# Just a hi



## ninenewneckties

New member here. Been here more than a decade, all in the countryside, married with kids and permanent residency. 

I still have lots of questions, so I hope we can get some convo going on this forum!

What do you do? I'm an office worker. Will probably be here in some fashion for the next decade or so.


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## myrrh

ninenewneckties said:


> New member here. Been here more than a decade, all in the countryside, married with kids and permanent residency.
> 
> I still have lots of questions, so I hope we can get some convo going on this forum!
> 
> What do you do? I'm an office worker. Will probably be here in some fashion for the next decade or so.


You're an office worker working out in the Japan countryside? Congratulations on attaining the fluency in Japanese that would make such a hire possible! Where and when did you pass your 1kyuu?

I am an upper-level administrator and tenured faculty member at a major institution of higher education. (Is this vague enough? I hope so.) I also do advising work with the Japanese government. I too have permanent residency. Nice to meet you as well!

In my humble opinion--with no disrespect intended to anyone--one of the reasons for the lack of dialogue here is the amount of "drive-by" comments/queries. Many (most?) of these people ask challenging (often bizarrely so) questions or post about (extremely far-fetched) employment scenarios...and then never return even to say thanks. Even more problematic is how some seem to post the exact same questions over and over again (i.e., they post, wait for answers, and post the same thing to the same board again some months later) both here and to other boards (including one board I moderate) as a form of trolling. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any solutions to offer. I do hope that this is a real post, as I am interested in the hows and whys of a countryside office worker position. (Usually, the pay for these positions is absolutely awful, so anybody with that level of Japanese fluency plus degrees/qualifications opts for the many better positions available to them elsewhere.)


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## ninenewneckties

Let's see, I think I passed 1-kyuu in 2012 or 13. I've done some interesting work with it, but nothing earth-shattering. It's nice to have the new job to challenge me again.

You're right about the pay in the countryside. In that regard I am quite lucky but still far underpaid compared to city workers or people back in my country. We live in a house with my MIL, which has a couple advantages and many disadvantages, but as she is getting some medical treatment right now it seems to be the best option. Would be a lot easier if we could see the future but that's not how it works hey?

Two difficulties regarding the new position are related. One is the speed of communication and change. The other is a lack of realistic planning regarding my hire. Shacho wants to get more international with his products, which is great. Although some coworkers are interested in helping think about how to do this, they are very company-centered (we could do this! or this!). I prefer to go to the customer to discover what's needed, but customer contact, planning, and production are all different divisions. In order to 'access' customers I need to go through another division who haven't been notified that I'll need access. Since this has been brought up before any notification was passed down from above, they now think they have the right of refusal. In fact, one guy over there said, "I don't want you wasting your time waiting on individual customers. You should create the website first and start making sales abroad." Cart before the horse! Grrrr. Now the course has been set and it's going to be the Japanese long game in getting it changed.

Do you suffer from the declining perks and benefits of professorship that's happening across the board, or are yours fixed?


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## myrrh

ninenewneckties said:


> Let's see, I think I passed 1-kyuu in 2012 or 13. I've done some interesting work with it, but nothing earth-shattering. It's nice to have the new job to challenge me again.


The test is a grueling, high-pressure experience--pass/fail, three hours long (used to be four), and formally given just once per year. (They've apparently changed that to twice a year.) The pass rate tends to hover around 35%.

When I took it in 1999, some of the people taking it around me broke out in tears from the stress (and the realization that they were probably not passing). See, failure for some meant that they would not be able to enter a Japanese university or find good Japanese employment; for a few, it meant that they would have to leave Japan.

I'm glad you passed, though. As you had not been living in Japan for very long, where and how did you study? It must have been quite challenging!



ninenewneckties said:


> You're right about the pay in the countryside.


Not "the countryside," but the nature of the position. Unless you work in a prefectural or national government office, office worker (事務員) positions tend to pay crappy regardless of where you are. Typically, they go to recent college graduates, usually women. More to the point, it is a rare company in the countryside that would hire a foreigner in a full-time, regular (常勤, 正社員) office position. 

However, if you're discussing corporate planning directly with the shacho and dealing directly with other divisions in the way you describe, well, that doesn't sound like an office worker position to me! You sound very important. What's your job title in Japanese? 



ninenewneckties said:


> Do you suffer from the declining perks and benefits of professorship that's happening across the board, or are yours fixed?


No problems on this end. Indeed, I'm on sabbatical currently--though it's a working sabbatical.


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## ninenewneckties

I just studied on my own, with textbooks. I'm quite curious, and I found that if I studied something and then hear it in real life, it sticks pretty quick. Reading was more difficult. My reading vocab is fine but speed is still not great.

I think the shacho is hoping for something great from me, but he's also taking a very hands-off approach, letting me get my looong training with no additional pressure. In fact, I have only spoken to him once since starting, when we both randomly ended up at the same bar one night. And even then we didn't discuss much. I don't have a title! Department is planning and development. Still the very low man on the totem pole.

What about you? How many years at each job? What have your accomplishments been?


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