Day 1 In The Office
After 2 weeks of training with fellow employees from the USA and Malaysia, I spent my first day in the office. My group is growing and last Friday they packed up and moved to a floor in the building across the street. The company I work for is huge, $1.5 billion, with 3500 employees in 16 international locations. The headquarters is in Osaka. I'm based out of the Tokyo sales office. My boss is in Nagoya, a few hours away by bullet train.
First thing in the office I helped move and unpack boxes, in my suit. Then, I unpacked my desk. The office is really open, in traditional Japanese style. My group has 2 rows of 5 desks face-to-face. There are no cubes. The division chief sits 2 desks away from me. Everyone hears everyone else's conversations. It's very communal and cordial. All of the desk phones are cordless, but look like cell phones instead of the normal cordless phones in the homes back home.
Once I unpacked my desk I went to the HR department to finalize some papers. I picked up my new cell phone. They bought one that has menus in English and Japanese. The manual is a couple of hundred pages. These phones do everything imaginable. They are more complex than my computer, which by the way, is all in Japanese. Every program and the OS are in Japanese, so I've got my work cut out for me. Luckily, the e-mail program is Lotus Notes, which I used for the past 5 years at my old job. While I can't read the menus yet, at least I know how the program works and its capabilities.
I signed up for the lunch delivery service today. The cost was $4 and the money is deducted from my paycheck at the end of the month (payday is once per month, which is normal in Japan). The lunch service is very convenient as the price is good and the food is brought to my desk.
In the afternoon I reviewed some contracts for a project my boss is working on. Tomorrow I head to the company lawyers with my boss and entourage for some project contract negotiations. Nothing like jumping in with both feet.
Just felt a small earthquake as I was writing this. It's been several weeks since I felt one, so guess it was about time.
First thing in the office I helped move and unpack boxes, in my suit. Then, I unpacked my desk. The office is really open, in traditional Japanese style. My group has 2 rows of 5 desks face-to-face. There are no cubes. The division chief sits 2 desks away from me. Everyone hears everyone else's conversations. It's very communal and cordial. All of the desk phones are cordless, but look like cell phones instead of the normal cordless phones in the homes back home.
Once I unpacked my desk I went to the HR department to finalize some papers. I picked up my new cell phone. They bought one that has menus in English and Japanese. The manual is a couple of hundred pages. These phones do everything imaginable. They are more complex than my computer, which by the way, is all in Japanese. Every program and the OS are in Japanese, so I've got my work cut out for me. Luckily, the e-mail program is Lotus Notes, which I used for the past 5 years at my old job. While I can't read the menus yet, at least I know how the program works and its capabilities.
I signed up for the lunch delivery service today. The cost was $4 and the money is deducted from my paycheck at the end of the month (payday is once per month, which is normal in Japan). The lunch service is very convenient as the price is good and the food is brought to my desk.
In the afternoon I reviewed some contracts for a project my boss is working on. Tomorrow I head to the company lawyers with my boss and entourage for some project contract negotiations. Nothing like jumping in with both feet.
Just felt a small earthquake as I was writing this. It's been several weeks since I felt one, so guess it was about time.
posted by Terry & Mio @ 8:30 PM
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