Working in a Japanese company….

Or japan is really all about apologizing profusely…

I think I blogged about it sometime ago but it is still something that I cannot accept nor grow used to after working in Japan for 3 years.
(Oh yah it has been 3 years!! 3/1 marks the 3rd anniversary of working in Japan and in my current company!!)

I really hate it. (Hate to use the word hate) when something happens and my colleague tell me, “In any case, let’s apologized first”
I do not hate to apologize. I only detest it when 1. It is NOT my fault nor has ANYTHING to do with me. (I do apologize on behalf of my colleagues) 2. Saying sorry does not SOLVE the problem at all and is only providing the most convenient escape route out. (Some Japanese thinks that once they apologize, they can close the case and not think about remedies or prevention for future possible case.)

Actual case 1.

I wrote an email on behalf of a user to the IT team of HER co in US to request for them to do some setup on her PC. After all the arrangements have been done, the IT personnel just conveniently forgot about the meeting and the user waited in vain for her for 2 hours. But well, since the job is to be done via remote-desktop, it wasn’t really like she wasted her 2 hours anyway. But guess what, she came back to me and blamed me for the 2 hrs wasted.
Hey! I was like “huh??” I wasn’t the one who didn’t turn up. It was someone from YOUR own colleague! Why do I have to apologize on behalf of YOUR own colleague! And the best is that IT personnel didn’t even apologize to me nor explain why she didn’t turn up! She once again, conveniently asked for another meeting. Does my apology solve the current problem of her skipping the meeting? NO!! Will it prevent her from forgetting the meeting again?? Answer is NO!! again!
So I wrote an email again to politely tell her, that while I deeply regretted what happened, I am in no position to guarantee such things will not happen again if her colleague does not cooperate, adding on that we will think of remedies to prevent such things from happening again.
Guess what?
No reply from her.
Ungrateful brat.

OK.. sorry I sounded so bitter. But I think Japanese should just get out of their shell, stop thinking that the world revolves around them. (Hey they do think that they are in the centre of the world)
Stop categorizing people (white are not necessary the best) and start to treat humans as real humans.

And I really don’t see why my life should all be just about apologizing profusely for NOTHING. We need to jiang li.