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I came in probably 3 minutes late and the director of engineering gave myself, my boss and my other coworker, who rides his motorcycle to work, a warning about tardiness.  The catch was that even a single minute would be considered bad.  The fucker didn't even have the courtesy to write it in English for myself.

That whole thing really pissed me off and showed me what an unreasonable person this drone is.  The office at work has become even more "Japanese."  The recruiter, who got me in initially, appealed to me by saying that the environment was American.  What a bunch of horseshit.  I'm not sure what happened but the entire environment sucks shit.

My coworker the other day said how gloomy the sales side had become.  One of the assistants will be leaving at the end of the month, even though she had worked at the company for quite some time (maybe 5 years until now).  I feel bad for many of my coworkers because they work without any sense of reward.  There is no achievable goal in the company and people work for the sake of a meaningless paycheck that, for all honesty, probably won't be elevated for quite sometime, especially considering how badly the sales has been (which in truth is a result of the overall global economy).

There's been a lot of this micropolitics in the company, especially with upper management.  They're completely clueless and just are pushing forward without any capability to guide the company in the right direction.  Even my coworkers recently expressed a great deal of frustration with the management because of their incompetence, to the point where some people are attempting to handle the situation on their own (since upper management does nothing to really help people there).

But like my previous blog the other day where I mentioned how older Japanese men on average are assholes, I have linked most of the problem to the fact that the management are older Japanese men in that same age range.  Japanese older men really have no capability of leadership, at least none that I have witnessed.  Their idea of leadership is Machiavellian.  In other words, take out the bullwhip, threaten people and impose their micropolitics to enforce more slavery out of their underlings.

In the past, I could see why a certain attitude could prevail.  People in the boom period had goals to achieve, especially when the country was recovering from WWII.  Now, the country, having been through several recessions, still mentally is in that mode, believing that the failed system of the 80's will continue to support the country.  However, as countries like India and China quickly exceed Japan due to sheer resources and their growing economy (which was funded by the US in part), Japan's refusal to adapt to the global climate continues to leave the country in stagnation.

Again, I mostly blame these older Japanese men, who worked in a different time period and got used to a certain system of control (I also blame the yakuza, but that's a different story).

At work, I internally laugh at management as they gawk in awe at companies like Google for their success without understanding the core reasons why such a company can succeed (not necessarily in Japan).  They worship on a precipe these companies and leave it at that.  However, these people never proactively DO a thing to enact change within the company, but simply push forward with their slow, archaic and meaningless methods.

My coworker the other day and I discussed about some of the advantages of having an international education, most notably in the US.  I realized that Japanese people who at one time had studied aboard, especially in a country like the US, are more flexible and better suited for handling the impending globalization.  And I realize that many of the most successful managers I've seen in Japan had some form of international education.

He commented that the management at work have no legitimate experience in management, despite given their positions.  Management means more than cracking a whip or micromanaging people.  Management, to me, means being a leader, leading by example, being pro-active, taking charge, showing innovation, balancing out the needs of the business with the human factors internal to a company, and caring for people to ensure that people can succeed.  Whenever people leave the company and management sit back in wonder what to do to prevent the hemoraging, I cannot help but think how these people just lack any knowledge for dealing with anything but tiny environments.

As this is my 3rd company in Japan, and as I have numerous friends in companies around town, I realized that to a huge degree, Japan is an incredibly frustrating place for business.  When I was employed at Ticketmaster.com, I often asked some of the upper management why they never went after Japan.  While perhaps people like the yak in having heavy influence over the entertainment industry might've proved a stumbling block, I think the real reason is that Japan is just a hassle and really isn't worth the effort.

Japan likes to think of itself as an island unto itself.  They often refer to themselves as "Japanese" (kinda like how a person would talk about themselves in the 3rd person voice), there's clear divides when it comes to nationalism, they're absolutely stubborn in terms of listening to what's right or wrong, and they're constantly described as having this "island" mentality.  It's funny how a country with supposedly the 2nd largest global economy has come this far and is able to maintain its position in the market.

But I believe that's slowly changing.  The limits on successful exports, the small size of the country, the limited resources, the constant inflation, the declining birth rate, etc. all contribute to what I feel is a limit to growth.  More than that though, Japan just cannot catch up the way it used to and will one day become irrelevant and nothing more than a fetish for tourists.

Pride will, indeed, kill this country more than anything.  As everyone well knows, pride is a deadly sin.  But here we can clearly see why pride is such a deadly sin.  The absolute refusal to admit that one is wrong for fear of humiliation is more important than the survival and growth of this nation.  People want to retain the pathetic cultural identity of their past without realizing that humans evolve.

I take back what I said about this country as a great opportunity to exploit from a business point of view.  Now, I feel that this country is absolutely worthless in the long term and that it's not worth the anguish of dealing with all the peculiars that is slowly tearing this country apart.

The funny part though is how people who haven't lived here view this country.  I see many people who blindly admire this country just because they might like anime, the electronic devices, sushi, or temples.  It's fetishism/orientalism because most people don't understand the peculiars and idiosynchrasies of how this country operates.  But when you start learning the language and truly understanding how things work, you want to look away and purge your memories because what you may see will truly disgust and horrify you.

I think the saddest part is that not everyone here is a bad person.  Quite the contrary.  Unfortunately, people here are subjugated to an oppressive system that ends up poisoning many people's souls.  What you end up having are soulless automatons just waiting to keel over.  My only wish is that Japan would get permanently integrated by the US so that all these jackasses will finally get kicked out and de-empowered so that people actually have the opportunity to enjoy their rights as human beings.