As per every Thursday morning—this week’s complaint thread! Time to get anything off your chest that’s been bugging you or pissed you off.
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Rules are simple—you can complain/moan/winge about anything you like, small or big. It can be a personal issue or a general thing, except politics. It’s all about getting it off your chest. Remain civil and be nice to other commenters (even try to help).
41 comments
The idiot flaggers in the road. I get it, we have them in my country. However, in my country they don’t just stand there wiggling a stick while looking the wrong way and causing more danger than they prevent.
Today, I had two of the idiots giving me opposite instructions. I had to honk and snap them out of their fucking daydream. Like, why were there even two to begin with? Are they sharing the single brain cell that they have?
Oh, I’m double-dipping. My wife’s food safety standards have fallen off a cliff and my fridge constantly stinks despite how much I clean it. 😡
When I made my bank account I included my middle name now anytime I want to link that account it’s a pain in the ass
I hate, that you can only pay cash for a bus ticket from Kobe-Sannomiya to Kansai Airport.
On their homepage it says you can buy tickets at convenience store machines. Problem is they (JTB) only offer one-way ticket. Which makes it more expensive then buying the return ticket with cash at the bus station.
I think I’ve finally had enough of Japan. I’m going to start enacting an exit strategy.
Here are the things I hate about Japan:
* 1950’s mindset about gender roles. Women quit jobs after working and then they are “momma” and nothing else. Maternity harassment is normal. Being groped on the train is normal.
* normalization of paedophilia through anime, idol groups, and school girl fetish porn
* Extreme conformity so people are like bland robots all wearing the same down jacket, the same beige trench coat, going to Guam and Hawaii, etc. Lack of ability to have their own opinions or ideas.
* Morality is based on cultural norms and the desire to fit in, not on a real sense of right and wrong. Sure they’ll return your lost wallet but will they stand up for someone being sexually harassed or protest for a good cause?
* Sorry but I hate the food. So much fried meat, raw fish, and empty carbs. Give me fresh fruit and vegetables for the love of god. And the grocery stores have the same bland shit day in and day out.
* Total lack of awareness about human psychology and healthy communication. Oh you’re depressed and having problems with your wife? Rather than talking to her or seeing a therapist, just go get drunk and go talk to the girls at a hostess club. Oh your child can’t concentrate in school? Tell him to try harder rather than getting him diagnosed with ADHD.
* No empathy toward animals. Yeah let’s take little Kai kun to the zoo to see the elephant confined to a cement box for the rest of its life. かわいい
Japan is fun and novel when you’re in your 20s, but it loses its charm when you hit your mid-thirties. Maybe it’s fine for all the white guys enjoying their extreme privilege and their dainty obedient Japanese wives. If you’re a woman from a western country, staying in Japan is a downgrade to your quality of life.
95% of artist’s discography is spread amongst DamChannel and Joysound karaoke
Always missing that one song you want to sing that falls in that 5%
This is gonna be such a first world / big city problem that it’ll probably sound a bit ridiculous but..
The nearest station is really convenient. Multiple lines, and every train stops at the station so there’s usually not a long wait. I love this part about where I live.
But man there’s like next to no lunch options around here, especially lack of healthy options. There’s like 3 ramen shops, a gyuudon chain, family restaurant (best option I suppose), a soba place, your token Indian restaurant and a couple of teishoku restaurants. Especially one of the teishoku is really delicious, but most of these are likely 1000+ calories worth so there goes half my day’s worth in one meal.
Would be nice to have some more options to get 30ish gram protein without eating 800-1000 calories (half being noodles or rice) once in a while.
For coffee, well..There’s Doutour. Not exactly the most exciting chain coffee shop…
don’t like this new WFO policy
The cost of ramen is rising slightly. Disaster for some of us.
knee pain 🥲
Yo Japan gym bros, why you be skipping leg day all the time?
I feel hella stuck rn in my ALT job. I have a Masters and experience out the ass. Job hunting is rough, inside and outside of Japan.
For some reason the Reddit app was doing something in the background of my phone all night and completely drained my battery during the night. I remember touching my phone once to check the time when I woke up in the night and it was really hot as well. Not sure what was happening…
I just wanna go through one day when a person hearing new information doesn’t respond with panicked “え？え？え？え？” like they just got informed their favorite band died in a 11 kayak/50 whale pileup.
It’s new information, you’re not going to die, grow the fuck up.
There needs to be a required walking/riding bicycle course for life here equally as grueling as the driving course/test.
Absolutely epic couple days of snow in Hokkaido. Through my absolute terrible planning skills, cancelled trains, canceled planes along with missed connections I’ve had to take so many surprise days off work. Guess I better start looking for a new job. The snow was good though!
I have come to the conclusion that Japanese people have no concept of joy or indulgence. I make a point to ask every Japanese person I befriend, “Did your parents let you eat the batter when they made chocolate chip cookies?”
50% say no. The other 50% say “my parents never made me cookies.”
I don’t know which is sadder.
Was boarding the train at keikyu kamata and got pushed by an ojisan…it wasn’t even that crowded and not like the doors were about to close. I turned around to glare at him and he had turned his face away and wasnt looking in my direction.
Tired of being a gaijin in a traditional Japanese company. They be like “大変ですね” but at the same time they say “日本では当たり前のこと” and “日本人のマナーとして普通のことです” like fk off please I may have lived here for several years but I have never and will never be Japanese. I’m trying my best but there are things that I have yet to learn because NO ONE EVER TAUGHT ME ANYTHING. So tired of the “obvious” unspoken culture.
And don’t ask me if i knocked the door before entering the boss’ office, I maybe a gaijin but I’m not an ill-mannered savage. I don’t wanna get offended but, GOSH I AM OFFENDED. HOW COULD I NOT BE.
My nasty female coworkers keep being nasty and one of them yelled at me yesterday. I am not even a part of their department and they’re not even my direct reports. The girl who yelled at me is not even a permanent employee, but she feels entitled just because she’s from “the HQ.”
There’s a Wagyuu Katsu shop I happened across that sells these uninspired Katsu sando on what looks like shitty white bread – presentation is just boring as fuck and they have prices listed in “Dollars” (really it’s yollars as in add two zeros.)
The cheapest one is 100 and they go up to like 500. I guess it’s a tourist trap. Can’t believe people actually pay that kind of money for a sandwich.
Flights leaving Japan to the US is double the price of the same route but leaving from the US.
ie: Tokyo to hometown is 250,000 round trip, but hometown to Tokyo same dates and same carrier is around 120,000.
Looks like I won’t be going home this year either.
Some vending machines have increase their prices by 10yen. In reality, its not a big deal, but its super inconvenient now that I have to carry more fking coins.
Example: Bottle of water will be 100yen. Easy, just put 100yen coin. Done. But now its 110. I don’t always have exact coins, so I’ll have 2 100s for example. Same when something use to cost 150, and now its 160.
Really want to quit my job but I’m applying for PR in April. Guess I will just have to gaman until then.
A new complaint: I just looked out the window and it’s currently shitting down snow and the wind is blasting it all over in random flurries. Hope the trains won’t be delayed!
Very 1st world problem but is purchasing a concert ticket in this country a selection test of some sort? Not even the lottery thing, just the plain first come first served.
E-plus won’t even let you make an account if you don’t have a japanese credit card.
I can make an account on Lawson tickets but for the concert I wanted, I could only pay with a credit card (not a foreign one!) or three different phone plan options.
The machines at Lawson and 7-Eleven didn’t work.
Finally, Tickets Pia seems to have done the trick but I still need to find the pay-easy ATM…
Also, my last name is just too long (and it’s in 2 parts!) so I just gave up and wrote it in katakana both times. Now I have a bastardized version of my name on this website :”)
I’ve just been really depressed lately (and tired. I think my anemia has worsened on top of The Depression) and I need fun stuff to look forward to or I’ll have an actual mental breakdown.
Now I still need to figure out if I’d rather try to put as much money aside from my tiny salary as possible or just give up and try to have a little bit of fun before I have to go back home.
The bus timetables are getting worse near me.
The really close one that went to the train station no longer runs anymore, another one that goes directly to a good mall has become very infrequent (and is a long walk).
My choices now are to cycle 30 mins to the train station, which is only okay if the weather is fine, I’m not drinking, and not carrying a lot, pay over ¥2000 for a taxi to the station, or take the bus which is a 20 min walk away, but be stuck with very infrequent buses.
Speed limit is too slow. How does the country that made the Supra, RX7 and Skyline have a max limit of 80km (50mph), I know up north it’s slightly higher at 120km, which is a whopping 80mph.
And Shaken and road tax still blows. I’ll keep bringing this up until I die or it gets fixed, so until I die.
WHY do some passengers on the train insist on not using the hand strap or pole on the train? They’ll be on their phone, or just standing upright and inevitably the train will accelerate or come to a stop and you’ll see people nearly fall down in surprise as if this is their first time on a train lol.
I don’t know why it’s so difficult to understand that while I’m a pretty damn good interpreter, I’m not a goddamned magician, and I’m physically fucking unable to interpret three people talking over each other at a speed that would make auctioneers blush…
For fuck’s sake, do you want people not speaking your language to understand what you’re saying? Yes? Then **slow the fuck down** and make sure your interpreter has enough time to both breathe AND process the info he’s seeing for the first time in his life because yet again you didn’t send him the document in advance. No? Then fuck right off and don’t fucking arrange the interpreter in the first place you twat.
I’ve had it up to here with assholes not understanding that communicating through an interpreter and communicating directly are not the same.
Also, fucking hell I’m tired and it’s only Thursday, fuck 🙁
When I talk to the phone and wait for a Japanese to finish the sentence. They will stop, act shocked and will say “moshi moshi”? I hear you… I am just being respectful and waiting you to finish talking to reply.
Any veteran IT managers here? Could do with some recommendations on courses – I still have no idea if what I’m doing is “correct”, had no formal training of any sort.
Got diagnosed with shingles on Monday and the doctor said “ima hayatteru”.
Please take care everyone!!
Wanted to go to Nagano for snow monkey pictures. After looking up the park some more, I doubt it’s a place I’d feel comfortable to meet “wild” animals at so I guess no snow monkey pictures…
Signed up about a week ago at [Tepco’s website](https://www.app.kurashi.tepco.co.jp/) to see my electricity usage, but the login page always redirects to [this](https://www.app.kurashi.tepco.co.jp/error) error message page.
One would thing that the biggest electric provider in the country would be on top of things, and this would be a temporary error, but I have been checking daily and it’s always the same.
Back to the same work after 1 year hiatus, and still I cant find much improvement on the management. Everything is so 矛盾. No proper training no nothing, they love useless OJT style all the time.
They want to create new biz, green biz to be exact, zero carbon thingy etc. But the employees will keep printing everything from emails to e-newsletter, etc. They want employees to be proactively giving ideas on new biz or find startups seeds outside of japan, but nobody got trained on how to realize one or even got pushed to learn english to speak to the startups PIC. Bosses are full of old lazy soon to be retiring manchildren who keep trolling on employees ideas, so its like we are now skilled on how to get disapproval rather than an OK. Because, if we get an OK tho, it will be 4x increase of our job load without raise. Shacho actually think a lot of ideas to expand company internationally, but the showa middle mgmt will just throw snide remarks since they hate change.
Management with its aimai pattern of giving orders to me; asking me to make sth without proper instruction and deadline, subtly asking me to “think of it by yourself” but when I made one they said oh okay nice thank you, then the boss will work until 8pm to change 80% of my work then present it to the upper ppl.
And I still cry over how in the end I feel like useless gaijin here lol. got hired believing I can use at least my trilingual skills, but when it comes to interacting to partners in my own country, I didnt have the right to even reply their emails. Boss will keep saying we have to ask everything first to our parent company, even tho what I wanted to ask is simple Qs or confirmation and will be done in 1 minute with our native language.
I can moan so much about the company’s bad points like a child I know, tho Im aware half of the problem lies on me who dont like and care about the job anymore and it doesnt suit my prev experience. Changing job is one option but later after my childcare leave, but by that time Im not sure what company willing to accept my age and status. The problems above might always arise everywhere esp in japanese company, and turning to gaishikei with age above 35 with no special skill might as well be a career suicide.. /sigh/
Hey, make a bunch of chats for respective teams, then make chats with you and just the leaders.
*few months later*
Hey there are too many chats we need to clean this up.
ヽ(｀Д´#)
Even my local 整骨院 raised prices.
Also, gyms here in Japan are the worst.
– 50 tiny lockers for a very small gym that can’t even fit 20 people at the same time
– Dirty bathrooms and lockers
– Gym bros leaving weights at the edge and not pushing them all the way back
– Only one of everything but hundreds of treadmills
– Having to wear masks
– Being expensive as fuck
– Having the fucking heater on at a really high temperature
– Gym bros getting tilted the moment they hear a sound from your smartphone
– People using machines for random things (dumbbell press on the bench press, etc)
Another Amazon related complaint. I wanted to buy a Paperwhite Kindle last year during the Prime Day special because it was 9980 yen but I didn’t. It went back to 14,980 ever since. Never going on sale again… So, imagine my surprise that today, during the Time Sale, they RAISED the price to 16980 yen. Fuuuuuuuck.
It’s back. The dreaded goal setting is back. For one whole year the company ditched the idea of individual goals but now it is of course back. I have absolutely no idea what to put. Of course a half year later they are expecting us to come up with new and original goals set to push us further. How are you supposed to come up with this shit every 6months ?
I am a senior developer, so maybe I could set up some goals to work towards becoming a manager in the future ? Well, suck that I am the only developer in my role, so there’s not really any clear path for management either. I have been thinking about and dreading these individual goals for a full month now. Can think of 1 or 2 half-assed goals to put down but that’s about it.
Not so much Japan-specific, but my complaint is with the airline industry in general. Economy is such BS, seats designed to herd as many people into a cramped space as possible. It’d be one thing if this was for design or efficiency reasons, but the excess of first class/business class proves otherwise. Those seats are ridiculously luxurious, so there’s gotta be a way to balance the excess of business with the cramped economy. Not only that, but in the past decade or so airlines have started charging extra for economy “plus”/”comfort” or whatever, which are seats with marginally more space. Then business class is insanely expensive. And of course the pricing overall. Not to mention that they jack up the prices the closer you get to the departure date, figuring that you probably have zero flexibility in terms of travel dates and will have to pay whatever price they ask for. The entire industry feels very consumer unfriendly, and we put up with all the BS because we don’t really have any other choice. Living overseas really emphasizes this problem, as flying is required just to see family, and the issues are magnified if there’s a family emergency or something.
I’m very glad that I quit teaching recently because I’m beyond burnt out on it. I only have a couple of hours of eikaiwa today, with students I actually like too, and I am still dreading it. It’s just so pointless and often interferes with my translation work which is most of my income anyway. My agencies have a habit of contacting me with big jobs right in the middle of teaching too.