I’m the only native English speaker at my job, but that isn’t my main concern. Will explain below.
The company is 99% Japanese.
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HR head = X
Person in charge of team = Y
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The head HR guy is despised by everyone and they all walk on eggshells around him. They treat him better than the CEO or other bosses for that matter.
They let him get away with anything and everything he wants.
He picks on people, in front of everyone, and .. yeah nobody does anything.
When his name comes up, for whatever reason, the entire room gets dead silent.. everyone will whisper until eventually something else comes up and they “move on” so to speak. This could be something as simple as having cake for someone’s birthday (in a different department completely unrelated) .. someone said: oh… should we offer X some cake? … yeah we should. (Again whispering like he’s nearby)
He constantly takes days off for wildly different reasons, but is “still working.” When I joined the company he was “off,” they just said that he wasn’t there, and then was “off” for almost a month!
One time I was told that he was going to be in the hospital for 2 weeks, but then it ended up being 3 days and he was “working” the whole time.
The message sent to my team was: X will be taking 2 weeks off. If you have anything you need to discuss with him, do so immediately.
A day later I messaged him for something and thanked him when he messaged me back, even though he wasn’t working.. to which he replied “I’m working properly.”
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Now the “foreigner” part. At some point the person in charge of my team Y …not my boss, to this day I don’t actually know who my boss is… started having me talk directly to X, the head of HR. Before I always went through Y and everything was fine.
I moved a little bit ago, and that’s when this change started. I assume it’s because Y wasn’t suppose to be doing this work, since he isn’t HR.
After I moved I was told by Y to let him know how I would be coming to work. I told him and he just returned to work.
Later he comes back and pulls out a train app to see the most “optimal” way for me to get to work. I told him I was taking two busses and a train, since the price was about the same and it was more convenient. He decides on the “optimal” route and then walks away.
Now X comes with Y. X goes on a long winded “explanation” with whiteboard drawings and made up distances to the stations near me. I say made up, because he said the two stations next to me were the same distance, and they are NOT.
After maybe 15 minutes he finally says that if I don’t live 1+ kilometer from the nearest station, then they won’t pay “extra” money for me to use the bus.
The conclusion was just that they would pay me for the “optimal” route and I would find my way to work.
This is “normal,” I guess? The weird part is how this is the beginning of X’s perception of my Japanese ability. This is the point in which he now thinks I cannot speak/understand Japanese. I’m a translator, and I speak Japanese very well. I have never had communication problems at this company.
A few days later,
The summary is he wanted a document from city hall with my new address on it. The problem is how he went about telling me that this document was needed.
There are 2 Chinese women who are trilingual at my company. I sometimes heard Chinese, but never talked with them or saw them before this conversation. He apparently “requested” their preserve for his asking of said document.
Even after saying “ok, I understand. I’ll bring you the document after I go to city hall.” He then turns to one of them, and says: explain it to him in English so he understands.
Some time after this I had a health concern and took the day off. Found out I needed a referral to a university hospital, and then requested a day off a month+ in advance.
He emails my wife(Japanese) expressing his “concern.” He had her email because when I first joined I was on my wife’s insurance. He wasn’t there to do the paperwork, so I didn’t get my company insurance card until weeks after he mysteriously returned.
From here on he starts emailing my wife every time se have a conversation. Always “concerned,” and hoping that she can explain what he said etc…..
Later, I took the morning off for a dentist appointment, and happened to be in an accident on my way to work from said dentist appointment.
As per “protocol,” well from what I was told anyway, I told Y immediately and explained everything. We wanted to discuss the accident with X, but he was “busy.” This is very common. He is “busy,” and unable to have even a 10 second conversation.
Hours later, he comes with me with someone from my team and invites me to a conference room. 2 minutes into explaining the accident, he interrupts me and asks what I’m talking about.
He thought this was about the day I was taking off to go to the university hospital.
I continue and everything is “ok.” Until he turns to the guy from my team and tells him to explain, in English, what he’s about to say.
Right so, this team member can’t speak English. I don’t think he can even understand spoken English either. He can read it fine, but he always comes to me for very specific translation changes.. which is always a translation from google translate..
BUT, X thinks this guy is a wiz at English.
So now this is the pattern. Talk to X? Need someone who can “speak” English, or immediately email my wife to have her “explain” whatever it is he thinks needs explaining.
Now today. I got off work a few hours early to go to the dentist. While at the dentist I start having incredible pain and it won’t go away. They schedule me in their for next available appointment, which is in the middle of my normal working hours.
I tell Y, who says “ok, just let X know.”
X says that I’m taking too many days off, and I respond that I’m having a rough time recently.
He then says he doesn’t understand what I mean, in full keigo. It’s been “masu desu” up until now.
I respond with how it’s just a coincidence that I’ve had various health problems recently.
I get a paragraph of him saying that I should consider my working hours and make the appointment properly.
The kicker, he ends it with “ask your wife if you don’t understand what I just said.”
I then say that I completely understand him, which is why the original appointment was made at a convenient time. The next appointment is a borderline emergency, so I just took the first appointment they had available.
He goes back to keigo and says to “first” check with my “family” about what he previously wrote.
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I don’t care how he treats me, but if he is treating me like this, then it explains how everyone is around him/when his name is mentioned.
I forgot to write it above, but about once a month for this entire year, Y has put out a message to specifically my team. It’s about how the bathroom is “dirty,” and that we need to clean up after ourselves.
My team has its own room in the office.
My team has always been clean. We tidy everything up before leaving, vacuum, throw out the trash, and yet we’re being told this?
3? Weeks ago I was on a computer in the main area of the office. I overheard (I now know it was X) someone REALLY upset about the cleanliness of the office/bathroom. They went on for 10+ minutes how disgusting it is and that something needed to change.
I can’t reveal too much about my company, but my team is at the bottom of the totem poll. So anytime there is even a scrap of paper, Y sends out that message to my team.
He’s a bully, and nobody will even think about standing up to him.
I’m might leave the company soon, but would love to do something about him for the sake of the company.
Is this even remotely normal?
Guess this is mainly a rant, but would appreciate any advice.
by Voyble