’ve not lost a daughter yet on “the walk”, so it would be a big favor to me if she would not fall down or twist an ankle and make me look like I wasn’t doing my job. What I really wanted to say was, “Please don’t go you’re not ready.”

And so we walked down the aisle. No broken bones, no twisted ankles. All too soon it was time for me to give her hand to another man. “Who gives this woman?” the preacher intoned.

I recall when Jess was born. It was 10:06PM on a Thursday evening. Into my life came this squalling, cheese covered, baby daughter, and my life has never been quite the same. We grew up together, this daughter and I.

And now here I was, tasked with the job of handing over one of my daisies to another man. Would he take care of her the way I have tried to? Would he love her the way I do? In the end, it made no difference what I thought. My daughter wanted to marry this young man, so I said “I do.”

…but what I wanted to say was “don’t go”.

Breakfast-St. Louis Style

The Siren call of the White Gravy (yes, something that good must be capitalized!) at the Cracker Barrel was too loud and insistent for me to ignore today. I dined there for my breakfast when I found that I was too late for breakfast at my hotel. Unfortunately, once I backed out of the trough, I was required to drive several hours and then take a customer out for lunch. (Breakfast was sitting oh-so-heavy in the breadbasket.) I ate a salad, just so the customer wouldn't feel odd about eating by himself. I could of easily skipped the entire meal.

This evening, the Siren beckoned me back to the trough once again, and I found myself trotting across the parking lot to answer the luscious, sultry, beckoning call of the White Gravy.

Next week, I swear I can't stay in this hotel. My Southern Bloodline gets all fired up when I'm in St. Louis and I just crave White Gravy. I must move further away from Cracker Barrel, I must move further away from Cracker Barrel, I must move closer to Cracker Barrel, I must move closer to Cracker Barrel…..

Perhaps next week I can find double fried chicken with waffles, maple syrup and White Gravy. That sounds wonderful, does it not?

The Quest has begun.

I can't see to type in a title...

I was working at a customer site in the Mid-West this past week. This particular site has been hit hard by the out sourcing of the manufacturing staff to overseas manufacturing sites. I had to laugh (and snap a picture) when I walked by this eye glasses collection box. I guess the manufacturing staff aren't so amused.

Stealth Dinner shots

There's a real art form to taking good, unobserved, pictures during meal time. I snapped this little baby at dinner one night this week. I was trying to make a choice between this meal, and a different meal that looked (in the menu) like a volcano shaped out of raw meat. I was leaning towards the meat volcano, but decided to ask the server for his input.

Take my really bad Japanese, the servers really bad English, and together it made for a worse combination. I think the server suggested this dish, so I gave it a whirl. I'm getting better at eating noodles and I don't wear them on my glasses or shirts so much anymore, but this meal was a challenge. The sauce thickened up a bit when I mixed in the egg. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 6. It lacked any zip or vigor. I should have gone with the meat volcano. Next time I will.

I have the beer , and the dinner to go with it, please

So I found a family owned restaurant a bit off the beaten path near my hotel. The dining establishment itself is fairly forgettable, but, the beer, my word. The meal pictured cost about 800Y. The beer cost 700Y. The beer itself, which the picture doesn’t even begin to do justice, was more like three full beers. It was gigantic. It was amazing.

I’ve had dinner there several times this week.

What's so bad about peace love and, uh, free?

I realized this week that I'm drawn, like a bee to a flower, moth to the flame, to any kind of product in the mini-marts that has something attached to it. Like something for free. So this trip, I'm collecting these little things that you see attached to my Dakara. I'm not sure what they are, but I think you attach them to your cell phone. I may remove my collection from their packages and hand them out as gifts when I return home.

(Sssshhhhh, don't tell on me.)

(I did almost buy a big drink last night that looked like it had some sort of tampon attached to the top. In the end, common sense took over and I opted not to buy it. I wish I had though. I went back tonight and it was sold out.)

Nose Mints

So its official, when I look at my passport, I do spend a lot of time in Japan. A couple of trips a year, a decade or so of travel to Japan, and it adds up to a lot of time here I've reached the point where I'm no longer interested in the mundane; I'm seeking out that which is quizzical, that which titillates my intellect.

I’m pleased to present “Nose Mints”. I love it with a passion. Not the mint itself, just the concept. I saw it last night in an AM/PM and just had to purchase it. It was only a few hundred Yen, no matter. It could have cost 1000 Yen and I’d still quickly purchased it.

I whipped it out at dinner tonight with out a second thought and proudly presented it to my colleges, all who whom happened to be Japan virgins. They had been in country only a matter of a few short hours, and the Nose Mints was too much. One would have thought that that I’d passed horrifically malodorous flatulence from the horrified looks on my colleagues scowling faces.

Relax, have a home brew, it’s just Nose Mints.

Coffee Nirvana

Wanna guess what I'm doing this trip?

Pancakes in Japan

I have no idea what these little babies are called, but I love them! You can pick them up at 7-11's or AM/PM's in the snack food section. Each package has four pancakes. Butter/jam has already been spread, so it's like a little pancake snack.
Yummy!

Father's Day

Father’s day has come and gone, and this year was a year to remember. Two of the kids spent the previous night at the house, so we stayed up late and watched a movie. The next morning they got up early and grabbed an Americano for me at Starbucks (being predictable in my beverage choice pays off!) and cooked breakfast for me (The house was filled with smoke! How can you do that with French toast anyway?) . I had to look around the breakfast table and smile a bit. Next year at this time, one daughter will be away in college and the other daughter will have gotten married and moved to Georgia or Nevada (military) to start a life on her own.

I’m so very happy that I had one last Fathers day exactly like that with my daughters before we all move on to the next stage of life. The next stage of life will be fine, but it won’t be like this, (daughters in the kitchen cussing over a French toast crisis) so I suppose I’m a little bit sad.

If I had one memory of Father’s day to file away in my memory banks to draw against on a rainy day, this was it. It was a good way to round out this stage of parenthood.

Domestic Bliss

While some may find travel in the US to be stimulating, I don't. Here's a pic from my hotel window in Pleasanton CA at sunrise following a semi-sleepless night. Yawn, to both the picture and the lack of sleep!

Jenglish

I just booked a hotel room in Japan for an upcoming trip. Here's part of the automated email confirmation.

"Thank you for an inquiry.
A receptionist did the following contents.
Please confirm it. In addition, this email is served automatically.
When this email contents have case without memorizing or any questions, sorry for your inconvenience but please refer to follows."

Humm...I may be forced to pick up the phone and call, which at times is an exercise in futility with my lack of Japanese language skills. Hotel operators generally aren't that intersted in my ability to order a large draft beer, which at times is the extent of my Japanese language skills.

I should just get off my lazy arse and learn Japanese. The last time I made a serious effort at learning Japanese I determined (days and days into my studies) that my course work was actually teaching me how to pick up Japanese women.

"Hello. My name is Steve. I am an engineer for company XXX. Would you like to dance with me?" I was a slow study. The dancing was odd to me, but I was kind of like, well, whatever...The next phrase, "would you like to see my hotel room?" really woke me up.

Now I stick to ordering cold draft beer. Which is great until you want to order a hotel room!

Who am I anyway?

I was signing one of the children’s birthday card (or some other holiday!) not so long ago. I found my fingers moving towards signing "Steve" instead of "dad". The kids want my involvement when it involves writing a check to pay for something they want. School tuition. Wedding expenses. They don't want my input when it actually includes my being involved in how that money is spent, they just want the money.

Last night was the youngest daughter’s senior prom. I was surprised at how out and out shitty (is that a word?) she treated us. She completely rearranged her schedule so that she wouldn't be here during the weekend and would instead be at her mom's. The older children at least made an effort to swing by our house on the way to prom.

This is just…shit.

A week in the Mid-West

I realized that I spent an inordinate amount of my time on this blog speaking of the places in visit in Japan. I visit more places in the US than I do in Japan, yet I never write about them. I’ll try to start incorporating more tidbits from domestic places that I visit. (Quite honestly, I find most of my travel in the US to be mind numbing, so I don't have that much to write about!)

This week I was visiting Missouri. I had some work to take care of near St. Louis and a bit of work in Rolla.

St. Louis: St. Louis is a strange town to me. I’ve driven through areas that look like they were firebombed. I’ve driven through areas that look quite quaint. Overall, I think the city is suffering a serious decline in the general population over the past several decades. This leaves the city with too many houses and not enough residents to fill them. Enter decline. I missed my exit on the freeway while talking with a colleague and ended up near the arch one afternoon.


Rolla: The folks are friendly, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s just a little too small town for me. It’s a college town with a plethora of fast food joints. While driving to Rolla I had to chuckle a little bit. It seems like the mid-west can be all about the extremes.


Jesus or Porn! I had high hopes to find a single billboard with two signs, one for Jesus and the other for porn, but I haven’t found it yet. I’ll keep looking.

Since I spend a lot (LOT) of my time traveling on the West Coast, it’s always a bit odd to run into these kids of billboards in the middle of the US.



I suppose I could count the billboards to see which side has a higher tally!

Liver quivers

So.....

I had dinner and drinks with my new boss and a few close colleagues. It was kind of a “going away” dinner for my old manager, so later during the post meal drinking, I jumped up and gave a impromptu speech. I thanked the departing manager for being my manager for the past several years, talked about how much I’d learned from him (which is actually true, I suppose) and then toasted him. It was very, very, Japanese.

I then also provided toasts for nearly everyone else sitting at the table and explained that I don’t know who my next manager will be, so I’m going to toast each person and say something nice about everyone. Big laughs from almost all.

Fade a few hours and I’m sitting in a bar with my new Scottish manager. We’ve had a lot to drink, but I paid close, close attention to my alcohol intake so that I would be (nearly) sober when we finally had a serious discussion.

The serious discussion finally came, and my new (temporary) manager asked for my input on myself replacing my previous manager. I said that quite honestly I’m not sure that I’m interested in the job. The department is a total mess and (my judgment) over half of the group needs to be terminated for cause. I’m just not that interested in promoting into a new job so that I can turn around and flush half the folks. The new temporary manager said that he’s going to be doing some of the clean up in my group himself, and we’ll see where we end up in a few months. In the mean time, I should bring my “A” game and show him what I can do. As an added bonus, I’m theoretically supposed to “take control” of the department and lead it. The only trick is that he’s not going to tell anyone else.

A recipe for failure if I ever read one.

Where’s my hotdog stand?

The beat of the new Maestro

April 1st equates to.....management reorganization! Historically it's been a once a year exercise in moving warm bodies to and fro on the org chart in the hopes that upper management won't realize that nothing has really changed except everyones job titles.

Except this year, with the economic meltdown, things are changing. There's blood in the water. An entire department has been axed. Bodies out the door, bodies on the floor. I didn't even have the opportunity to say goodbye to the co-workers that were terminated. They're just missing in action. The semiconductor industry is in a gigantic meltdown, so there's no where for these folks to go. Just out of work, with no job prospects.

In my department, the manager has been replaced with...no one. The manager has been moved to a different department, and I now report to the next level manager(my managers manager).

Other folks in my group seem quite concerned, but I'm a little more relaxed about it. I've been with this company for about eight years, and I've worked for seven different managers. Managers come and go in this department, and I remain. This may say far more about me than it says about those that I've reported to.

Yet this year, there's an air of desperation. We aren't loosing gigantic amounts of money, but nor are we making gigantic amounts of money. Breaking even isn't good enough. Profit is a must, at almost any cost.

Now that I have learned to sway to the baton of my hardworking Japanese Maestro, I must now learn to sway to the baton of my hardworking, hard drinking, Scottish Maestro.

My liver quivers in anticipation.

Floaters

So I ended up scrubbing my customers name off the technical paper that I published last month. I put a co-workers name on it as a "co-author" so that it wouldn't look so naked on the masthead. The customer was pretty bummed about having his name stripped off the paper, but I opted to give him the gift that I had selected anyway. Good deal for him, I suppose....No work and he receives a nice watch as a thank you gift.

I was given an I-POD touch by my own company (from my manager’s manager, who neglected to tell my manager of the gift). I had the pleasure of selecting my own gift, then acting surprised later when someone else gave it to me wrapped up nice and pretty. "Wow, how did you know I wanted this?"

I've recovered from my jet lag, and I seem to be sleeping through the night ok now.

I'm home this week and I'm kind of running around and trying to take care of all that stuff that I never do (like visit the doctor!) when I'm traveling all over the place. I did manage to clean off my desk at home, but I'm going through my usual confusion about being at home and trying to work again.

I wandered into my official office one day this week, and one day was enough to last me for the next few weeks.

I was laughing with a co-worker about a floating holiday I took off a few years ago. The company I work for has a seriously wacky time off request procedure. I may request the standard holiday or vacation day with no problem. I also have "floating holidays' that I may request to take for any day that falls into a category of "birthday, hire anniversary, any day falling before/after a company designated holiday in December, any day falling pre/post a standard vacation day at any time during the calendar year, OR any day that has special religious or ethnic importance to me. I put a bookmark on a world holiday calendar web site, and I would request a floating holidays for non-traditional holidays, such as Ananta-chaturdasi.

Predictability my manager would flip out, call me, and ask what the f--- Ananta-chaturdasi "is" and how in the world it's a significant holiday to me. I would (having done my homework) be prepared to tell him all about the holiday, and how my family and I would gather around the water pot each year in celebration of Ananta-chaturdasi and sprinkle the water with coconut shavings and flowers in honor of Lord Ananta Padmanaabha. I picked different holidays each time I used a floating holiday. I tried to dance around the ethnic food chain too! The guy I reported to slowly went insane trying to trap me into somehow admitting that the floating holiday I was requesting (say the Feast of the Annunciation, AKA waffle day) was somehow not important to me. In the several years that I played this game with him, he never seemed to realize that I was yanking his chain.

Anyway, we're laughing about this the other day, when one of my co-workers said "We should do it again, but pick obscure American Indian holidays." Co-worker #2 goes into instant huff and says "I find that offensive. I find that really offensive. My wife is an American Indian and that's just plain offensive."

We all stopped and looked at him like he had a penis sprouting from the center of his forehead and then resumed our discussion.

It's ok to laugh about obscure holidays from India, China, Tibet, or anywhere else so long as long they don't fall into your own backyard? (Or would that be it's ok to laugh as long as it's not outside your own teepee?)

Dum de dum dum dum

I snatched five hours of sleep last night! Yeehaw! I've been awake for a few hours, trying to tip toe around the house quietly. (I may only make it a little while longer before I'm forced to break into song to wake my wife.)

I have a pile of work that I need to do, but, I'm not doing it this weekend.

Yawn!

I'm playing my usual game of not sleeping well after returning from Japan. I went to bed yesterday at 10PM and woke up (for the day!) at 1AM. For thoes that dream of the excitement of travel, this is the payback that you don't see. Alone, bored, and killing time in the middle of the night as the body clock returns to normal. I believe that I watched five (1, 2, 3, 4, 5!) episodes of House back to back.

Bon appetit!

The other night at dinner I had to query my host, “What exactly IS that???”



“Organs” he said.



“Organs?” I said



“Organs” he replied.



They tasted exactly as one would expect them to taste.

Arriving in Mito

Mito is just a little smaller than Tokyo.

Train out of Ueno

Ueno Park

It's the start of Cherry Blossom season in Ueno. Not that many trees are in full flower, but this tree sure was! Notice all the people taking a picture of the tree. This is serious business.


It's difficult to explain how serious the Japanese are about the Cherry Blossom. It's considered good luck to pass out drunk underneath a Cherry Tree, so many Japanese will stake a claim to a cherry tree early in the morning for a picnic later in the day.




I enjoyed watching this guy painting. He seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around him.






A juggler. Personally, I thought he wasn't that good. I can't juggle at all, so he was better than me. But still....



Portable snack shop service baby squid encased in a corn bread like coating.

Tokyo

I shot this out my hotel window this morning in Tokyo. It's always fun for me to look out the window at the ants below! (It's better to watch with a cup of coffee.)

You never know what you're gonna run into

Edit what?

After pulling out most of the stops, I managed to piece together a technical paper (customer C) that’s heading for publication next month. (It’s a cute little deal where I write the paper, then slap my customers name on the paper and they take all the credit.) Anyway, the customer loved the paper, but he somehow had a SERIOUS brain fart and gave the paper to his marketing department.

When times are busy, no one has time to review these papers. When times are slow, like now, everyone, especially marketing people, want to pour over each and every little tiny detail of a paper that’s heading for publication. The paper was kicked back to me today from the customers marketing department, with about fifty changes DEMANDED.

Mind you, I’ve already sent the paper in for publication. This will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few days. I’m not offering to rewrite it. I can’t. It’s already been submitted. I’m willing to make a few modifications, but I can’t do a total rewrite at this point. I’ll yank the customers name off it and publish it under my own name if I need to.

In a strange twist of irony, I was requested by my company to select a gift for my customer to thank him for writing the paper. Is that messed up or what??? I picked a nice watch for myself, err, I mean my customer.

The time has come to address customer B this week.

flush-flush-flush

I’ve come to realize that in addition to being annoyed by my fellow travelers who talk while urinating (in the airport restrooms), I also don’t like my fellow travelers who brag to other passengers about how much they travel. Yawn.

I keeping flushing the toilet on the cesspool I outlined in my previous post, and two of the customers keep floating back up.

The stress has actually been waking me up at night for the past few weeks.

And we're off!

I’m sitting on a boiling cesspool of customer irritation as I begin the New Year.

Customer A is expecting that their equipment will be functional when they return from their two week holiday next Monday morning. It isn’t. I’m a software guy, it’s a hardware issue. Taint happening.

Customer B is expecting that I’ve sent them reams of technical documentation while they were on holiday the past three weeks. That just didn’t happen either.

Customer C is expecting that I finished writing up a paper for publication next month while the customer was off on holiday the past two weeks. Nor did that occur. I suppose it would help me to actually start writing the paper this month if I want to publish it next month. It seems like my publication submission deadline is on the 22nd of this month.

Tick tock…tick tock.