Excitement in the Work-Place

This is from my 'Blue Nails' blog.

Last night was one of those nights I was glad to turn up for work.  Of late the job has been a little bit hard to take, mostly due to management issues, which are a little bit complex, but I shall try to give a concise yet comprehensive rundown of what we’re dealing with.

As I’ve mentioned numerous times, the bar is owned by my landlady, an 81 year old woman, who has been running it for the past 53 years (which is impressive in itself).  She still comes to the bar almost every night, and sits, smiles and talks to the customers, showing them a photo copy of a newspaper article on the bar from a few years ago.

Effectively, the bar is now actually run by a 50 year old Chinese woman (although she looks a lot younger and first time customers are unlikely to escape the "guess how old I am" game - guesses are usually around the 30 mark, but I always hope someone will say 55), who has been there for the past 6 years.  She makes out the customers bills, tells the old woman how much to pay staff, and prepares the vast majority of the drinks.

The pair of them come together to make a team that is quite adept at ripping customers off, the Chinese one usually adding a few drinks on to the tab.  Unless of course the customers are Chinese, in which case they only pay for one drink, even though they’ve been at the bar all night.

Employment of staff is an interesting process to say the least.  I might have told you that I got the work when I went to look at the old woman’s apartments for rent, where she nabbed me and told me I had a job in the bar, starting that evening.  The old woman is always on the lookout for foreigners or attractive Japanese girls to work in the bar, as they go down well with customers (a hot favourite is Russian girls).  She very regularly grabs them off the street and tries to get them to come up to the bar to sign up part time, adding their names and numbers to a thick notebook that stays behind the bar.  The result, very often more staff than customers, as the bar can really only fit about twenty people on the customer’s side, and it’s rare to get that many.  It’s a farce.

When there are no customers in the bar we have to go out on the street and try to get customers to come in to the bar.   Targets are usually groups of businessmen, although I’m told my mission is to find cute girls and/or foreigners.  I don’t really have a high success rate, particularly now, as I don’t really try very hard any more, as I’m not prepared to lie to people to get them into the bar in order to get ripped off.  I do say that it is an interesting place, which it is, and that we have Karaoke – on Laserdisc; a technology that had completely passed me by.

When I started out I was told that I’d be earning about 600yen per hour (just under 6€ and quite a bit below minimum wage).  I wouldn’t have minded too much if they’d told me it was because I was new, or because I didn’t speak Japanese, but what annoyed me was the fact that they tried telling me it was because there was a problem with my visa.  In other words – codswallop.  There are other words, but we’ll leave them to your imagination.   I stuck with it, though, as the work wasn’t exactly taxing, I wasn’t looking to get rich and I saw it as a good way to pick up some Japanese.

The other staff that work there regularly earn perhaps twice my wages, and the girls that she drags in off the road are offered a much better starting rate of about 1000yen per hour.  That is also irritating. 

The Chinese woman, however, pockets 10,000 yen at the end of the night, for about 4-5 hours work.  If we don’t get many customers, our wages get postponed or withheld.  In a way I am lucky that I earn so little, as I usually get paid what I’m owed, whereas the others might never get it.

Right.  Not exactly concise, but a picture has been painted nonetheless.  In short, they rip off both staff and customers on a regular basis.

So, last night, I came in from my rounds on the street to find an Aussie guy in his forties sitting at the bar looking through the photos from years back.  He was looking to see if he was in any, as he’d worked there for a year and a half when he first came to Japan, 16 years ago (another one to have come on a Working Holiday and ended up staying, I’ve been meeting a few).  It was while he was reminiscing that my next-door neighbour stormed up the stairs and had a big barney with the old woman.  Apparently she had used her spare key to his apartment when he was out to go in and take one of his gallon drums of heating paraffin, which presumably at that moment was keeping us nice and toasty in the bar.  The police were called, by my neighbour, I think, and so they all went downstairs and spent well over an hour outside. 

I assumed that the matter had been sorted when the old woman came back up to the bar at about midnight, just as we prepared to leave, but I was surprised to find the guards were still sitting outside the front door in their car.  So I took the opportunity to take a few cheeky pics (with the camera that I finally got repaired after four practically pictureless months).  I’m not sure, but they may have been waiting for everyone to leave before they took her away, or maybe the Chinese manager was going to drive her to the station.  Either way, it was a long time before I heard her arrive at her apartment upstairs.

Overall it was immensely satisfying to see the events unfold first hand.

Interviews

Didn’t say much about it at the time, but about a month ago I went to Niseko, the best known ski resort in Japan, to suss out jobs for the ski season. The majority of the hotels and businesses in the area are Australian owned, and the place gets a lot of foreign custom, mainly Australians, Chinese and Singaporean, so my beginner’s Japanese was not likely to be a problem.

The hitchhiking out took about two hours and I got dropped right in the middle of the main area. The first guy that picked me up was one of the few travelling with children that has stopped for me. Not only that, but, because the front seat was covered in various bits and bobs, he told me to get into the back beside his six year old son. Not only THAT, but after about ten minutes he pulled into a convenience store parking area, turned to me, said “Wait a minute”, and disappeared into the shop, leaving the keys in the ignition, and me and the kid sitting there looking at each other. He came back with drinks for all and we resumed the journey. A really nice guy, but unlikely to win any parenting awards for that move.

Once in Niseko I began hitting the businesses, starting at the very top of the hill in the hotels etc. nearest the main ski lifts and working my way down. The ones at the top didn’t need anyone, or if they did they were looking for someone who spoke Japanese. This was true for most places until about halfway down when I got invited into an inn (Japanese owned) and offered a job on the spot, cleaning rooms etc. I decided to keep asking around to keep my options open, as the pay wasn’t great in this particular place and free time to enjoy the snow would also be limited. I would also have to buy a ski pass out of my own pocket which I really was hoping to avoid.

The employers I met during my job search were very helpful and even if they didn’t have any job openings for me they were more than willing to give me pointers on places that might be hiring. The ones who were looking for people often invited me in for an interview, as most of the applicants they get apply online from abroad and so they don’t get to meet them in the flesh until after they’ve been hired and show up for work.

I couldn’t afford to print out a rake of CVs so I had one original that I’d printed at a friend’s house, and of which I’d made one photocopy. It was only as I was handing this copy out that I realised that I had my Irish number on it instead of my Japanese one so I had to correct it. Eek. I told the rest that I had handed all my CVs out (which was true) and they all said it would be fine for me to email it to them. I’d also decided that I wasn’t going to tell any porkies during the interviews; I’d just tell it how it is and see how it went. An example from one particular interview went as follows:

Employer: So, do you have any bar experience?
Damien: Well, I did a bar and restaurant course about three or four years ago, but I’m not going to pretend that I remember any of it now.
Employer: I see…
Damien: I also work part time in my landlady’s bar at the moment, but my job is more focused on talking with customers than serving drinks, so I don’t know if I’d even class that as experience either.
Employer: Well, some experience is still better than nothing, you know.
Damien: Hmm…I suppose so.

Perhaps not what one might call “selling yourself”. You can imagine my surprise when I got an email from that employer last week offering me a position running the bar in his hotel. I’d hate to see what the online applications were like.

I had to decline this offer, though, as I’d already accepted a position in another company with three outlets – a bar, restaurant and café. They have a few ski passes which are shared among staff, a reasonable salary and plenty of hours if I want them, which I will. They also arrange shared accommodation, which is a little bit expensive – twice what I’m paying at the moment – but then again it’s a pricey area.

All in all, a day well spent, although I did think I was going to get stranded out there as the shadows were growing longer while I stood at the side of the road trying to thumb my way back home. Thankfully, just as I was about to give up and try the train (oh the horror), two girls on their way home via Sapporo picked me up and dropped me off in town.

Quick Update

Back again, just in case people were interested in how things went yesterday evening.

At first I thought I was going to be stood up, as she was late arriving at the bar, but eventually she showed up and we went in and took a seat by the window. We ordered drinks and got talking…

…And she was entirely normal, granted a bit of a flirt, but not the dangerous, evil degenerate that you might expect if you were to believe what people say. Overall we had a good laugh, and I stayed for three drinks instead of only having the one as I’d originally planned. And best of all she wouldn’t let me pay for anything!

In short, another stereotype exposed, and we’ll more than likely head out again.

In other news, got a knock on the door the other day. The water people. Wondering how long I’d been living here for. Genuinely got my dates mixed up and said I arrived at the end of September instead of August, so I might have got a free month, but it looks like I’ll be getting a bill of some sort soon enough. If only I can hold out with the ‘lectric for another month and a bit, we’ll be alright.

Started working on my Halloween costume properly today as well. The Conversation Café I work in is throwing a party on the 30th and I’m trying to piece an outfit together now. Can’t tell you what I’m going as yet, but I will say that I was papier maché-ing today for the first time in at least ten years. I’ll also say that potato flour is no substitute for the wheaty variety for this purpose. Doesn’t stick together at all!

That’s all for now, only a quick one today.

An Unexpected Voyage into the Red Light District

“…didn’t you know this was a transsexual bar?”

To be honest, I didn’t know, or at least not until about twenty seconds earlier when our new friend had introduced herself. The relief was tremendous. At first I’d thought it was a strip club. I really hate strip clubs.

It all started towards the end of the night in my landlady’s bar. Got chatting to one of the regulars, a successful businessman, who bought me a drink and was telling me how to make money off the internet. Some other customers had treated me to a few glasses of wine earlier as well, so I was in good form and even agreed to have a lash at a song on the karaoke machine. People here like to hear foreigners singing in English, no matter how untalented they may be. He chose the song, Karma Chameleon, which I kind of knew and so belted it out good-o. No one left, so I guess it can be classed as a success.

When things started winding down at work, he suggested that I accompany him somewhere else. He’s invited me several times to go looking for girls with him after work and I’ve always declined as, well, it’s not really how I operate (although ‘how’ exactly I operate is a question which, to answer, would possibly require careful analysis of a manual which was foolishly discarded with the box I came in). Since girls had not been mentioned, I figured that it might be safe enough to go on an adventure with him, as he was happy to pay for expenses incurred during the night. Another regular, a Chinese guy my age, was also invited and so at 00:30 we left the relative safety of my bar…

…and made a bee-line straight for the red light district a few blocks away. As we were walking there I had flash backs of the time in Greece when a new friend I made in the gym suggested we go to “a really great club he always went to, where all the girls knew him”, after we’d met in the bar for a few drinks. But, thankfully, our first stop was a sushi bar which he usually goes to before a night out and where he treated us to a few portions of sushi and a beer. It was alright sushi, but it certainly wasn’t the best I’ve had, even though it was by far the most expensive. The food and conversation did, however, distract me and quell the rising dread that we were going to go to hit a strip club. Which was why, when we left the sushi bar and walked straight across the road into another building, I barely had time to panic. Nor did I have much time to examine the sign for the bar in basement level two, where our guide and sponsor was taking us.

When the elevator door opened we were greeted by a tall girl who led us to our seats. A furtive glance around the bar revealed a different layout to the time back in Athens - no centre stage with a big pole in the middle and no semi-naked girls going from table to table. There were tables and comfy seats, more like a restaurant than anything.

We were joined at our table by a friendly girl in a blue dress, and it was only as she made her introductions that I began to cop the kind of place we were in. The moment of realisation must have been betrayed by some facial expression I made as it was then that she asked if we’d known what kind of bar it was. Unfortunately, my Chinese companion didn’t understand what she’d said until much later, and only after enjoying a kiss over the table. He took the news well, though.

As for me, I was simply happy that this probably meant that the girls would most likely be keeping their kit on, and I wouldn’t have to have some topless halfwit - hobbies: “sleeping” - sitting on my knee shouting “I LIKE YOU” into my face. I was almost entirely right.

Presently our hostess excused herself as she and the other girls were going to put on a dancing show. I sat back not sure exactly what to expect. What followed was a series of performances in quick succession, which must have required some impressively quick changes of attire as each one demanded a different outfit. The show itself was entertaining, although I could have done without the topless number. Some of the girls were less feminine than others, but there were two or three that were practically indistinguishable from the real thing, particularly the one that sang solo in a big white dress (which is not the name of the song, before you ask).

When the show was over we were joined by two more girls, as well as our original friend. One of the new girls was a little bit too drunk and loutish, but the other was fine. Got to ask the first girl a bit about herself. She was originally from Venezuela, but had been living in Japan for a long time. She asked if I was single, and suggested that we date, assuring me that she was post-op. This she had done in Thailand, and it means that she can never go back home to Venezuela as, although it’s fine to get implants and work done on your face, it’s against the law to surgically remove your…well…manhood, I suppose. Her family is supportive and visits her here, or they go to the States to meet.

After we left that bar (for which the drinks bill had come to about 250€ after only being there for an hour), we headed to the night club and bopped around in there until the wee hours weren’t so wee and then went our separate ways. Overall an interesting night.

As for this evening, I think I’m meeting the girl from Venezuela for a drink in town. I think I’ve made it clear that we’re only going to be meeting as friends, because, being frank, she’s not my type. I’m sure the question running through nearly everyone’s mind at this point is “Why is Damien meeting the Venezuelan transsexual for a drink?” An excellent query, but the answer is difficult to explain, but I mean, it’s all very well for people to make passing comments about ladyboys being depraved etc, when they’ve never actually sat and had a chat with one, isn’t it? I’m sure it can’t be easy, and she must have gone through a lot to get here.

I just have to be careful not to get drunk and make a pass…