Packing for CA

I'm finally going to go to CA for M and C's wedding this coming Saturday. I will only be there for 4 short days but I hope to make it a good trip since it will be the last trip in the U.S. I take before moving to Japan in June. All right, I have to continue to pack and wake up in 3 hours for my early morning flight.

Is this a drama?

The day the Tokyo manager got laid off, the VP of sales scheduled a meeting to meet with my US manager along with his other goons to talk about me and the situation. When my manager first told me about it, we were confused to why they wanted to discuss further with us since it was clear they did not approve of my attempts of transferring to their office. Well the meeting happened tonight and it was what my manager expected. They wanted to convey how unqualified I was and eventually revealed that the real reason why they did not think I would be a good fit was because I "would have a difficult time grasping the culture and language". It seems they totally disregarded the fact that I lived in Japan for a period of time before. Anyways, they did not anticipate how smart and persuasive my manager was. Every time they threw the kitchen sink at him, he would throw the bath tub back. From what my manager told me, they threw lies at him not knowing that the recently laid off Tokyo manager had kept us informed of all the details. Now for the strange part, a good hour after the meeting ended they sent an e-mail to my manager. It read something like this - "we apologize for being so blunt during the meeting. We discussed with the the related teams and we would like to see the best opportunity for [me] and the company. We would like to better understand and get to know [me] and would like to fly him to Tokyo for a couple of days." My initial reaction when I heard this was, what the hell is going on. How can they have an almost 180 degree turnaround on their attitude? The situation is still fresh and my manager and director have yet to respond. My stance for now is that I do not want to put myself in such a dysfunctional work environment. I also do not know what hidden agendas they have planned for me. I mean why reason with the situation now, when previously it was all extreme and irrational. I mean seriously, do they think we [US team and I] are blind and naive?

In the mean time, I have also been actively pursuing other opportunities. I would like to thank the people who are helping me with this effort. ほんとうにありがとうございました！

Judgement Day

Finally got my result on my transfer. The end result might surprise many people.

My transfer attempt has failed indefinitely.

The way it failed has disturbed me. Basically the climax occurred this week. I got all the big players involved. From the guys right below the CEO to the VP of all HR. You would think with all this fire power, HR had no chance to survive? Well that's what I thought but HR in Japan had the upper hand and always held their trump card up their sleeves.

What did they do?

They got rid of the manager. Without him, there would be nobody left to advocate for me. He just contacted me to tell me all this recently, I was devastated. I was more hurt of the fact that this nice guy who was obviously an asset to the company is now left out in the cold. It sucks big time. At the same time, I have to look at it this way, with all the drama I had to endure in the past month and a half, I don't think I would have been happy working for my company in Japan. I guess its back to the original plan. I won't let my company defeat me (sounds funny doesn't it?) I will go further with the head hunter route and become more careful with my money and try hard to find a job in Japan. 負けないぞう！！！！

Burned at the gas station

As the price of gas keeps going up, I keep thinking to myself "How much more am I going to get ripped off when filling up my car?" Well, I apparently got ripped off a lot more.

I went to dinner with my aunt visiting from CA. I was running a bit low on cash and I actually didn't expect the dinner to cost so much. So I headed over to the ATM to grab some cash. Only new bills came out, any day I would have been happy to get crisp new bills, but this day would be different.

On the way home, I noticed I was a bit low on fuel so I headed over to a gas station to fill up. In this day of age, we have to prepay for gas before we begin filling up because there have been countless cases where people would fill up their gas tanks and just jet afterwards without paying. So anyways, I go prepay at the cashier and give him 40 bucks. When I gave it to him, I felt that I might have given him an extra 20 dollar bill because the bills were so new, they easily stuck together. While I began my fill up, I counted my money again. Sure enough, I was short 20 dollars. I counted a few more times just to make sure before I confronted the cashier but it ended up with the same result. I walked over to the cashier and asked politely that I may have given him an extra 20 dollar bill and if he could check. He showed me the receipt that I only paid 40 dollars. I told him that was not the case because I thought I gave him 40 dollars but I believed one of the 20 dollars could have stuck together and made it seem like I only gave him 40 dollars. He told me, that his shift ended 7 hours later and we can check then. I quickly declined that offer and asked him to check his register now. It was not busy and I was the only one at the time at the counter. He finally opened the register and checked. I told him to look if there were any 20 dollar bills stuck together. He didn't check earnestly and closed the register right away. One of the customers behind me heard my complaint and he told me if I got brand new bills from an ATM, then the serial numbers on the bills should go sequentially. I never knew that fact and thanked the patron for his wisdom. I then asked the cashier to open the register one more time to check. He followed my request. We quickly glanced at the bills for the serial number. I in the meanwhile checked my bills. 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 were all in my possession. When glancing at the bills the cashier had, I saw 82 and 83. I could not see 84 anywhere in sight. He then quickly put the bills back at the register and looked at me like I did something wrong and quickly told me to get on my way. I complied before I did anything I would regret. I bet that fool pocketed the extra 20 dollars because there is no reason why 84 would not be there. He would not put it in the register because then he would have a surplus of cash when he closes the register at the end of the night. I knew with the situation now happened, it would just be his word against mine before a 3rd party would have to stop, of course, that 3rd party would probably have been the police. It was my fault in the beginning for being so careless, but it is sad to know there are dishonest people like that guy that exist, even after I called him out on it. Whatever, what is done is done. I'll never return to the Exxon gas station on the intersection of little river turnpike and braddock road.

I guess next time I should use my credit card....

Bad news... Good news

Just finished talking to the manager in Tokyo and he found out the results to my interview. The bad news is that apparently the group that interviewed me did not want me to join the team. The reasons of their decision were vague but from the Tokyo manager's view it was due to the fact of their conservative thinking and would not comply to hiring a foreigner. The manager told me not to get down because he had potential good news. Today was an executive meeting of all the global directors at the company and the manager brought up my situation in the meeting. His boss stated that HR's decision whether or not to hire me for my manager's team was not their decision to make. That director will visit Japan next week and my manager told me that they will discuss my hiring issue. The Tokyo manager also advised me to gather up all my contacts which include my manager and director (and also their friends) of the department to aid in them going against HR Japan. It seems that the fight is escalating and I seem to be the catalyst. I honestly do not know what will come out of this, but one thing is for sure, I won't know my future again for at least another week.

The interview

After days sitting on my thumbs and getting my hopes crushed after seeing another delay notification that the interview will be postponed, the interview finally arrived.

The interview details changed from what I previously mentioned. Instead there was now a 5 person panel. These 5 members included the Vice President, senior manager of Software Development, senior engineer, and the two HR people. The introductions were painful. Of course, the software manager was notorious to grill people and had nothing to do with the position I was being transferred to. The HR was more clever than I thought. Everyone seemed to be impressed with my ghetto Japanese. I thought it was going to be a smooth ride. But just like any roller coaster ride, the beginning is always the calmest point of the ride.

As the interview progressed, the software manager grilled me on my technical knowledge. I answered some correctly and some not. There were a lot of situational questions that were asked. Most of them were "You know in Japan, customers are different from Americans, how would you deal with them if they didn't like your product and you could not provide them a solution in a timely manner?" I always reflected back to my situation with the client I deal with and hoped my answer would have sufficed. The same question in different forms kept coming one after the other. Again, I would answer the same way I did the first time it was asked. More questions were asked like I was a brand new candidate and not a transfer employee. I have to admit that those questions screwed me up the most, because I had no idea that they were going to ask me "What are you ambitions?" "Why do you want to work for this company in Japan?" I thought already being in the company, and letting my performance and recommendations speak for themselves would justify my motivation and intelligence level. Finally, the infamous HR guy threw a few low blows my way. All of them were questioning whether I would even fit in the Japanese company and were asked in a way of doubting how I would successfully handle working with Japanese co-workers and clients.

The interview concluded with me sweating like I've just ran a marathon. Having this interview on the phone was a disadvantage for me, since I could not gauge there responses and of course the communication aspect, I don't really know if they fully understood me or not while I was explaining my technical answers. Since a lot of those questions were situational, my answers were very wordy.

I honestly, don't know if I did well or not. I talked to the manager right after the interview and he also didn't know. He told me that the HR guy already planned to try to find another person to take the open position instead of me which is the reason why he deliberately delayed everything. Since the manager is a foreigner, I am not sure they took his view points seriously which is why the HR guy is having his way. He also finally admitted to me that he was taking a lot of smack because the "old way" Japanese employees didn't want to risk change and hire extra foreigners. The manager said that he would get a follow up by next week to see what the deal is. Yep, that means another week of waiting. Positively speaking, it seems I may be able to go to CA to my friend's wedding. But at the same time, I packed and was ready to leave to Japan a week ago.

I tried my best, and I honestly will be crushed if I don't get this position. Whether I get it or not though, I am starting to feel uneasy if these are the protocols I have to follow every time I want to enter a new company. I hope that the BS I am going through right now is just my company and not all companies in Japan. God I hope its true....

久しぶり Pager of Death

I was suppose to have my interview with the senior engineer and HR guy last night. The Tokyo manager had a big meeting with HR in the morning. He told me in advance when the interview would be once he got out of the meeting. I waited on-line for him for hours. Let me tell you, I'm usually a very patient person, but waiting around like this was pure agony. Even though there is a 13 hour difference I was still awake since I had an event that started at 2:00am. I finally got word from the manager at 1:00am. He told me that the interview would not be today and HR will contact me soon on when the meeting would take place. He also said that the it will be a conference interview with 4 people. I guess the surprises never end. As of now, the HR donkey has yet to contact me. I was honestly prepared to leave to Tokyo this week, but I guess I will have to wait at least another week. On a different work related matter, the event that occurred at 2:00am killed me. There were so many mis communications between the vendors, that the event ended at 6:30am. On a positive note, it ended successfully. Also it appears that I may have not yet seen the end of the POD, pager of death. My on-call rotation is next week, and since I still have not yet been transferred, I will still be a resource in the team to take on the duty. I guess the luck never ends for me.


R.I.P Mommy

July 27th 1948 - May 8th 2005

Mom's anniversary coming soon

No new update on the job yet. Just waiting and prepping for my interview that should happen either tomorrow or Tuesday with humpty and dumpty. I also managed to get some help from some co-workers early tomorrow morning to give me a quick crash course on what I could be working on in Japan. I am banking that the session will give me the edge on acing my interview with the "second opinion". Other than stressing on my upcoming future in Japan, I've been spending time with my family. This time of year is especially important for us for my mom's upcoming 2nd year death anniversary in the coming days. Its been exactly two years since I last spoke to her. Earlier today, I visited the temple with my little brother. Unfortunately, there was a huge crowd so we could not stay there long. I sometimes wish that my mom wasn't in that temple because I have to adhere to their schedule and can't visit her memorial anytime I want. Its been a difficult two years for me without her, but I can feel that she made me stronger and her spirit motivates me everyday to be better. I'm definitely going to kick ass in Japan.

HR Winning???

The logic of a manager and his team's preference on a candidate is stronger than HR, an employee processing department does not apply to my situation. The manager escalated to the VP and even the President of Global operations and HR still didn't back down. In fact, it seems to have strengthen their stand in not transferring me.

The latest news now is that I will have to interview with another engineer and one of the bastards in HR. Yeah I know... I thought I was done with interviews too. Even my manager sent out an e-mail to all the higher ups that the offer letter and transfer papers should start because they already know they want me. Anyways, the funny part is that the manager told me that I should be expecting technical questions from HR. HR?? Why are they going to gauge my expertise when when rumor has it, they are afraid to use their computers. It makes no sense. All this was initiated by HR because they didn't trust the manager of the team where the employee would be put in to. So my transfer probability went from 99.99% to about 75%. The other surprise kick to my family jewels was that the trip back to the US that was approved by the manager earlier is now compromised. From what I have been told, HR is not too happy that I will be out of the office for 3 weeks in June. The manager said that HR will use that against my transfer unless I shorten the time to like one week. The fact that I would have accumulated about 3 weeks of vacation by that time does not matter either. HR will make it seem that I am doing a disservice to the company.

I will do the interviews and try my best, but I'm really starting to think.. is this all worth it. Is it worth missing one of my great friend's wedding that I promised to attend from day one. Is it worth compromising the time I have left with my family? Is it worth working in a place where levels of common sense does not exist?

All the these questions have been going through my head all day. But I guess the ultimate question is "Did HR just win??"