In today's interoffice memo, the official English language nomenclature was revealed: CONCENTRETION TIME.

This filled me with great joy for some truly inexplicable reason, and I was immediately tempted to stab my eyes out with a sharp pencil.

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In other news, the supposed 60-year holdouts of the Japanese Imperial Army in the mountains of Mindanao are proving to be more elusive than Yamashita's gold. (There's a Leon Uris novel in there somewhere, I know it.)

And now, back to concentretion.

Wow. Talk about killing the party vibe, dude - the old man ain't even here today! He wussed out and went on a trip or something, so our protesting stunts are kind of pointless... Yet it's funny to mock the lauded Concentration Time even in his absence, so the office is a flurry of activity right now.

People are talking loudly on the phones about totally nonsense shit, having group discussions from across the office, and the guy next to me is singing (softly, granted, but still...). I, myself, drank a liter of water during lunch and have gone to the head three times in the past twenty minutes. Just doing my part, you know. Because my ultimate goal is to someday be told to hold it, at which point I will whip it out and shower thee golden, I swear.

By the way, the official length of Concentration Time has already been shortened - it now runs from 1:00 to 2:40PM. It will be interesting to see if my Japanese comrades still show the same audacity tomorrow or whenever the old man gets back. All I know is that I'm having a liter of water with lunch for the foreseeable future; this is too much fun.

DOWN WITH CONCENTRATION TIME, I SAY! DOWN!

Maybe I can appeal tomorrow's Concentration Time by pleading time proactively served by my relatives at Manzanar... I really did try to get work done today, but I was too pissed off.

I've put up with the various quirks and idiosyncrasies common to westerners working in corporate Japan for quite some time now and I think I've done very well, overall. But today I came this close to blowing my stack, just going COMPLETELY FUCKING NUTS, in front of the whole office, because MOST JAPANESE ADULTS ARE ACTUALLY JUST (SLIGHTLY) OVERGROWN CHILDREN... Ahh, now I feel much better with that off my chest.

So what set me off? (this time)

Our senior manager, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to enstate a "concentration period" from 12:25 to 2:40 PM every day, when we will not be allowed to leave our desks except to get printouts or use the CAD room. He specifically stated we could not talk, use the phone, or go to the restroom during this period. He says this is to raise the efficiency of this office. #@!"#""$#%!('(&%(%@"!!#%!! (motherfucker, say what?)

This rule goes into effect tomorrow.

I have already announced to my supervisor that I will take a piss whenever I damn well please, and asked how fucking old everyone in this office is that we have to be told when we can or can't leave our FUCKING SEATS TO GET WORK DONE. I mean, give me a fucking break (and give me a fucking KitKat), how the fuck do you fucking expect us to be fucking competetive with other fucking electronics companies when you fuck us with these fucking stupid-ass rules and meaningless fucking exercises in fucking assfuckery?

But that's not all, there's a punchline to this fucking joke: At the end of his announcement, our great leader proudly announced that he got this brilliant idea from a television program he saw last week.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! HA!