HR Drama

After some time not hearing back from Tokyo, I started getting a bit paranoid. The reason being was because next week in Japan is Golden Week (basically a series of holidays that last for about a week depending on when they fall each year) and earlier in the month the manager in Tokyo expressed to me that he wanted me to come right after the holidays. Well since this is the last working week before the big rush and I still did not hear anything, my current manager and I followed up with the Tokyo manager to ask him what the deal was. I got in contact with him and found out that there is some drama occurring with HR. The manager basically said that everyone in the team including the higher ups are expecting my arrival, however the people at HR are being uncooperative. I am not sure the exact reason but I do know that they are trying to find a way not to allow my transfer. One can only speculate what the reasons may be. My manager classified them as "donkeys" and is trying his hardest to work around this situation, especially given the time restrictions. He assured me that I am basically in the Tokyo team right now, but this political HR BS needs to get sorted out first. He will get with me later this week and update me on the status. I am hoping sooner the better so I can finally sort out my schedule to correspond to my potential departure date.

Transfer 99.99% complete

I talked to my new manager early this morning, 6AM to be exact. Only reason I was up during that time was because I was finishing up my on-call duty. My LAST on-call duty. I was really happy when I gave up the pager today hehe. Anyways, I had an unexpected last impromptu interview with another senior engineer. I guess they just wanted to make sure I was worth shipping there. The final statement I received was "Welcome to the team, please study hard on your Japanese". So they will want me to work the week after Golden week in Japan. The pressure is on. So much to do .. so little time.

Japan coming sooner...

I had an informal interview with the manager and a senior engineer late last night. I didn't expect it, but since being on call, I am always monitoring my e-mails and system pages 24/7. The interview again went well, I found out more about the team and the end result is that they want to bring me on board. All that has to be done now is getting the approval from HR. Which they should be contacting me sooner or later. I tried to push for a later June start date, but they wanted me to be in Japan in May soon after golden week.

Going to Japan in May is too early for me, especially since I made prior plans to attend a friend's wedding in CA and need to be in VA the first two weeks of June. I managed to negotiate with the manager that if I begin work in early/mid May, to let me go back to the US for the wedding and the first part of June. Of course, the catch was that I would be working remotely in the US. With the time difference, this means I would be needing to stay in close contact during the wee hours of the morning. I guess I got to do what I got to do. All this was agreed to verbally, but as I learned in life, I won't consider my transfer official until I physically receive the FedEx of my transfer from HR.

So right now, though it seems I will not experience the stress of trying to find a job in Japan, I have to condense what I planned to do in 2 months in the next few weeks. Hopefully everything will work out well.

Possible Transfer??

I got a call from the HR department in Tokyo. They said they "may" have a position open for me. Since my Japanese is only at "conversational" level, I would be placed in the back end to handle the systems. But eventually, since the project is client heavy interfacing, I would have to beef up my Japanese. I told them that given the opportunity I would excel in Japanese and the position. They told me to expect a phone call from a few engineers later this week. Our conversation was nice. The main guy, I spoke with seemed energetic and cheerful. This is a good sign especially since they called me at 3:30AM Tokyo Time. Yeah.. they work late, but on the plus side they told me if I work really late one night, I would get compensated the next day and so on. The one major drawback so far is that they are looking at a target date of mid to late May of me starting if I were a fit to the team. This may cause a potential problem with me since I had everything planned out to move in mid June. I don't mind visiting Tokyo for a week or two to finalize everything on the job front and find some housing, but I also need time to finalize everything here in the states. Especially since my intentions are to leave here permanently. I also need to go to CA for a wedding on June 1st. I promised my friend I would not miss it. I discussed my conversation with my manager and he said to wait and see before we start thinking about time lines. Anyways, I will update more once I get contact from the engineers.

Anti Sushi

This time of year in the D.C. area is known for the blooming of the ever so famous Cherry Blossoms. I on the other hand interpret the Cherry Blossoms as sign that the once a year all-you-can-eat special at Sushi Taro is coming. That joyous day was today. I talked about my first experience last year in my old blog. The outcome today was no different. The only difference from last year was that the weather was much warmer and the wait was a lot longer. This year, I was lucky to only wait an hour and a half in the cold. Other than that, I splurged and ate whatever raw piece of fish was near me. I think I outdone myself from last year by devouring 7 plates full of succulent sea caucuses. After I ate the last piece of toro I felt like I was going to die. I actually had a tender salmon roll still on my plate begging me to swallow it, but I felt sick just looking at it. I knew at that point I was "anti sushi". Though I over ate, I already anticipated the consequences. As expected, it took me a few minutes longer for me to get up out of my seat. My posture shifted 30 degrees and my belt became unstable. I also breathed heavily back to the car like I was having an asthma attack. What I didn't expect was how long I was going to be knocked out when I got home. I wanted to take care of some other errands for today, but when I got home, my brain became paralyzed from all the blood rushing to my stomach and ended up sleeping 6 hours. Right now, I feel very heavy and can't think about food... especially.... sushi.

The "Co-worker"

My team at work consists of people working in Tysons Corner, ATL, and Kansas City. For the most part everyone does their fair share and we communicate really well with each other despite working in remote locations. I use the word "Most" because there is one senior teammate that does not fall in this category.

He is also one of the only team members that I haven't met face to face. He is a talented individual, but that is only when we can get in contact with him. Sometimes, I refer to him as the "legend" because everybody has so many stories about him, most not positive. One of these stories is the famous fall.

There was some trouble with the systems and the team needed for him to get in contacted because he was the only one that had access. the manager of our team called him a few times, to every number that he had listed in his contact page. No word from him for hours. Of course during this time, the team finally figured out to solve the problem. The infamous coworker calls the manager back and apologizes. Apparently he had fallen off the stairs and was knocked out cold. When he regained consciousness, the first thing he decided to do was call the manager instead of a doctor/hospital. I guess it "could" happen, but with all legends, there isn't just one story. Another more recent story was when we were all suppose to meet in the D.C. area for some training. I was looking very forward to meeting him for the first time. I mean I've heard so much about him, I was eager to place the face to the legendary figure. Well, the week of the training he never showed up. We later find out that he did end up making it to the D.C. area, but he got into a motorcycle accident and broke his shoulder. He wanted to see his doctor, so he immediately drove 13+ hours back to ATL without telling anyone.

To this day, he still is an enigma and still makes stories that are worth wild to tell to all of our future grand kids.

In other news, my manager told me that he is speaking to the department director about trying to transfer me. The director will soon initiate contact with the director of Japan's operations to see if there are any potential opportunities for me. I hope something positive will come from this. In the mean time, I am thinking I will start posting my resume out on some of the Japanese Job boards.

がんばれ！

Prison Break Season 2 Finale

I know it may seem from my posts that all I do is watch TV and in the most case, I do get easily lost when I turn on the radioactive box. But staring at motion pictures is the best form of entertainment for me after a long day's work. It requires little thinking on my part and I can experience many different emotions, from laughter to sadness.

Ok.. ok.. that my weak attempt to justify why I am a couch potato, Prison Break season 2 finale was on tonight. I am a big Prison Break fan. I really liked the concept when the show first came out. I think the last time I was so involved with a Fox TV show was when New York Undercover was popular. Anyone remember that series? it starred the bad ass from "Cool Runnings". I think that was during my high school days. I guess this shows how old I am. But anyways, I digress. Prison Break Season 2 finale episode came on tonight and I couldn't wait to see how they would end this season. There were some twists and turns thus far that I could not anticipate during the course of the season. In all honesty, I would have been happy if the show ended tonight, because the plot thus far had been brilliant (though I could have done without a couple of season 2 episodes) and to drag the story out much longer would defeat the story's charm. This episode was had its twist and turns but nothing like the ending of Season 1. Needless to say there is a Season 3 which will come out this fall. Though, the premise of it is a bit unbelievable and unoriginal, I will most likely tune in, but this time in Japan. Thank you Tivo and Slingbox.