How to survive a Japanese business meeting.

[Taro Toporific]

For all you budding FG, let me relate how I survived my typical super-dooper toporific Japanese death-by-PowerPoint meeting this morning...

Once the Butt-bucho started droning on about software accountablity. This was followed by pissed and moaned about their meaningless computer thingie and . . .

I started calculating in my head how many holes were in the acoustical ceiling tiles in the room to put this all into perspective.

At first, I thought I could just make counts along the transect, calculated the average number of holes in a square meter and multiplied that value by the area of the ceiling.

So I counted the small holes in the ceiling tile right above me. I multiplied the number on one side by the number on the other. Hum fifteen and twenty...three hundred. Easy enough to figure out...now I started counting the number of tiles along one side of the small rectangle room--fourteen--the other side--sixteen--not so easy this time without the multiples of ten---two hundred and twenty four. Now for the total number of holes in the ceiling three hundred multiplied by two hundred and twenty four--this could take me a minute, my thoughts impeded by the droning of the butt-head bucho, even without calculated concentration---sixty seven thousand, two hundred...

Wait. Wait. Damn, there's standard deviation in the number of holes of plus or minus 22 holes among the tiles. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg, I think I need to use population calculus to accomplish this calculation. Oh, and then I forgot to factor in the cut-outs for heating ducts, florescent lights and...

Almost too quickly lunchtime came. However, I just KNEW it had done a great "job" for the morning. Not only I survived both the butthead manager's whining and PowerPoint poisoning, but I also determined there were 68,988 ceiling tile holes and 31 cockroach spots in the meeting room.

At least my 2-hour lunch wasn't bad.

[den4]

I never tried counting the ceiling holes during the long meetings I had when I was working (ie learning how to become a better bijinesu eikaiwa sensei) at the company in Shibuya that hired us out to all them funky businesses all around the satellite cities around the Big Town Tokyo....But I did lose count of how many times one fellow sensei slept through the meetings, and how frustrating those meetings were since it never focused on the main problem, which was the client companies themselves.

Reality always took a side seat in meetings like that, and since returning to the States, I'm glad to report that Japan does not have a monopoly in mindless meetings. One company I worked at had an IT manager (who had no clue what IT was) who had a 2-hour meeting every morning to go over what we did the previous day and what we were projected to do over the next several months. I'd say the useful content of the meeting ended about the first 5-10 minutes of each meeting, and the rest of the 110 minutes were spent doodling spaceships assaulting planet earth to take out certain management types, or at least abduct them for alien experiments on some distant worlds....

If I ever work in Japan again, I'll have to try that hole-counting thing....unless the ceilings are covered with flat tiles...

den4

I like the thing in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Ford Prefect states that the reason why earthlings talk so much is because if their mouths stop moving, their brains start working.....I think upper management types have this problem....hate to think what would happen if their brains actually did start working again...

[Taro Toporific]

... since returning to the States, I'm glad to report that Japan does not have a monopoly in mindless meetings.

My co-workers at Maybe-the-biggest-electronics-company-in-Japan Inc. swear that DILBERT is Japanese.

[cstaylor]

I'd have to agree with Steve B. about running your own show: far fewer unproductive meetings, but you work your ass off.

[GomiGirl]

[quote="cstaylor"]I'd have to agree with Steve B. about running your own show: far fewer unproductive meetings, but you work your ass off. ]

I hear you!!!

[Taro Toporific]

I'd have to agree with Steve B. about running your own show: far fewer unproductive meetings, but you work your ass off. ]

I hear you!!!

Oh, and there's another "little" problem of running your own FG show in Japan:
Japanese clients think they don't have to pay small KK owned by a gaijin. [/b]

[Kurofune]

Oh, and there's another "little" problem of running your own FG show in Japan: Japanese clients think they don't have to pay small KK owned by a gaijin.

This guy will be more than happy to help: http://www.tokyounclassified.com/

[cstaylor]

That's why you collect the money in phases... gives the unscrupulous the willies knowing you can walk away from their unfinished system, and they'd be back at zero.

[Taro Toporific]

[quote="cstaylor"]I'd have to agree with Steve B. about running your own show: far fewer unproductive meetings, but you work your ass off. ]

Ahhhh, now that's the life...

[GomiGirl]

This guy will be more than happy to help: http://www.tokyounclassified.com/

That guy is SUCH a dickhead - I don't care if he is reads this board!! His site is so badly worded, sophomoric (sophomoronic) and unprofessional, I am not surprised he was fired. BTW he was fired after he collected some unpaid debts and they remained in his own pocket.. now he is just a professional ratbag.

[Taro Toporific]

This guy will be more than happy to help: http://www.tokyounclassified.com/

That guy is SUCH a dickhead - I don't care if he is reads this board!!

I found this video ofMr. Cleanhead kicking butt.
(3,832 KB Windows .avi file)

[cliffy]

This guy will be more than happy to help: http://www.tokyounclassified.com/

That guy is SUCH a dickhead - I don't care if he is reads this board!! His site is so badly worded, sophomoric (sophomoronic) and unprofessional, I am not surprised he was fired. BTW he was fired after he collected some unpaid debts and they remained in his own pocket.. now he is just a professional ratbag.

Haven't we been here before?? Pointless bad Karma wasn't it called

[Taro Toporific]

I'd have to agree with Steve B. about running your own show: far fewer unproductive meetings, but you work your ass off. ]

Ahhhh, now that's the life...

See part 2 of Dilbert's solution to "unproductive meetings": http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert20031829020130.gif

[groovewonder]

dude, your ceiling tile thing did not work at all for me today... after a while, everybody just started to sound more and more like charlie brown's teacher and i had no choice but to doze off...

after-lunch meetings should be illegal.

[Taro Toporific]

... i had no choice but to doze off...
after-lunch meetings should be illegal.

For years in grade and highschool, my after lunch class was f&%ing French and I was NEVER awake. To this day my French is screwed. Damn if I still want to pull out my K-garden "nap rug" at 1pm.

More "fun" was last week when my ocha-girl's head collided with mine when we both nodded off at the same moment in a department meeting.

[groovewonder]

awesome! bet you wish you had THAT on film! i fell asleep in a morning meeting about two weeks ago sitting in a rolling chair with the spring loaded back, like most computer chairs.. old and rusty though. anyway, i dozed off and my body started sitting further and further and further backwards. i think i would have fallen completely out of the back of the chair except for that it was rusty and let out a horrible grinding-metal screech that turned all eyes on me!

them:
me:

i hate meetings. i can usually keep up with the conversation for a minute or two, but after that it all turns into mush.. plus, japanese hold meetings over the stupidest things, like:

1. new types of garbage bags and garbage disposal methods
2. flu season is here, so be careful
3. mushrooms are illegal now, so they are now BAD
4. useless paperwork that needs to be filled out

i hate meetings, but more than any other kind of meeting, i hate japanese meetings. the locals have mastered the art of wasting a fairly large piece of time.. also never figured out how they can laugh about stuff that is seriously not funny...

two teachers: "the third and fourth grade teachers are all old, but we're young."
other teachers: (laughing hysterically)

horrible.

[Taro Toporific]

More "fun" was last week when my ocha-girl's head collided with mine when we both nodded off at the same moment in a department meeting.

awesome! bet you wish you had THAT on film!

As a matter of fact, I do have some shots of it.
Here's a JPEG of my ocha-girl, "Mega-Bimbo", aka "Megan", aka Megumi-chan with a mild concussion...

[Taro Toporific]

As you have the time, enter deep contemplation. Figure out how you can amke them absolutely dependant on you. Figure out how you can trick them into begging you to lead the company.

Oh, you mean, "trick them into begging you to lead" like Carlos Ghosn the un-FG CEO of Nissan does?

[Big Booger]

Here's a JPEG of my ocha-girl, "Mega-Bimbo", aka "Megan", aka Megumi-chan with a mild concussion...

I can smell the funk.. pouring off that one hehehe
BB

[Buraku]

Japanese firms split on staying in business in Russia
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14847256

Yesterday's Dilbert

He is literally Hitler now, attacking America with blitzkrieg Luftwaffe and submarine torpedo

Master persuader Scott Adams master persuades a bunch of newspapers to drop Dilbert via race comments
https://www.avclub.com/dilbert-scott-ad ... 1850159479

[Buraku]

How to survive a Dilbert toon?

"Dilbert" Comic Strip BANNED Because of What Creator Scott Adams Said Here About BIack People

Mark Dice