Weekly Complaint Thread – 16 November 2023

39 comments

1. Oldest came to visit after going fishing earlier this week. Got to hang out with him. Not a complaint I know.

   But he decided to do this knowing his AC compressor pully clutch is going bad. So he goes to go home and there is burnt rubber and black smoke coming out from under his hood. So we called and had the car towed back to his work (he works for a car manufacturer).

   Now this kid is crazy careful with his car. I’m amazed he didn’t get the whole engine replaced the second he noticed. He freaks out when he skids to a stop about flat spots on his tires and such or pops the clutch oh no he’s polished it needs to replace it or it’s been 2 years need to replace the brake pads and rotors never mind that the car has only a few thousand miles since the last time. I kid you not he’s just crazy about babying that car.

   But that’s not actually the bitch either.

   He caught a bunch of fish. Since the car is getting towed to work he decided not to leave his fishing stuff here. So this morning before I left for work I discovered a cooler full of fish sitting on the front porch. Not cleaned packed ready to eat fish. Fish that had been sitting in melted ice for 3 days smelling… had to drain the water, put them in a plastic bag, and throw them in the freezer till trash day Friday… that’s my complaint… although I was very popular with the cat from the walk back into the house to leave for work time…

2. for some stupid reason i can’t find the cat litter i’ve been using for YEARS. now i’m having a helluva time finding one i like and of course no one sells sample (like 1 box full) sizes so i have to suffer thru a whole month with a giant bag of disappointment. maybe 3rd time will be the charm? i hope?

   side rant: whoever thought matcha scented litter was a good idea should be slow boiled in oil…

3. I can’t stand it when someone spells “し” as “si”

4. Last few times I’ve been at the gym there have been these useless pricks just sitting on machines for 15-20 minutes at a time, doing two or three reps every few minutes, and just fucking around on their phones. I want to be in and out as quickly as possible but mostly I don’t want to cool down between exercises. And even though I go and do full sets of other exercises while waiting for these morons to get off the machines I want to use, they’re still there when I get back. Mental.

5. Caught the flu bug from both my kids. Bit my inner lip last week, bit the same spot again last night so now I have a huge mouth ulcer. It snowed for a few days and now the sun is out, I’m getting a headache from the temperature rise. My 6 month old keeps waking up every 2 hours at night because of congested nose. I am exhausted. I am so weak.

6. came here in the summer so this is my first winter in Japan. the lack of heating in most places is annoying but passable *for now*.

   except the fucking conbini has the heating up at like 26C. start sweating if im in there longer than 2 minutes

7. OK. So at my office, we have five toilet stalls (for men). We are like 200 in the company.

   Regularly, I go to the first toilet stall, and there is a big bunch of toilet paper still inside, you can tell it is still fresh, someone has just been in there.

   So of course, I flush it thinking “this MF cannot even flush his toilet paper properly, idiot”. But the toilet paper floats! A bit like when you try to flush a condom and the little dude keeps coming back.

   So wtf is wrong with this guy’s poop? I know sometimes poop floats, but after several flushes, it’s suppose to sink.

   Or it’s not poop that is inside this toilet paper, SO WTF IS IT?

8. I really want to enjoy living in this country but can’t because of just one particular thing. Every time I go outside I cringe when I see tree trunks with tiny branches and patches of leaves. I don’t understand how people think it’s ok?? Completely treeless streets are kinda sad too, but trimmed trunks are worse in my opinion. It’s like there was an opportunity to have a green street but they decided nah we don’t need it. I go outside, I see a sad trunk and I automatically feel bad. These branches aren’t growing back.
   I don’t have any other complaints about living here but this one thing just ruins everything for me. I want to not care but I just can’t.

9. One of my coworkers, who I used to get along with well, has been butting heads with me for the last couple months.

   I dunno why he’s acting like this but I swear the next time he cuts me off mid-sentence with a customer or tries to passively aggressively insert English in weird ways at work, I’m gonna smack him

10. The bicycle parking area at my mansion building is becoming a nightmare. This morning I realized someone shoved my bike against a wall to fit theirs in, and in the process they broke the plastic piece that covers some of the back wheel (not sure what that’s called). It was barely hanging on so I had to take the whole thing off 🙁

11. Not really a complaint but my mother’s birthday is today and I really wish I could see her. Have no plans to go back to my country this year as flights are pretty damn expensive lately and the weak yen does not help at all.

12. Estate agent says I can’t use girlfriends dad as an emergency contact because we’re not married. Asks for a work superiors information.

    I request the information from my work. Teeth sucking and 48 hours passes.

    They contact the estate agent. Who apparently tells them that eh maybe her dad will be fine after all. Work get back to me with an air of “Why did you waste our time with this?”.

    Bleh. So annoying.

13. That high pitched cute girl voice that grown women often do that makes them sound like five year olds. I literally cannot take them seriously and it’s annoying. Like why can’t you just speak normally. Also the way they baby students here, even the high schoolers. Might just be what I’ve seen tho.

14. someone’s phone alarm going off in the staff room and NO ONE is going to do anything about it.

    “I can’t do anything about it, it’s not mine – the boss” ffs just turn it off

15. the electric blanket i bought last year is no longer warm anymore even at max settings

    guess i have to buy a new one now sigh

16. We’ve got an exchange student from our sister school coming on December 1st for three months, and her host family just bailed. Now it’s up to me to either find her a new family or host her myself. Then at home my wife is PMSing harder than usual and is an absolute nightmare to be around. I’m usually pretty resilient when it comes to stress, but I’m starting to feel a bit trapped and anxious.

17. My knee started to hurt when going down and up stairs. I thought it might be mild and go away after a day, but it lasts 3 days now and really hurts. Don’t want to waste my time at a doctor, but no idea how I can do good for my knee at home ..

18. I’ve mentioned it before and now again. Japanese people in train stations seems to loose all sense of direction.

    I can be walking at any speed and someone is bound to run right into me. I can stay the course or move, it could be packed or empty, doesn’t matter someone is going to run into, or cut me off then just stop walking, guaranteed every time.

    Unless I pump fake and juke every day it’s a smash fest in Tokyo and Saitama stations🫠

19. It makes me so so sad when I go out drinking with my friends at 9,10 PM and see kids in uniforms still commuting home from school/juku whatever at that time 🙁

20. – foreign team in english : says something (call it “this”)
    – erai hito in english : didn’t understand and replies something (call it “that”) unrelated
    – me to erai hito in japanese : I think foreign team meant to say this, not that
    – erai hito to me in japanese : no I dont think so
    – erai hito to someone else in japanese : I think foreign team meant to say this
    – erai hito to foreign team in english : ok for this

    Okay, next time I stfu no problem

21. i miss my family

22. Work stocked the snack corner with those assorted cracker bags that have the tiny whole fish inside. No one’s eating them—including me, because the dead eyes freak me out, despite efforts to expand my palate—but the crackers aren’t going to be replaced with anything better until they’re gone. I’ve tried eating around the fish but then I’m just eating fishy crackers ._.

23. Tried porippy for the first time earlier this week. The flavor was yuzu kosho. It must be time limited. I can’t find anymore at any of convenience stores around me or grocery stores. I am sad.

24. I learned that local wards can try to decide the acceptable order of your name that appears on your inkan, when you are applying for the certificate of inkan (印鑑登録証明書)

    When it comes to Japanese names you are free to decide how your name is presented, say Yamada in romaji, kanji or katakana.

    As a foreigner I presumed this is the same. I thought I can create an inkan however I wanted as long as it’s my name. It turned out local wards have a guide book on what’s considered acceptable, which kind of defeats the common sense that you can decide how your inkan appears.

    My inkan was carved as J. Doe. But this order was not on the guidebook that the officer showed me.

    On their guide book they listed a few options such as

    Jane, D.

    or Jane Doe

    or Doe

    It just didn’t have J. Doe, so the officer who attended me when to the back room to consult another employee, who went to consult another senior employee, and who went to consult someone in management. Before I knew it a group of people were studying my name for quite a while.

    They were about to turn down my inkan saying that they couldn’t register that one, but my husband insisted they can’t supersede general guidelines. They called another authority and turned out J. Doe was fine. Oh well. I wish they would publish the order that they want online.

25. I bought a bottle of spirits thinking it said 36% alcohol (just wanted something strong to mix with soda water, something to have about once a week at home on a Friday).
    Got home and realised it said it’s 16%. Not exactly what I wanted, I guess I’ll just be drinking it on the rocks!!! Though I’ll get through the bottle much quicker than I was anticipating! It was the same price as vodka, but it’s a cherry flavoured liquor and I was wanting something with no sugar, but nice tasting so I grabbed it!

26. My husband and I found an old lady(in nice but summer clothing) wandering with out a flash light in country road(like in the road but kinda on the side) in the middle of nowhere!

    There was nothing around so she had been walking for while. The road is not empty! So many people must have seen her and ignored her. Called the police and waited with her. She said that her family took her to a mountain and forgot her there…

27. People like meeting. Let’s say I create a small feature. It’s very simple that anybody can understand within a minute if they spend that little time to read the code. However, the project manager asks to have a meeting to talk about that. (But he always complains he doesn’t have enough time)

28. There’s a baby on the train and it smells like someone made a poopy…

29. Our local big AEON has a paid biking space, still so many park in front to avoid the fees. There are signs that say „parking not allowed“ but next to that sign it asks if you locked your bike?! I always thought people in Japan follow „rules“?? I thought of complaining to AEON, but I don’t want to be that person again (that’s why complaining here lol)

    Same with parking at konbini?? There is parking, but some ojisans park their car on the street?? Why doesn’t the staff say anything? It’s free too! Same with smokers, kinda smoking at the konbini but not really, when it clearly says smoking not allowed!

30. Look. I find it fucking impressive that you lot can fall asleep seemingly everywhere. But, please, stop leaning into me on the train. It’s crowed enough without some dude trying to get all snuggly.

31. I had a bad day today. I wish I saw it in the crappy overcast today.

    Got a ticket for failure to stop at a sign. (They were hiding, waiting for ppl like me I guess) Bye bye ¥7000.

    Thinking about getting plane tickets to see my folks but they don’t seem excited to see me (more of a lukewarm “let’s talk about your trip when you have time”)

    Kids being little shits and testing my patience (1 person class – mom brings 3yr old daughter and daughter runs off the moment she becomes disinterested. Mom lets her run off and daughter ignores me if I call her name)

    I want to cry but still got a couple more hours left of lessons 😊(😭)

32. I have an intolerance to raw strawberries and hate how difficult it is to find whole cakes without strawberries on/in them.

    My body can handle strawberry jam so if it were a case of just needing to pick off the strawberry topping, I would, but there are raw strawberries used in the filling too!

    I usually go for chocolate or matcha whole cakes as alternatives but I have to be careful as even those cakes sometimes have strawberries sneakily added to the filling…

33. Been here a year and still no idea how to make new friends, tried some apps but the small talk is just exhausting and leads to nothing.

34. I am 32 next year and feel like my life is passing before my eyes. Still don’t know wtf I am doing

35. I liked some of the Hello Kitty 50th merch, only for it to sell out and be marked up quite a bit on Mericari before I could buy it…oh well…

36. Living in the north in the Inaka is so fucking boring and frustrating. There’s NOTHING around. The weather is ass. The next major city (Sendai) is 4 hours away. People stare at me everywhere I go and make side comments because im a tall black guy. I really about to just jump off a bridge.

37. I bought an iPhone 12 for 20,000¥ at the used store which is a big steal to me. Now I feel like selling it and going back to my iPhone 7. Decision decisions

38. Co worker is out sick.. so I have had to pick up the slack for 2 weeks now. I’m exhausted

39. Last month some random stole my bike tire.. now I still haven’t gotten the tire replaced.. and I’m so ugh… I have to carry my fucking bike to the shop..