Sender: Justin Yoshida
Subject: razor blades
bring them to work.

It's not what you think, whatever that is. I want to use them to improvise cutting blades for a Thompson cutting machine.

In other news, I am off for eight days starting in approximately one hour. Do you have any idea how long the next 60 minutes will seem?

In case I forget about the internet for a while, Happy New Year to you all!

I always plan to tie up loose ends and complete x amount of work by the end of the year; by the time Christmas rolls around my productivity dwindles to slightly above absolute zero and I've unconsciously convinced myself that all but the most critical issues can be postponed until work resumes.

This is my fourth or fifth salaryman Christmas, but the most annoying thing about the winter season in Japan, even more than work, continues to be Wham's "Last Christmas" resounding throughout shopping malls, train stations, and other public gathering places near you.

You would think that the Lipovitan crystals I smoked before yesterday's rant would have worn off by now. You would be wrong.

Today's unwilling recipient of my hate is our company's uniform. Specifically, the branding on it. I have actually grown quite fond of wearing a uniform to work, because it's a hell of a lot easier than choosing barney-ass cubicle clothes every day (and hence cheaper as well, since I'm a gentle fucking giant in Japanese sizes and must import all my Dilbert-wear). However, a few years ago, my company changed vendors for our "Confederate Grays," and said company named this line of poly-blend uniform, "EARTHINK." Now, all of our uniform sleeves bear a white 1" x 3" label with "EARTHINK - RECYCLE" and a bunch of other environmental crap in Japanese printed on it. We are like walking billboards for ISO 14001, which just might be the idea, I guess, but still.... EARTHINK? What the hell is that? It nags at my conscience every few days, seriously:

Just what is EARTHINK?

EAR + THINK?

EARTH + INK?

Every Asshole Rikes To Hollering In North Korea?

So I asked my manager about it, and he replied most sagaciously, "get to work, you fucking bum." Thus reprimanded, I cowered back to my desk. But he dropped by later, and admitted that he didn't know what the hell it meant besides the hilariously interpretable Japanese pronunciation which is, "assinku." I like assinku better than anything else, I guess.

I finally got around to Googling the shit today, and in its first reference to Japanese corporate uniforms, I found the following:

THE TREES IS SCREAMING! REPENT, SINNERS - EARTHINK!

And now that I have found the true meaning of EARTHINK, I can die in peace.

I was just issued this "staff support book" which outlines employee duties, good work practices, and various other goodies which are causing me great joy, because they are the best example of Japanese corporate stupidity and herdthink. The page below is entitled, "E-mail Manners." The previous page is "Fax Manners," and the next page is "The Proper Way to Give and Receive Instructions."

Now, in all fairness, the tips on this particular page aren't all bad but the sample e-mail they show is just the worst example I can possibly imagine. For instance, everything from the line of slashes on down is a signature. Also, I find the lack of an "ijo" (END) on the bottom inauthentic since every other needless piece of fluff is included (what Nam refers to as "flower language." I mean, for crying out loud, the meaningful content of the message itself is: "I'd like to see you next week regarding the calendar we discussed the other day. It should only take an hour or so, could you please let me know a convenient time?" Do you really need twenty lines of text for that?

This is an actual case of ?manners? getting in the way of work; I do receive a lot of e-mails formatted like this and I can tell you that when reading a long thread of messages in a reply, it really gets tiresome.

One sad fact of business on a salaryman level is that an inexperienced vendor is infinitely preferable to an inexperienced client - you can always slap down a vendor, and the inexperienced ones often come back for more. Plus, slapping makes them tougher. A tough vendor is your best ally during a 15-year long economic depression.