Not only does it suck not getting paid, but finding insurance is just as annoying. Just thought I’d share. On the bright side, Nova finally went bankrupt.
The whole sitch is just frustrating.
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Archive for November, 2007
No, this season of Ugly Betty still isn’t doing much for me, but the most recent episode was pretty cool if anything ‘cuz Eliza Dushku was a guest star on the show. Sadly, she wasn’t kicking ass or anything and was only in it for like five seconds, but I’m still glad I got the chance to see her on TV again.
She threw a guitar. AND found God. Heh.
We had a meeting at work on Sunday, and they gave us two options. Option A was go back to work immediately, but not necessarily as a teacher. The work would include moving boxes, cleaning, basically grunt work but paid at the same rate as before. The hours are subject to change as are the duties. Not overly appealing, but it’s work and it’s money. Option B is to start teaching again Jan 10 with a 150,000 Yen “gift” (not an advance, not a bonus) to tide us over until then. With this option we would be paid within the next few days, but then not again until Feb 5th due to pay periods and the like. Not too shabby, but not necessarily enough.
My first instinct was to go with Option B; seemed nice and everything. After some thought, however, Option A would be more money and give me something to do. Now that Gunthar Rob is gone (he left today), I won’t have an easily accessible coffee-buddy anymore. It’s been tolerable this past month mostly due to the fact that Gunthar Rob was around to waste time with. I’m not gonna kid myself into believing that I’ll be productive and while the private lessons are good, they’re not exactly enough in terms of savings. The other bit of information confirmed is that I will be leaving in March.
So yeah. Not exactly looking forward to the grunt-work, but I also won’t be coming home at 11:00 every night either, which is kind of a nice thing. Oh. And I probably won’t be home for Christmas, so I think that pulls me out of the gift thing. 
With the work situation so up in the air, Anna decided to host American Thanksgiving early so that no one had to worry too much about working the next day or the day of; since Canadian Thanksgiving was last month (or earlier at least), it seemed all right to have a late-early Thanksgiving.
Mike and Anna bought yet another oven, this one was bigger, and turkeys — yes, that’s plural — weeks in advance for the event. I went over early, with a few other folk, to help prepare what we could. Kat, Katrina, Jack’s roommate Jason, and I were in charge of peeling potatoes and rolling lumpia, the meat kind that everyone likes. Mike bought himself a fancy new camera and was taking preparation pictures while the end of Braveheart played in the background.
By the time all the cooking was finished and all the guests arrived it was closer to 8:00, only an hour off the projected time. It was a freaking nice spread: two turkeys, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, deviled eggs, vegetable plates, lumpia, rolls, gravy (served in the gravy boat given to them by Darya — and Jacob?), and of course, pumpkin pie for dessert. We watched Goonies while we ate and naturally broke off into conversations.
The last bus was at 10:20, but a few of us stuck around to hang out. We ended up drinking peppermint hot chocolate and just chillaxin’, as my brother would say.
I’m really glad to have met such friends as these in a country far from home and far from the people I’ve known for so long. Despite being in a non-Western country, I’m glad we’ve managed to keep up our customs surrounded by good people and good times.
Freaking AWESOME Thanksgiving!
I find it amusing that I never really do much during the actual day of my birthday — it’s always dinner or something like that.
I started the day off with a phone call from my mom (on behalf on my parents). It was actually quite pleasant, which made me very happy because after our last conversation, I was expecting something bad. So yay.
I passed the afternoon with Gunthar Rob at Starbuck’s, which has been our usual haunt for the past month of unemployment. He bought me a coffee and a danish; he’s good people like that. While we were there, I got a phone call from an Unset ID (usually means someone from home). I thought I picked up in time, but all I ended up hearing was garbled noise. Afterwards, it went to the voice mail, a feature I thought was really strange because I thought I picked up the call, and got sung to. Here is the part where I suck as a friend…I could not quite discern the voices, so I’m not all that sure who the song was from (although, I suspect it was Darya and Jacob ‘cuz I think they’re the only ones who have my Japanese cell phone number). Thank you, friends! Sorry I suck, though. I have the song-message saved, however, and was quite happy to have received it. 
Rob and I ended up wandering around until it was time to go to dinner. We went to Yakiniku Goen, the one next to Slices; the same place we took my parents to. Not everyone I invited could make it for various reasons, but the people who ended up putting in an appearance were all good peoples: Gunthar Rob, my roommate Rob, Steve, Mike, Anna, and Kat (who appeared earlier than she expected — she had to work). They ordered me a beer, which I had a few sips of but then handed it off to Steve. Try as they might, I will never really appreciate beer the same way others do. Mike and Anna gave me an awesome present of Pepsi and Pepsi products; I got me a schnazzy new Pepsi pencil case, Pepsi pens, and Pepsi pencils. Tres cool.
Pictures were taken, the birthday song was song, and dead animal was eaten. I’m glad that no matter what country I reside it, and despite absent faces, I always manage to have a good time with people I love.
Cheers mates!
ARGH!!!
I just did the math. You son of a bitch! Just go bankrupt already so I can see 80% of what I’m owed.
*insert swearing here*
I know what you’re thinking. I’m still financially sound, but the dollar/yen conversion is actually comparable right now. Grrr…argh…
Yup. I’m a chump. This is what I get for holding out hope and stuff. What a dumb ass.
On Thursday, we were informed that there would be a meeting today (Saturday) at the MM center for all employees. This seemed to us to be a formal announcement, so we all attended. Some of us dressed like we were going to work (myself included), others not-so-much. I was seriously wishing that I was less inclined to follow the rules because when we were brought to the 17th Floor, there were no chairs, so we all had to sit on the floor. It was a bad start to the meeting.
They were using the Ginganet (the one I use to teach) system to do the conference. First, we heard from G.communication, the company that has more or less taken over the Nova name. I can’t say they were overly informative since most of what they talked about was stuff we already knew from the newspaper. What many of us really wanted to know about was our unpaid wages, unemployment insurance, and about jobs.
The guy started to talk about something to do with the Ginganet system, but unfortunately for us, the sound cut out and we have no idea what was said. When sound finally returned, we totally missed what was being discussed. Again, not a good sign.
To be fair, they did talk about the job prospect. From what we understood, G.communication wants to give employment to all those seeking it. At one point, they said “Of course, we will not hire anyone who does not want t job.” (The literal translation sounded a lot funnier to us.) At the time, I was thinking it better to just cut my losses and go. (I would later reconsider this — mostly ‘cuz I’m inconsistent like that.) They also said that some official type person would explain to us about how to get these unpaid wages. They also spend a lot of time telling us how difficult this time has been for them, too. All three of the men who spoke talked about it. Seriously not helping.
That was one hour of our lives.
When the official-type people put in their appearance, it was closer to 11:30 or so. The poor girl they got to be the translator was incredibly difficult to understand. She was not a strong English speaker and she was too soft-spoken to be heard. I freely admit that I couldn’t help thinking, “What happened to the other guy?” (He had been clear to understand and seemingly quick to translate.) Lucky for us, we were sitting by Junko (probably the nicest, friendliest, and most adorable LS staff memeber!) and we asked her what was going on. For the most part, they were just reading us the form they handed to us. Herein lay (honestly, not sure about this one, I’m going for past tense) our frustration in that we’re all literate individuals; they didn’t really need to read it to us word for word when they could have been telling us about information not on the sheet. To be fair, I admit to not understanding legalese, but they really weren’t answering any of our questions, if that makes any sense.
When it got time for Q&A, one teacher flat out said he had trouble understanding the interpreter and asked some clarification questions. This back and forth resulted in one of the other instructors (our guess was Spanish from the accent) to stand up and answer for the official-types. Again, we couldn’t help but think, “Why not get one of the LS girls to interpret for us?”
What it all comes down to is that we need to officially resign from Nova to get a job at the new place, which is essentially the same only with a different company backing it. They seemed to stress that they wanted to make this transition as easy as possible for us. In terms of the unpaid wages, we will not see any of that money until Nova officially declares bankruptcy, we’d only see about 80% of that money, and it could take anywhere from four to six months, or possible one year. Again, not the most encouraging information.
Rob, Katrina, and I (Mike and Anna left about half an hour before us) left the meeting in cynical moods. I submitted my resignation paper, or the paper requesting the resignation paper or some such, but not the paper saying I wanted a position at the new place. I was really just wanting to get out of there.
Three hours of our lives that didn’t really help us much. Admittedly, there were a few things that were helpful, but the majority of the time just felt wasted. It was great to see Junko, though. She’s always fun.
The three of us ate Hawaiian burgers to make ourselves feel better and then hung out in the sun sitting on benches in Namba Parks afterwards. Mike and Anna ended up joining us later for coffee (seriously, been drinking Chocolate Mint Mochas like there’s no tomorrow!) and they relayed more information to us. They had both gone up to the 19th Floor (kind of like the admin part of our building) to ask more questions.
I ended up going back to the building to submit the other forms ‘cuz they made a good point in that at least we’d have a job and a paycheck again. According to the information they were given, the new company (provided we are employed by them) would have a paycheck for us by the end of the month, and pay us for twenty days regardless of if we worked those days.
All of this however, could have been lost in translation.
The company people said they hope to start interviews as soon as Wednesday. I’m not holding my breath about anything, though. For as much as having income again would be great, I’ve been just as jaded as everyone else about this whole mess. I know this may sound petty, but I want my money. I worked for it, it would be nice to have it. I know I’ve said I’m not in dire straits or anything, and this is true, but that doesn’t mean I lack financial needs.
It’s times like this I wish my Japanese was a bit better.
Yay! They brought back the chocolate mint mochas to Starbuck’s Japan! Nothing compared to the peppermint mochas back home, but it’s still quite tasty. I know I should really stop drinking Starbuck’s ‘cuz it’s expensive, but part of me figures I have the money and going to Starbuck’s is one of the only ways I have to stay social. I mean, coffee in this country generally sucks and I’d be paying about the same amount to drink bad coffee, may as well pay that much and get something good.
Rahr.
Yesterday, Steve and I got it in our heads that we needed to head out to Umeda to visit Hello Work, the English-speaking labor office. After talking to Anna, who’d been keeping us informed, we eventually came to the conclusion that since she was pretty much relaying what Hello Work had told her, it would probably be all right if we didn’t end up going to hear the same thing over again. (Perhaps this was folly on our part, perhaps not. Tomorrow is supposed to be some big telling day, so I guess we’ll find out.)
Since we’d made plans to visit Umeda, we didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t still go. I mean, come on people Umeda is where the pretty, pretty books live, and we all know how I’m a book-whore. (I believe that hyphening is not required, but is still sufficient in it usage.) I was also in contact with Anna so I got it in my head that we should all do something together in the north part of Osaka.
Steve and I wandered around Kinokuniya for a bit; with the release of Beowulf coming soon (and with all this time on my hands) I had it in my head that I should try and find the dual-translation copy I’d seen there before. To my misfortune, it was out. Some other time then, me thinks.
We went to meet Mike and Anna at Yodabashi Camera and decided we should get something to eat. We went up to the 8th floor of Yodabashi to look around the restaurant floor. It turned out that Mike and Anna had already eaten, so Steve and I settled on kontatsu ramen at this random place. For the record, spicy ramen and Kinryuu ramen are far better ramen places that where the hell we ended up. Since it wasn’t enough to just eat lunch, we went down to Excelsior Coffee; and again, this place does not compare to Seattle’s Best or Starbuck’s. What did we learn about Umeda from this kids? Aside from the pretty, pretty books and the dead animal (at Outback), it really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
While we were drinking coffee, we got to talking about the amazing roast that Anna makes. I mentioned how I hoped to try some again, and she said if I bought the roast, she’d cook it. When it was first mentioned, it was more of a passing thing, but the more we talked about it, the more we decided to have an impromptu dinner party. Steve and I were in charge of going to Costco (since we were in Umeda, we figured it would work), while Mike and Anna finished their errands and went home to Bentencho to clean house.
The trek out to Amagasaki was quite easy, and we managed to catch the charter bus on time as well. We selected a pretty big haunch of beef, or as Mike put it “big slab beef” (as the kanji read), purchased our dinner and walked back to the bus stop. As we sat on the benches, Steve realized he didn’t have his wallet on him. He knew he didn’t take it out or anything of the sort while we were in Costco, so we figured that it must be in Umeda somewhere. Not that this was overly comforting news, but at least we ruled out Costco. I remembered he had pulled it out to pay for ramen, so we at least knew he had had it at lunch. There had been really only two places we’d gone, so in my head it wouldn’t be that hard to retrace our steps. Steve went looking through his things again, and as he did so, the bus stop attendant guy came and spoke to us. Steve translated that he must have dropped his wallet either on the bus, or near the bus stop, and that the attendant fellow took the wallet to Information inside the CarreFour Mall. He tried to convey to us where it was, but all we could understand was 2nd Floor. At this point, one of the other shoppers spoke up and gestured for us to follow her. The bus was to leave at 4:45 PM, we were setting off to the Information area at 4:40. T minus five minutes. And go!
For a little old lady, she was actually kinda hard to keep up with! Steve and I once again experienced a Japanese-moment. A lot of people will disparage the country and its people, and I’m not naive enough to say that there are things that are perfect about this country, but the kindness and willingness to help (when you catch the right situations) is something we don’t get a lot in our home countries. At least, not to my own memory. If this had happened in Chicago, I can’t help but wonder if the same kind of person would be around to take time to physically take us to the place we needed to go. Steve said if this had been Glasgow, his wallet would be as good as never seen again.
We booked it to the Information table, thanked the little old lady profusely, and retrieved the dropped wallet. Steve had to sign a little book thing, and then he and I raced back to the bus stop. Time check - 4:44. Run like hell.
Ironically, the bus was late. So it all worked out rather well for us. The bus stop attendant smiled at Steve, shook his hand, and said he’d recognized Steve from his gaijin card.
We arrived at JR Amagasaki Station right in time to catch a train back to Osaka. From there, we caught the number 88 bus to Minami Ichioka (the stop near Mike and Anna’s pad) just as we’d arrived at the bus station. We were making excellent timing in catching transportation.
Unfortunately for us, we were unaware of how long it took from Umeda to Minami Ichioka. From Namba, it’s all of fifteen minutes; not so from Umeda — it seemed more like 40 mins. We conjectured (nice ol’ fashioned word) that we might have been better off catching the subway back to Namba first since it was rush hour and the Midosuji comes like every five seconds at that time of day. (Oh well, something to remember for next time.)
It was near 6:00 by the time we made it to Mike and Anna’s. Anna got to preparing things while the boys were doing something British involving the Internet and copious amounts of laughter. I got to peel potatoes and help mash ‘em, although, I was good at neither tasks. (Still, I got to peel potatoes and mash help mash ‘em! Woo!)
Anna had asked if we wanted to eat and watch something, or just have a sit-down meal. I had been quick to chime in with “sit-down” since I wanted to try and act my age for a night. It was closer to 7:30 by the time everything was ready. Katrina had joined us by this time and we all sat down to a grown-up dinner. There was the roast beef, mashed potatoes (obviously), caramelized onions, butter-rice, steamed vegetables, bread, salad, Coke, an apple, grape, and strawberry “desert” juice, and cheesecake (three different types — I had the Belgian chocolate…soooooo goooood….!) for dessert. It was one helluva spread. We praised Anna’s cooking and enjoyed the music Mike put on; our conversation naturally flirted with our work conditions but did not dominate the whole of it. We talked about our fleeing friends, how nice the wedding was, how bad the weather’s been with the rain, our plans for Thanksgiving dinner, general things like that. I was reminded of the dinners we used to have at Chris and Mark’s.
Anna, Katrina, and I ate our dessert at the table while Steve and Mike went into the other room to watch Army of Darkness. There was something amusing to me about that situation. Anyway, Anna showed us the finished pictures from the wedding; Rob had shown me them as he worked on them, but now I got the chance to see the finished product. They were really cool.
We laughed, we ate, we talked…it was a really nice dinner party.
I can’t say that I’ve been really productive. I mean, in some ways I have. When the announcement was made, I was busy with Mike and Anna’s wedding thing; and in truth, I’d taken vacation days thereafter, so I would have always had this week off from work as it is. (Of course now I wonder if this means I lost the payment for these vacation days…)
I’ve been keeping busy, or perhaps the more appropriate term is “social” during this time. Since we did not get paid on the 15th (or the 19th, or the 24th) like we were supposed to, Clint and Laura took that as a sign to move on. Both of them had re-signed their contracts, but after Clint got evicted, they both just kinda threw in the towel. Like I’d said before, I can’t blame ‘em…but like with a lot of this, it doesn’t mean I’m sad to see them go any less. Knowing that they were going to be gone soon, I tried to schedule time to see them before, well, today actually (they flew out this afternoon).
I went to Kiyomizu with Laura last Wednesday before the wedding, and then on Monday we spent some time in Star’s Hollow. There’d also been this thing with going to Tennoji to see the parakeets; and then that night, Steve, Clint, Laura, and I went to Outback for our “last supper”, as Steve tagged it in facebook (which, yes, I did get suckered into joining).
Tuesday there was hanging out with Gunthar involved, closely followed by kidnapping Kat. Wednesday was Scottish Lou and her boyfriend Ryan’s Halloween/Sayonara party at their house, so I went to that (for like five seconds and then promptly left ‘cuz we all know how I feel about people); thereafter Fight Club went to Mike and Anna’s for an all-night movie thing. We watched Ghostbusters, The Omen (the original), and the first Treehouse of Horror. Most of us dropped off after that, since it was 4 A.M.
The next morning (Thursday), Mike and Anna made pancakes, bacon, eggs, and toast. We watched the Buffy episodes Hush and Halloween while we ate, and then we put in this crappy movie Death Burger (but the American title is Drive Thru, I think). Oh man, the hilarity of the movie. So. Bad. But then we watched The Frighteners, which was actually much better than I expected. Then again, maybe any movie following that craptacular slasher flick would have been amazing.
I ended up going over to Katrina’s apato later that evening to watch some Season 1 of Alias.
So yeah, I’ve spent most of this time keeping social.