Forms, forms, forms

///Sorry for posting this out late, I had a delay of writing the draft to pushing it up on the blog. I find that life's always busy the months before Christmas!///

The first three weeks of my new job are gone. I have been mainly submitting documents and copies of documents to comply with the bureaucratic procedures of starting a new job, registering for the new insurance, changing my address, registrations in the institutions and applying for the visa extension (which I am still waiting for).

There was a multitude of forms that I had to fill in. In Japanese, of course. And sometimes, even if the secretary translates them for me, I am still clueless on what I am actually asked to do. For example a field on the expenses claim form: “what information did you acquire”. What information did I acquire?

It turned out that “information acquired” is used to justify that there were some benefits of attending the conference for the claimant. You need to write half a page essay about the new things you learned so that you could claim the expenses. Makes sense. Not. I wonder if anyone checks this, and decides whether the claimant learned (“acquired information”) enough. Or everyone just writes it for the sheer sake of writing, so that the form is filled in correctly. This is "the Japanese way".

Forms, forms, forms. I hope that after the first month it will be over. I have now learned to accept this, it is not so much different from Eastern Europe where I come from. With practice of some stoicism in dealing with the bureaucracy, maybe I will become a better person?

The other major paperwork effort for me was the immigration. At the beginning the procedures did not feel much different here as compared to the previous place. In there the university officers were clueless and handled things in a wrong way, which resulted in a lot of apology-and-promise-not-to-do-it-again letter writing. The stress of the whole affair was not helped by me feeling tense about the memories of the previous situation, especially as my visa was running out mid-November.

Officers from the university admin office here also “know it all”, the same as in the previous place. Unfortunately sometimes they know it wrong. At least here I had our secretary’s help with the application. She physically went with me to submit the application, and it turned out that the documents the office prepared were not what was required.

Of course I tried explain to them beforehand what was needed (a different, more detailed versions of the documents), yet they “knew better”. So I went with their way without much arguing, even though I knew they were wrong. This is what I learned from previous experience. There is not much what I can do, it is all between one bureaucrat and another, and it is better if the Japanese handle the appropriate apologies and bowing themselves. I might do it the wrong way.

I guess the university officers' thinking was that they have a better sense of how to handle the Japanese procedures, even without reading the guidelines. It would be rude to tell them how I think they are clueless. Using Japanese bureaucratic intuition is not a replacement for reading the guidelines.

This intuition failed me for the second time. But I do not thing they would accept that the foreigner can actually grasp how to do the Japanese procedures correctly*, so I let them handle it their (wrong) way. In the end it is them who provide me with the necessary documents, so it is better that a Japanese officer tells the secretary the documents she prepared are wrong, and not me.

Only when the authority figure of an immigration officer explained to our secretary the same details about document requirements that I was trying to tell her previously, did the university officers provide me with the documents that I originally asked for. But this is the way it is here. It is the same as in the first workplace. There is a lot of incompetence among the bureaucrats, a lot of time wasting**, and it is masked under huge bureaucrats' over-confidence.

Anyway, the forms are now submitted, and I stopped worrying about immigration and can now focus now other aspects of my life that need attention***.

* I understand the details of the procedures, because they are explained in detail on the government’s website in English.
** They even have a specific phrase, often used on the news, to describe the Japanese bureaucratic ways: “wasteful administrative practices”.
*** My crazy To-Do list...

Some more blood pressure rising moments

Even though I have some reflective posts planned in my head, today I need to use the blog for urgent venting about the hoops that the bureaucracy of my university is making me jump through. In the last few weeks I have largely managed to maintain my cool composure, but on some days the head of general affairs department attitude makes me mad.

It is about my future job. The time has come to make the application to the university office of my future employer. The application should be in tomorrow, one month before the employment starts.

Bearing in mind that there are three-days long holidays in the second half of September I have requested a necessary document, the certificate of employment, from my current employer’s university office on 17 Sep. Of course they are not going to do it immediately, but after two weeks waiting the time had come for me to rush them. I had to have it on Tuesday this week.

All the communications with the office have to be done by our secretary, or if she is not in by BOB, because they refuse to deal with me directly. On Monday I asked the secretary to tell them I need the document I requested two weeks ago by this Tuesday.

The first reply from the head of general affairs department was to ask why I need it. First of all it is not his business, and secondly, he has a legal responsibility to provide such document when I request it. He cannot make it conditional on him knowing what my purpose for such document is, whether I need it for a bank, immigration, job application, or whatever.

But to make my life easy I told them my purpose, as I have nothing to hide. But it does annoy me when they want to exercise power over people lives that they do not and should not have. And most Japanese people let the bureaucracy exercise such power over their lives, as they are brought up to be scared and fearful of the bureaucrats’ powers.

After being informed about the purpose of the certificate, the guy in the office replied that he would see what he could do, maybe he will provide me with the certificate, maybe not. That was the first blood pressure rising moment of this week.

He did provide me the document, but with the end date of my contract being December. So it was basically useless, as I need to prove to my future employer that I am free to take on the new employment next month, and that my contract here finishes in October. Together with the document, the secretary brought me a resignation that I need to submit to the office, so that they let me go next month. So there was some promise someone is doing some thinking (BOB and our secretary), but it was all in the reverse order.

I submitted the resignation to the office on Wednesday (the guy was away on Tuesday) and I have asked the secretary to request another certificate of employment, this one showing the correct date that actually proves my availability to take up the new employment in November.

After her short communication with the office, I have learned that the head of general affairs demanded that I must give the first certificate back to him, and after I do that he will consider whether to give me a new certificate.

He will consider! I am so annoyed by the attitude of this guy, who does he think he is! The have bl..dy legal responsibility to provide me with a proof of my employment here, regardless of anything. If I need five certificates, it is his responsibility to provide me with five certificates. And this guy behaves as if he had a right to make me jump through his hoops and to refuse me issuing such certificates.

I do not have the first certificate, as I have already sent it away, and I need the new certificate soon. But he is making his demands that I do it his way. I should have the new certificate in another city today, and now I will have to wait who-know-how-many days to get the new certificate, because of this guy stupidity and ignorance of the law, that states he has to provide me with such documents. Even if I need two of them.

If he made a mistake on the previous form and issued a certificate that is basically worthless to me I could have destroyed it in anger. And does he have a right to refuse me to issue another certificate because I do not have the old one? No.

It really got me angry today. Maybe I have an allergy to this guy’s behaviour already through his previous behaviours: he basically refused to provide me a certificate of employment when I needed one in May, because I did not give him a reason that was specific enough, I said it was for a fellowship application, and they wanted to know what fellowship I am applying for, when and with whom and I did not tell them. So they did not give me a certificate.

I was not fighting for it then, even though I could and should have. I was just too tired of all those games, of all those silly problems, and throwing logs under my legs, so that I fall down and break my legs. Any fighting would have made everything even worse. There is no way to win with bureaucracy here, even if I obtained the certificate then they would make my life hard and in some other way. I am sure that they would have some legal loops to manipulate me.

I find it tempting to go and seek help from Labor Standards Inspection Office in obtaining this certificate, just to prove this guy that he cannot just do what he feels like, in order to make my life miserable. I do know my rights and I will not let them infringed upon by some people who are clueless, but who think that they are oh-so-important.

Of course it would be a waste of time, and basically BOB would pay for this in having one week less results from me in the lab, but I do not care. This is the private institution and if for them the ego of some bureaucrat is more important than their bottom line, so be it. Grrrr, how angry am I!

Venting post over. I hope there will be more positive news in the next ones!

Back to blogging (as much as I can*)

It was five weeks ago when I tried to post here again. It seems like it was five days ago, with the robotic lifestyle of the recent weeks the time kept passing really quickly. I have written a post “Back to blogging, depression is over” and I have managed to write one sentence:

“It has been seven weeks that I did not post anything.”

So now it has been … twelve weeks? I had this bloggers'-writers' block that Dr Isis writes so eloquently about (go and check the excellent figure she uses to illustrate the point if you have not seen it already!)

I had been away. I have been back. I have been busy. I have kept myself busy as I decided I am not going to let the situation mess up with my mind again.

When I was away I though I would not be coming back to the previous place of employment, but I did. I feel held hostage by BOB’s and university admin’s implicit threat to make my next employment in Japan difficult to obtain, well, actually, impossible to obtain, within the time scales of its availability.

Initially I thought it would be possible to quit the frustrating and mind-numbing job with BOB and start working with Young Professor in June. Due to May’s holidays we delayed the paperwork for a July start. But BOB did not accept my resignation. I could not leave my job. Officially my employment became my prison.

This inability to control my fate resulted in major depressive episode. My mental health was not good. Tried antidepressants, it didn't work, side-effects too weird. But for a brief week I was on them I realised what “normal” is, the vicious circle was broken chemically. I knew what I had to strive for to go back to the “normal” state.

In this “normal” state I was suddenly able to feel again. I was able to feel love for my husband, and enjoy being hugged, and I was able to smile. I was able to feel things that I have not felt for several months previously. The stress from work had spread all over my life, into every corner of it and I could not longer disconnect from it after going home or at the weekends. I was overwhelmed by stress and tension and nothing could not help it.

Fig. 1. Vicious cycle, better described as downward spiral, driven by a constant input of workplace stress. A great illustration of my life in the 2009. (Source: Moodjuice's A Self-Help Guide to Depression and Low Mood)

When my husband was returning home after his one-year stint with me in Japan, I negotiated with BOB and Captain to take a break and go home for one month. In return I agreed to stay on (and be held hostage in this employment by them not giving me permission to leave).

Going away was the first step to break the vicious circle of depression. For a while it let me regain the impression that I have control over my life. Surely I did not want to come back here for another 2 1/2 months of my contract (actually it was another 4 1/2 months, but I negotiated to cut the two month extension... this is still not official and they can still screw me over, so keep your fingers crossed for me).

I wanted to wait a little, let them fire me and after this was completed to come back and start afresh in the new job. I know there is a positive atmosphere in the new group, why would I want to go back to the old place, where I suffered so much?

Well, I had to. I was on standby when I was in Europe, even though I pretended to myself that I was in control of my own life. Young Professor, my hopefully future boss, asked me to come back to work with BOB... I guess it was somehow related to the Japanese concept of “loosing face”. So I cut my unpaid stay short, in order to meet some bureaucratic demands of the university administration about the exact date when I come back.

Before I left there were some hiccups in communication along the way. It was a three-way communication game between BOB (Player 1) and university administration (Player 2) and me, with the first two Players both thinking they are the most important and should have control over the situation. On top of that Player 2 was angry with both Player 1 and me, Player 1 was angry with me and Player 2. And I was angry with both Players 1 and 2.

Player 2 refused to communicate with me in English and only communicated in Japanese with Player 1, insisting that he then passes their demands to me, which Player 1 did, but he refused to pass on my requests of clarification back to Player 2. Player 1, BOB, “did not have time” to help me to clarify the gory bureaucratic details of my unpaid leave with Player 2, the office*. So it got messy. Nothing was “officially agreed” and I had left the game without signing any of the forms, among them the application for university owned accommodation, which I knew would be empty when I arrive back.

So, yes, I did come back to the same old conflict-ridden place in Japan. It was a pushed and rushed decision with me booking the flights four days before coming back and notifying Players 1 and 2 of my exact dates at the last minute.

So what happened then? Well, nothing, big black hole of suspense and implied threats.

When I came back I discovered that our university administration takes two weeks holidays around the time of mid-August. Of course no one told me during my discussions before leaving, as usual I was supposed to read the collective Japanese mind and know that this is a fact of life that “everybody know about”. For example some of my readers could assume that everybody knows what Thanksgiving is, and what it this holiday for, but for example I do not know anything about it apart that you are supposed to eat Turkey. So how would you know that university administration closes for two weeks for Obon in your first year here?

I arrived at the beginning of this period. I could not get the keys to the university owned accommodation. I did contact administration by email, and the reply they hinted that I am probably not employed any more, because I have left “without getting their permission”. BOB did not know whether I was employed or not either, as it was the decision of the administration.

I arrived here with little money, and taking a loan to finance the flight tickets, back to the employment that hold me hostage, only to be told I will be made fired. So what was the game for? It was for the prestige and “saving face”. If I quit I would be a winner and the university administration would be a looser: “someone quit on them, what a shame!…” If they fired me instead, it would be shame on me, presumption that I am guilty of that situation, and the university did not do anything wrong. It was this bad, misbehaving foreigner’s fault. I guess it was their thinking.

But somehow to fire me Player 2 had to also get the permission of the grant-holder, Player 1, BOB. And he preferred me to stay, even if it were for just two more months. Crazy as it was, he had changed. Maybe the time away gave him time for reflection, and he took on the new, friendly, grandfatherly attitude to me when I came back.

So they did not fire me. But sure they made the process of obtaining key to the empty, university owned apartment very lengthy, as I was only allowed to put in the application after the administration was back from their holidays In total I was in suspense for four weeks, where I did not know if they even let me stay there, or I should search for accommodation on my own.

I was very lucky to have a friend who let me stay with her for a week, which later dragged onto another three... I lived in a nearby big city, from where the commute takes between 90 to 120minutes, depending on the connections. Hence the robotic lifestyle described in the previous post, where something had to give, it was either the work time, or sleep time, and the commuting time had cut into both.

Two weeks ago I have been given a key to the university owned apartment. It was a very strange feeling to be back there. It is the same apartment where I stayed for my first half a year, for two months on my own, and later with my husband. I was weary that the place may trigger some bad feelings, but I was ok. Well, I avoided being there as much as I could in the first week, but this weekend my things arrived and I can slowly make myself at home there.

In total I had lived out of the suitcase for ten weeks now. It has not been an easy time. But I am back now. And it seems I have broken that terrible writers block on blogging too. Yey!


* “as much as I/we can” is a security phrase over-used by Japanese, added to any declarations that they make, to make them seem well intentioned, but not responsible, if they do not fulfil the said declarations.

** There is a phrase in Japanese language that translates “wasteful administrative practices”. The old government had a big campaign in the last year to clamp down on them. But they failed. They had to have bureaucracy permission to clamp down on bureaucracy. The new government has similar goals. I wish them luck!

Inside the mind of a Japanese bureaucrat

The Big Old Boss has a full-time secretary for dealing with his administrative work. This is a luxury, but he is the most accomplished (and funded) professor at this off-site department.

She is a very nice person, but very formal. She had helped me to fill in applications for visa and Japanese ID card where everything, even my name and address have to be written in Japanese. It is better she did it than me, because we foreigners cannot write quite neatly and we make mistakes, and forms with mistakes often have to be filled in from scratch anyway, so she saved us both some time.

Confusing situations arose during many procedures, for example when I filled in the field "home address" on the form with my address in Scotland, whereas my nationality is Polish. I came here from the address in Scotland and I am going back there afterwards, so it seemed logical to give them that address to contact me. But that has confused the bureaucrats to the degree they were phoning the higher-level administration for the decision.

The field "home address" was a translation of Japanese phrase "address in the country of nationality" which in my case was Poland. I tried to explain that I do not live in Poland any more nor am I going back there after leaving Japan, but it did not matter. What was more important than to have contact details for me was to have properly filled in form. (I know, I wrote about this before, I do repeat myself here, because it was soooo annoying).

I kind of got used to their diligent form filling now, and whenever I have to fill in a form I ask a Japanese person to write my address for me instead of writing it in Roman letters and confusing them (and their computer systems) to the impossible degree.

The story I wanted to describe happened a few days ago, after I asked professor and the secretary who is going to help me with flat hunting. They booked my accommodation till the end of March and since they have some PhD student coming here they will not let me stay there for the rest of my time here, they want me to find a flat on the market and move out there.

Let’s leave the issue of Japanese landlords not wanting to rent their properties to foreigners aside for now, together with the enormous deposit (partly non-returnable) required to rent a flat here, and let’s see what support they offer to me with this tricky situation.

The secretary came to our office with some forms and told me that they are going to help me to find accommodation. She asked me to write on a piece of paper the price of rent I want to pay and how many rooms (but not the location) and told me that they will help me to find a place. I asked about the details and she told me to give the form to the undergraduate I am working with, to the Happy Puppy student.

So here she comes in, the Japanese bureaucrat, to manage how the undergraduate is to help me in flat hunting. She tells us what process we have to follow, even though we work side by side everyday and we can speak and communicate in English.

We can sit at the computer and search through internet together, we do not need some silly bureaucratic procedure to communicate. Thank you very much for your help.