Hunkabutta Archives

04.17.2001

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The saga continues at work. They wave the new job under your nose so that you can just taste it, and then they snatch it away -- better yet they say that they 'may' snatch it away, but that they'll have to think about it for a couple of weeks, so, they're just gonna leave it there under your nose until then.

Now, if you can believe it, the president of the entire corporate group is in on my transfer. He's apparently not too keen on it because the people who are buying my old site (which I am currently the webmaster of) 'might' be expecting me to come along with it and build them a new one. And because these guys are big shots (the son of the founder of Sony and the last president of Microsoft Japan) he doesn't want to upset them in any way.

I'm tell'n ya...I'm about ready to go postal on their asses and show them how we express dissatisfaction with our places of employment back in the good ol' U S of A... (no, just kidding).

So, what happened is that they decided to keep me in a limbo state until they can suss out the feelings of these outside interests. I'll be performing my new duties for now, but I'll still be employed by my former division and getting paid the part-time wages that I've gotten until now. Unbelievable! A typical Japanese solution -- ignore the conflict of interests which is the source of the problem and hope that the problem will just go away

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Above are a few photos from March's trip to Kyoto, back by popular demand.


04.15.2001

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There's been a snag. I KNEW! that there would have to be snag!

As you may recall, on Thursday I a got a long awaited blessing from my current boss to leave his department and take a new job with our affiliated tech company. Great.  So on Friday I go upstairs to talk to my new manager about my new job -- up to this point he's been very vague. That didn't phase me because in Japan people often seem to confuse obtuseness with tact. Anyway, I finally corner him and make him give me a detailed job description, yet, he still won't talk about salary, or benefits, or contract, etc.  So, finally I asked him, "XXX-san, what about my contract..., my salary."

His eyes open wide in surprise.  "But, but YYY-san (my self appointed intermediary) told me that you already have a contract with [your current employer] and that they would be paying you."

My jaw hit the ground.  There's not a chance that my current company is going to continue to pay me while I work for another company.

YYY-san, my go-between, who shall remain nameless, but I'm sure some of you know who he is, has been going around lying to everyone, and telling them whatever he thought they wanted to hear.  Of course, for some bizarre reason, he never told me about any of his lies, which I'm sure he'll re-label 'strategy' when I talk to him about it tomorrow.

So now, I pretty much quit my old job, but my new job, which was suppose to be in the bag, has suddenly come out of the bag.

On the good side, the new manager said that I could still get my new work area set up on Monday. I'm guessing that they'll still hire me, because I know they need me, but there'll be some long, convoluted, painful approval process in order to get my salary approved by the upper management.

Sometimes the way they get things done here just makes you want to go home, crawl under your futon and cry yourself to sleep.


04.13.2001

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Okay. So my current boss was surprisingly nice to me when I told him that I wanted to leave his department and that I didn't want to go along with my site when it gets sold to an outside company -- I guess I was kind of hoping he wouldn't want me to go, y'know, kinda like, "Oh no, please Mike, don't transfer away! Everything'll fall apart if you're not here." Yeah, right, I know...keep dreaming.

So the last stage in my transfer saga is nigh upon me -- the contract negotiation.

Once again, wish me luck.

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gratuitous link:

Check out this great flash game
(thanks Fred and b-kid)


04.12.2001

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As you may have surmised from my lack of postings these past couple of days -- my 'potential' new job is going well.

The reason that I haven't been able to post to hunkabutta is because the man upstairs sent me to a two day intensive Blue Martini training seminar. HUGE software suite -- really blew my mind.

Things are looking good, good, good. Yet, I still haven't signed a contract, so things could still go bad, bad, bad at any time.

Today is hopefully the day that I approach my current boss, sans-intermediary, and confront him directly with the fact that I want to leave his department. I'm a bit nervous, but hey, what's he going to do... except maybe, sabotage my chances by talking to the Tech manager upstairs where I'm hoping to transfer too.

Oh man... 


04.09.2001

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I am wringing my hands in anticipation. My self- appointed intermediary (don't ask, it's a Japanese thing) between my current department and the programming/web development department where I want to be transferred has been mysteriously absent today.

I should be meeting with the manager as I write this post. What to do... What to do....

Wish me luck.