Weekly Complaint Thread – 12 October 2023

It’s the weekly complaint thread! Time to get anything off your chest that’s been bugging you or pissing you off.

Remain civil and be nice to other commenters (even try to help).

* No politics
* No complaints about users of JapanLife

43 comments
  1. I am enjoying the pleasant fall weather, but then I remembered how hot and miserable it is in the trains.

  2. Why does the NEX stop running so early? It took me longer to get back home from the airport than it did to actually fly from Naha to Tokyo…

  3. I’m sure I have a lot of complaints but unfortch none come to mind rn aside from my flakey beard. it’s especially awful because I wear a lot of dark colors.
    **Does anyone have a beard oil they get in Japan that solves their flakey skin in the colder months?**

  4. One of the English teachers I work with is SO MEAN. He only calls on the boys, only calls on students he knows aren’t good at English, berates them for not knowing very specific verb forms, calls them stupid, smacks the board with the eraser, stomps his feet, is super condescending, and goes on rants about how they will never amount to anything because they don’t know some very specific thing about English. He used to give students who couldn’t answer or fell asleep painful “shoulder massages” but he did that to the wrong kid and must have gotten in trouble because he doesn’t do that anymore. He was berating a student a couple days ago about not knowing the specific verb form of “crushed” which even I don’t know and harassed him for 10 min asking him if he studied at all and saying all good 3rd years know this and he’s not going to get into the high school he wants if he doesn’t study more. The next day the kid had the right answer and he gave the most condescending “see if you study like this you can do well in life” and I just stared daggers at the back of his head the whole time lol. I really hate when he harasses the students so much plus it’s a huge waste of time so I often help find the answers in the textbook or whisper the answers as I go by, since it makes the class more pleasant for everyone. And yes the teacher is fine with this, recently even remaining the students to thank me.

    I can’t do much, and barely do anything in class, but once the teacher leaves I reassure the students the teacher is being obnoxiously strict on his questions and their English is perfectly fine. Yesterday he was mad at a student and calling him stupid because he gave the wrong definition of “there” but when we checked the textbook glossary the student’s answer was there, so I pointed out the textbook was wrong. He then said “well he must have learned in elementary school,” another common tactic to be mean to the kids. Given that I also teach elementary school, I told him we don’t teach that in elementary school. He stopped berating the kid and moved on with the lesson. That plus a normal one spelling mistake fix and the students were sooooo pleased hahahahaha. After class they came up to me saying “we have no idea what he’s teaching.”

  5. Job hunting sucks. Job hunting sucks when you don’t have many skills that allow you to shift to other fields easily (I’m trainable! :p ) job hunting sucks when you have a mortgage so you’re very limited to where you can work without an hour and a half commute one way

  6. My old man decided to fly back to Tel Aviv from Paris (he is French-Israeli). I didn’t sleep last night.

  7. Third week in and I’m overloaded to the point I already need winter vacation. Faculty meeting ended at 4, but no some old fucks had to 議論 about その他 shit for an hour and a half on top of that, and no one gets to the fucking point. Every question has to have a lead-in story, “The other day I was talking to so-and-so and this that and the other led me to this question.” Stop wasting everyone’s time and just ask the fucking question. I have classes from 9-4 the next day you inconsiderate sacks of wrinkled flesh.

    And of course at the same time the bukatsu I advise, which is normally self-sufficient, has gotten itself into such a clusterfuck because of some narcissistic club member causing a ruckus and now I have to step in with that bullshit because the internal leaders have been pushed to their limits too.

    Why are humans so unreasonable?

  8. My husband got rejected from another job. I’m wondering if it’s age discrimination because he’s 39? I know he’s in a really competitive and limited industry but still..

  9. No, the dropped paper clip doesn’t go on my desk, which has no paper on it whatsoever, it goes on the desk of my coworker, who has a desk covered in files, not to mention the binders under her desk. In short, a typical drone here. I mean, we’re the Information Technology Department. Looking around, I see every other desk, without exception, is the same as hers. I was shocked to hear the company went “digital” in 2016. In fact, there is another department that exists solely to digitalise everything here. My guess is they must be swamped with ringisho and hanko. That’s the only feasible explanation as to why there are still binders everywhere I look and the copy machine requires regular maintenance due to heavy use.

    Me, I went completely digital working at my first office job, in Japan, in the mid-90s. Not the company I worked at, just me, grouping together similar information and making it easy to refer to. Simple as. Maybe I should brag about being 2 decades ahead of the clowns I work with now, who still haven’t got their shit right.

  10. working with freelance artists who don’t understand why we are asking for an invoice that’s not through paypal. goddammit paypal sucks for international payments, stop using it for your work!!!

  11. Moved recently and decided to finally change my address on all the non critical websites etc.

    Holy shit is this process more annoying than I could have ever imagined.

    Had to individually change my address for Rakuten, Rakuten Mobile, and my Rakuten card. Why this cant be streamlined is beyond me,

    Then had to change my address with Mizuho and holy shit is their website an atrocity. Just simply accessing it had my computer fans blasting like they were running some graphic heavy game. Every button press or menu change took 30+ seconds to register. I truly cannot fathom how anyone can find something like this acceptable.

  12. So many people have such bad dental hygiene the mind boggles. I mean , what’s with that? Some people I work with look like they have never washed they’re teeth at all let alone recently . Ugh the thought makes me shudder

  13. Applying for jobs is a full time job in itself. So many places want things mailed in, including any books! And they won’t return any of your stuff, plus you have to fill out different CV, publications and who knows what other forms for each uni, and each of those forms is more retarded than the other. All for a part-time position with a 1-year contract. I should have married rich.

  14. I’m experiencing burnout from work because I put too much pressure on myself to finish things perfectly.

    ~~Didn’t realize it until I find myself not getting up from my desk after working from home for 2 hours.~~

    Didn’t realize how burnt out I was until I found myself not getting up from my desk for 2 hours after finishing work. (I work from home)

    I’ll be taking it easy today and tomorrow.

  15. My wireless earpods died and I was a heavy user, so after doing a bit of online research I splashed out on a pair of new AirPods since they are supposedly lightweight for sports and have sound quality up there with Sony or Bose models.

    They work great, no complaints there, but they also look cheap and tacky (like the cheap-ass white plastic earphones you used to get with a new iPhone or iPod) and now that I own a pair, I’ve noticed that just about every guy in his 20s or 30s riding the train in Tokyo seems to have them in their ears too. I didn’t want to become a member of the borg.

    Product works great though.

    Thanks for reading.

  16. Milk and butter from here has been tasting funky to me recently.
    I was wondering if it was my fridge or bad storage at the supermarket, but I’ve tried different brands of milk and butter from different places and it was the same result, also I ate the New Zealand butter which you get in Gyomu, and that was fine and tasted good.
    Also had some tea with milk at in-laws (10 mins drive away) and felt it was a bit funky too, so that means it’s not my fridge.
    It’s weird because usually the milk lasts for so long, and is even fine a day or two after ‘expiring’ but now it’s just a bit weird even before it expires.
    Made me go off milk, and now I’m just drinking soy milk, or having tea and coffee black.

  17. Fuck self-regi seriously I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

    My local supermarket (which I try to avoid as much as possible but sometimes I have no choice) has gone entirely self-regi. But it’s that one where the clerk scans all your items and then redirects you to whichever terminal, where you do your payment yourself.

    First of all, what’s the point of half-arsing it like this? Does it REALLY save time when the clerk has to scan everything ONE PERSON AT A TIME anyway?

    And then like, I’m always wearing my work clothes, and I’ve always got my headphones or earphones in. And there’s like a literal six-foot plastic fucking wall between me and the clerk for some stupid reason, and they’re still all wearing masks, so even if I’m not listening to music, I can’t hear what the fuck they’re saying, and I have to like take my earphones out and lean around this stupid plastic wall.

    And then it’s always just like, “do you have a point card?” No I fucking don’t, my general demeanour should indicate that I do not have a point card, and you’re just wasting everyone’s time by making us go through this dance just to ask me. This whole plastic wall and point card routine is technically a separate complaint so anyway.

    Last night, just to drive the point home, the clerk, after asking me for my point card, then FOLLOWED ME TO THE TERMINAL, and without asking, pushed it into English, and then the payment options were like “scan” and “cord” (no shit) and I didn’t know which the fuck one to choose. Because in Japanese it says QR and barcode and I know which one is which. So then I had to ask the guy “which one for Rakuten Pay?” and he set it back to Japanese and selected it for me. FUCK OFF ARE YOU SERIOUS.

    This whole time he’s AWAY FROM THE REGISTER WHERE HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE SCANNING THE NEXT CUSTOMER’S SHIT.

    All in all this whole self-regi bullshit takes MORE time and MORE dicking around than just having the clerk do everything for you, because idiots like me don’t know what the process is gonna be like at any given supermarket or combini or whatever. THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE STAFF TO DO IT ALL FOR YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.

    EDIT keep downvoting me dweebs, yes I’m aware this isn’t a life-threatening complaint, I was being deliberately over-the-top, I thought it might be entertaining.

  18. My complaint is me and my stupid spending habits. I just got my most recent credit card bill and it was close to 60-man! Almost had a heart attack.

    Like yes I *did* go overboard last month because I went on two domestic and one international trips. But it was sort of a once in a lifetime trip for me so I couldn’t resist. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to how much money I was spending since I still was buying useless crap despite the travel expenses. Luckily I have savings to pay it off in one go but then that means I lose my savings. Not only that I have another huge expense coming up in November.

    I was planning on upgrading my phone this year but that’ll have to wait.

  19. I really messed up my back trying to toss and flip a 30kg rice bag I was carrying without having to put it down because it bothered me that the print was facing down.
    Due to my advanced age my body refuse to heal itself so after a week of limping around and barely being able to get out of bed in the morning I had to go to the hospital today.
    Got some patches, Loxonin and Eperizon.

  20. Incredibly petty complaint, but:

    The stupid “へぇぇぇぇぇぇぇぇ” sound people here make when expressing surprise.

    I know it’s not the case, but it sounds so fake.

  21. Complaint 2 from me today. The sleeping salaryman that’s in the same seat every morning is still very inconsiderate of how much space he takes up. Leaning on the people next to him and stretching his legs into the aisle.

    Sometimes I want to stand in front of him and kick his feet in. Sometimes I pity him bc he might spend all his free time commuting.

    I find joy when the people next to him fight back

  22. A new lady joined at work from Monday.
    She is being explained everything.
    I am overwhelmed by her a! .

  23. People getting on the right lane on the highway just to drive at the same speed as the cars on the left.

  24. Problem 1: dropped my phone on my way home Saturday night. Pretty big crack, but only cosmetic, so whatever, right? Take it to a repair shop, I have a Pixel 6, so they have to order the parts. Fine, that’s normal, whatever. They order it, it comes in Tuesday night, I bring it in yesterday morning, the advertised 30 minute repair will actually take 4 hours. Since I have work and it’s just cosmetic for now, we schedule for me to take it in on Sunday. Just cosmetic, so it’ll be fine until then, right? Right?

    Problem 2: It somehow cracks again last night with no roughhousing involved, this time to a point where the screen is nothing but black and random flashy shiny colours. Brought it in this morning, currently waiting around to see if the nice man at the shop is able to fix it before work today.

    Problem 3: Going to and from the shop this morning made me miss the delivery of a plushie I bought on Mercari 🙁

  25. I’m not a clean freak or anything but I really don’t understand the appeal of *filthy* restaurants.

    Went to a chuuka place with a friend who absolutely love it because food is so good. But the place was really greasy overall. It looked like the place hadn’t been cleaned since opening day.

    I know that some people like aesthetics and feel of these places. But it certainly isn’t my thing. I couldn’t really concentrate on the food because I didn’t want to think of the state of the kitchen, etc.

  26. I went to the gym for the first time in my life. 30 is approaching and my belly isn’t getting any smaller. Holy FUCK my arms hurt. I can’t even fully straighten my arm it hurts so god damn much. I was gonna go for a motorcycle ride after work today because the weather is gorgeous but I’m honestly not sure my arm can take it.

    Probably shows just how out of shape I am, and I know it’ll get easier but I’m really not looking forward to going back.

  27. My only complaint is having nothing to complaint. Weather is good, work is slow, I haven’t done any stupid purchases lately, life’s good. This might be calm before the storm.

    /s

  28. Bought some Pringles and when I opened it I saw that they were shrinkflated, was filled maybe 75% of the way and the size of the chips were much smaller.

    Setting up internet is taking too long, they wanted a copy of my residence card so that’s gonna add another week or so.

  29. The weather finally cooling enough to open the windows for a nice breeze.

    Local farmers: Lets burn our rotten muck and assorted garbage all day.

    Luckily I was home to take in the laundry before it started to smell like burning plastic and compost.

  30. I think I’m finally over with job searching. My years of freelancing didn’t make for a great “enterprise experience” CV, so I’m probably gonna get low balled on the salary, and I’ll probably have to move next year to adjust the salary.

    Now I asked to start mid-November so they are taking their sweet time. While the agent assures me they are preparing the offer letter for next week, I am still super stressed about it.

    The company is nice and didn’t go overboard with the assessments and interview rounds (1 hour online coding test, 3.5 rounds of interviews).

    But I had to apply to many more, getting rejected with no feedback, sitting in interviews where both sides look completely disinterested in the discussion, getting attached to companies to then be disqualified because I let it slip that their company/position was not in fact my dream job. Also SPI tests, Java programming test for JS/Go position (not that I know anything about Go), Japanese personality tests that you have to answer 120 questions in 90min.

    I think as I grew more and more annoyed I have actually rejected as many companies as I got rejected. There are so many SE positions I didn’t see the point of doing 10h+ take-home tests, or double assessment before talking to a human being.

    I had a big Jp company refuse to answer questions such as: how many people in your team? what technologies are you using? I also asked what kind of position they saw me fit in, but they dodged and asked what I wanted to do. Then later on they said “hmmm, too bad, I would have seen you better in that other kind of position”.

    I have many more weird situations and agents behaviors I could complain about, but I don’t want to be too specific.

  31. Twice this week I’ve almost been hit by motor scooter drivers *on the sidewalk*.

    There’s a couple of popular restaurants right on the corner near me and delivery drivers can’t leave their bike in the middle of the intersection, I get it, but what kind of jerk drives on the sidewalk?

    Park down the street and walk you animals.

  32. I get so tired of hearing about Japanese train efficiency. Sure, in Tokyo. Try using JR Kyushu everyday. Sitting on a late train, and not for the first time this week.

  33. – the post about finding love as a foreign woman- seasian so I don’t look foreign, so I don’t even have that edge lol… getting quite hopeless the more I get exposed to how the average Japanese man thinks.

    I want the visa more than anything, I don’t really have a nice country to return to. What I want to do and acheive can’t be done there.

    – the fight against depression and hopelessness.

  34. Relatives think I am earning a lot of money. They want me to buy a lot of items here and send them back home. Bruh I am earning less than a uniqlo employee!

  35. What’s the name of the doctor you go to when your recommended YouTube list is all disaster news from the 80s, 50% or so from the Soviet Union?

    Awesomeologist, right?

  36. Mad at myself for laughing when I heard ブレスト for the first time in the wild today. No one else laughed. They’re playing spot the immature English speaker on easy mode.

    Cherry on top was they shortened it even further to BS in the PowerPoint slide. So I had a 集団BS today.

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