What makes a job awesome? A great view? A lot of vacation
days? A nice break room? Sure, those things help as far as enhancing the work
environment, but the real factor determining a love or hate of your job is your
coworkers.
The Japanese know hospitality better than every 1950’s
housewife combined. I mean, these hospitable, generous-beyond-reckoning people
would give a stranger the shirt off of their backs in a heartbeat. I discovered
the true degree to which Japanese will demonstrate their kindness yesterday
over a seemingly simple task. I heard about a cheap gym nearby the main train
station where I live from another ALT working here. He said that it was really
cheap and clean, but warned me that signing up was difficult as none of the
employees at the gym spoke any English. My cocky alter ego brushed this advice
aside, thinking “psh, how hard can it possibly be?” Pretty freaking hard, it
turns out. I walked into the gym and there was a lot of awkward pointing and
trying to simplify our languages in the hopes of the other party understanding
but to no avail. So, I took an information flyer and figured I could ask a
teacher later.
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| Everyone's thoughts here when they talk to me |
I asked one of the teachers the next day (poor guy, since he
sits beside me he is always the one I ask to translate every single thing. For
example, I bring him my mail everyday and ask what is important and what I can
toss) about the flyer. He said that I could sign up online for only 500 yen or
in person for 1000. The difference between $5 may seem trivial, but not to a
teacher who hasn’t been paid yet and won’t be for another couple of weeks.
Plus, $5 can buy me an entrée at an Indian restaurant for lunch or a glass of
wine out at dinner. Not to mention a delicious Starbucks latte. The point is,
if I could save five dollars by signing up via an easier method, I’d instantly
oblige. So, the teacher said he would help me and dropped everything he was
doing, which I imagine was really important, and tried to get on the site.
However, the schools in Japan are so paranoid about viruses that they block
basically every website, so we couldn’t log on.
Later, I was chillin’ with the vice principal watching the
students practice for their festival and we were talking about running and I
mentioned that I like to run inside when it rains and told him about my gym
situation. He got serious all of a sudden and informed me that we WOULD get me
signed up before I left for the day. So, next time we got to the teachers’ room
he tried to sign up on a school computer only to be greeted by the same warning
message that it was an insecure site. Did Mr. VP let this get him down? Heck
no! He asked one of the younger teachers for his smart phone and asked him to
help me sign up. Eventually, there was a group of about five of us huddled
around signing me up on the smartphone. One teacher then called the gym and
asked what else I needed to do to ensure I was all set up. He then asked the
teacher who speaks English the best if he would accompany me to the gym to
translate while the employees there give me the “welcome to the gym” speech.
The English teacher agreed without the slightest bit of hesitation.
Seriously,
none of this would ever happen in the states.
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