Big In Japan

Long stretches of time

Before it gets to be six months between posts, I had better interject and write something. This will be one of those massive ‘gee, I thought he has fallen off the face of the earth, but here he is’ posts. I’m going to back-track a little bit since it’s been so long since I posted that I forgot what I wrote (and I don’t have it in front of me at the time of writing.)

Way back last year December I had a lovely graduation ceremony at Western Michigan University, packed up all my stuff and moved home. (I’m pretty sure I covered this part so I’ll kind of skim here.) I moved into my mother’s basement and waited for my diploma to come so I could start applying for a real job. I got a bit of bad news from a certain professor who said that I needed to re-write a certain paper before I could graduate. He told me this only a week before the deadline to complete work and still officially graduate in December… I was not happy. But, after a week or so of moping around, I decided to re-write the paper as requested. In the mean time I started attending Kendo practices at the local dojo.

I believe it was in February that I applied to a position as a chauffer at the Japanese Consulate in Detroit. In a strange coincidence I was helping out at a Kendo tournament that was officiated over by the Consul General of Japan for Detroit. Unfortunately the job lead didn’t pan out, but it did get me thinking in the line of ‘I need to get a job’.

It should be noted here that in early March I finished my re-write of my paper and sent it next-day mail to the professor.

After some searching and posting my resume on Monster.com I got and interview with… a major consumer electronics reseller… we’ll call them TV-Hut. I got hired into their manager in training program and thought everything was cool. Then I found out that my workplace was a 25 minute drive away. You’ll note that above I didn’t mention anywhere about buying a car, yeah, no wheels. Thinking I could fix this I borrowed cars for the first two weeks of my employ while I tried to think of what to do. At the same time the work at my far off workplace was, to put it lightly, frantic. In my first two weeks I worked 12 days, several of those were 10 hour or open-close shifts. I was called in on my days off and never really knew if I would have to work on any given day. On top of all that I was trying to learn a new job and a new management system. Week two I cracked and put in my ‘two-weeks’, on day 16 I up and quit.

Not being a total dummy, I lined up another job before I quit. I went back to work for the City at the local parking garage. For anyone who doesn’t know, I used to have a job where I sat in a little booth for 10 hours at a time and collected parking fees. It may sound like a boring job, and it is, but it’s easy and the pay is good.

Thinking that I didn’t want to ride my bike to work everyday (it’s only a mile, but hey) I looked online and was fortunate enough to find someone in the area selling a Moped. I have since fallen in love with my vehicle and ride it every chance I get (when it’s not broken, but that’s for another post.)

At the end of April after some walking around of a certain professor I was able to REALLY graduate from Western. I have since been putting out my feelers for jobs that would send me back to Japan. So far I have one line (not my first choice, but it’s not too bad.)

I go at the end of the month to interview with the company in Chicago. Hopefully I’ll be able to post soon after I get back that I have a job (my fingers are crossed.) Until then.

Jaa Mata Ne!

posted by Dockett @ 4:17 PM