I've not been here for a few months. As a few people know, I was planning to move back to the land of Freedom, Guns, and Spying. I've successfully done that, and actually found gainful employment: not in my target city, but the job & conditions are better than I anticipated, so no harm no foul.
I do think people should learn from my mistake though. This is my second move *from* Japan. The first one was smooth. This one: not. I guess I should use some bullet points.
-Movers gave me a bag for my valuables which says in block, Japanese script "This won't be packed", which I put my passport and gaijin card in. Then they packed it. :-/ As you can imagine, this was a fucking nightmare. I realized it was packed on Friday at about 13:00. My flight was Sunday afternoon. Egads. Luckily, the embassy printed me a 3 month one that looked like someone made it at Kinkos. Of course, I took some shit for it there, and at US immigration. It was my 2nd "loss" so they said the state department might not issue me another 10 year. I'll find out soon. I tried to contact Nittsu to figure something out before all that, but he wasn't in the office. Of course, with like 2 hours to go I had no choice but to get the temp. So there's like $200 out of my pocket, not to mention getting put on a terrorist list.
-Sales people insisted on Engrish email correspondence. I knew/know better than this but as I was on my way out the door I let it slide, and paid for it. I was purposely taking my time on my paper work as I knew I wouldn't have a job (and thus, home) on this side of the pond for a while. They also didn't like the way I crossed a lot of T's, so part of it was their issue. Anyway, after like 3 weeks, I got it all done. They knew that the container was to go to California where it would likely sit in storage until I settled in... at least if the person was competent at English (or had a brain). A month after that, I get an email asking when they can send it as it's still in Japan. (WTF?). Of course, why would I have it to the cuntry I'm moving to if I haven't decided on the city? Ugh. So yeah, for the record I left Japan on 08/17 and got my container 12/10.
-The container was to be shipped to my new location (Chicago...Brr...) so they'd need to recalculate some costs. All I asked for was $200 break in price since that's what my Passport cost which was their fuck up. Of course, they shouganai'ed the fuck out of me in like 3 emails. Said if I called they could have gotten it out of the box (yeah right). And, of course, I did call... but not the right way... when he was in. :-/
-I talk to their Chicago department on when to deliver. Of course, they can only deliver during the day starting in the morning. I explain that I just got a new job and can't ask for a day off, and mentioned, "a Japanese company should fully understand this". They were willing to do a Saturday delivery for $90. I paid, and they stop by on Saturday.
-The delivery guys were actually really good. Two of the three were Japanese (one based in LA, and one shipped from Japan temporarily as they don't have enough hands in the US for some reason). However, they weren't able to finish the job b/c the dick holes on the Japanese side didn't pack the screws and feet to the bed frame with the actual frame.
I had a job at a mover in college 20 fucking years ago and still remember that. They left, and said someone would put the bed together when they came to pick up the boxes. When I opened the last box (simply labelled "shoes") I found the screws and other bits. Nittsu was going to send someone on Friday (6 days later) to make the bed. I said fuck it and just did it myself.So yeah, this gets 1 star out of any number of stars. Horrible, typical Japanese "if there's no precedence for it we will ignore it" service. Funny watching these guys try to attempt a global business. I probably wouldn't have given them a scathing review had they at least fessed up and covered the cost of my Passport. Of course, they didn't, so here we are. I'll take it to social media at some point. I'll never know if it works, but I figure if a persuade a single person to opt out of using them for an overseas move, their $200 mistake turns into a 500,000 yen one. I'm cool w/ that.
