Talk me down from killing this guy.

[amdg]

So a new guy has joined our office, he’s a sales/marketing guy in his late 50’s who’s been put in charge of a new branch of our company. Nominally that means he will be ‘managing’ me for some of my duties, unfortunately.

He doesn’t like hakujin, it’s pretty clear, and as I’m the only hakujin in the whole office, I’ve become a kind of target for him.

He notices that I like to go to the same place every day and pick up a bento (this woman on the street makes a nice bento, with fresh vegetables and she rotates the selection every day), so noticing this he can’t help but comment on it, loudly, if we catch the same elevator – it’s hilarious for him. “amdg are you getting the same bento again? ! You are a strange one amdg. Are you OK?” I just smile and say “yup”.

The other day it looked like it might rain so I grabbed my umbrella to take with me. Seeing me with my umbrella he exclaimed “Oh, is it raining?!” and ran off to get his umbrella too. He came back to the elevator bay and said “Hey amdg, it’s not raining! I checked, why do you have your umbrella? ” I said “ well it looked like it might rain.” “Oh no, its not raining, you are so strange amdg, are you OK?”

Last Friday (yesterday) I was pretty busy but he come up to me at about 4pm and says “I want to talk to you amdg.” “Please tell me what you think are the necessary qualifications for your job, I just want to know in case you leave and we need to replace you, what skills the new person should have” WTF, I thought. Anyway I told him a bunch of skills that I thought the person should have – pretty much exactly what I have. He questioned why I thought a degree in Japanese language was not important, I told him why. He closed his eyes and grimaced through the whole thing as he listened then grunted and walk off back to his rock.

I’m pretty sure by his behavior that he’s lobbying for the boss to fire me or cut my salary or something. I hate office politics and I never play it and as a result I’m hopeless at it. I much prefer a fatal blow to his face. If I rotate from the hips I’m pretty sure I could get my fist all the way through his face and at least partly into the back of his skull. One hit. I asked the wife if she’ll wait for me for a few years until I get out of jail, she will.

[Taro Toporific]

So a new guy ...is lobbying for the boss to fire me or cut my salary or something....

Start looking for a new job because even if Mr-Marketing dies in an unfortunate hit-and-run traffic accident in the next six months, he will have poisoned your work environment against you.
The alternatives are:
--Get him fired for fraud (all Japanese butthead bucho are guilty)
--Have him prove his incompetence (most bucho are incompetent) when he CC mails all your company secret sales data to your competitors
--He could repeatedly but randomly lose his work data because porno malware on his computer to the point he becomes a burden to everyone
--Have his appetite for having gay kiddy porn on his work computer become well-known and then have it discovered he is running a child porn bot net via his home/work computers....

[Midwinter]

In all honestly, I say kill him. And if you need to justify it later to the police, tell them the voices on the internet made you do it.

[Takechanpoo]

He questioned why I thought a degree in Japanese language was not important, I told him why.

This thinking is so problematic and arrogant in spite of living in Japan. it reflects your twisted attitude against Japanese and Japanese society.

He closed his eyes and grimaced through the whole thing as he listened then grunted and walk off back to his rock.

This is natural reaction.
Maybe he was feedbacked about your reputation from his predecessor.

[Tsuru]

Take him head on... as Taro says you'll probably have to start looking for a new job anyway so it might be fun to see how far he will go. And then post about it on FG, but that goes without saying

[AssKissinger]

[ttjereth]

[kusai Jijii]

[Behan]

Sounds terrible, amdg. Good luck and hope things go well for you.

He deserves the killer punch you have thought up for him.

[Iraira]

Mix some high power LSD...no fuck that weak shit...use some STP (not the oil treatment). Mix the STP with some DMSO, so it will directly absorb through the skin. Combine that with some industrial strength laxatives, and smear it on his handles for his desk drawers. About 20 minutes later, he'll be..well...you'll not have to worry about him annoying you any longer. While he's ranting and screaming like a lunatic, put the aforementioned kiddy porn on his computer, just to make sure that he's completely fired.

[This is a pen]

[Charles]

IMHO, I would just do my job and make sure the REAL boss knows that you do your job well. It is more important for the Boss to know you're doing your job right, rather than worrying about some marketroid's opinion of your job.
You can't control what Mr. Marketroid does, you can only control your reaction to him. If you bear up well under his bullshit, that will earn you more respect from everyone (including your boss) than to fight him. If you do that, his irrational actions will only damage himself, rather than you.

[Midwinter]

IMHO, I would just do my job and make sure the REAL boss knows that you do your job well. It is more important for the Boss to know you're doing your job right, rather than worrying about some marketroid's opinion of your job.
You can't control what Mr. Marketroid does, you can only control your reaction to him. If you bear up well under his bullshit, that will earn you more respect from everyone (including your boss) than to fight him. If you do that, his irrational actions will only damage himself, rather than you.

In fairy-tale world, you might be right Charles, but the real world rarely operates like that. The sneaky, subversive, game playing fuck tards will usually win if you let them.

[james]

This thinking is so problematic and arrogant in spite of living in Japan. it reflects your twisted attitude against Japanese and Japanese society.

you little fuckwit. i think i met you on the train going home from okayama last week. you'd dump on him for not having a degree in "japanese language study" while he's probably demonstrated aptitude beyond what such a degree would yield.

This is natural reaction.
Maybe he was feedbacked about your reputation from his predecessor.

yeah, natural if you're about to pinch a loaf but there isn't a head to be found for miles.

[eddie]

i would simply notify his manager that the guy is creating a less-than-hospitable work environment. if that doesn't work, just report the guy to h-r and watch him shut the fuck up. any legit company won't want this happening. workplace environment is a serious issue both for productivity and from a legal standpoint.

[kusai Jijii]

workplace environment is a serious issue both for productivity and from a legal standpoint.

In Japan?

[FG Lurker]

IMHO, I would just do my job and make sure the REAL boss knows that you do your job well. It is more important for the Boss to know you're doing your job right, rather than worrying about some marketroid's opinion of your job.
You can't control what Mr. Marketroid does, you can only control your reaction to him. If you bear up well under his bullshit, that will earn you more respect from everyone (including your boss) than to fight him. If you do that, his irrational actions will only damage himself, rather than you.

Sometimes I wonder if you and Jack are the same person. You both claim to know a helluva lot about Japan but neither of you have any real experience here.

[FG Lurker]

[Charles]

In fairy-tale world, you might be right Charles, but the real world rarely operates like that. The sneaky, subversive, game playing fuck tards will usually win if you let them.

If you play their game, they have already won.

[GuyJean]

[Catoneinutica]

IMHO, I would just do my job and make sure the REAL boss knows that you do your job well. It is more important for the Boss to know you're doing your job right, rather than worrying about some marketroid's opinion of your job.
You can't control what Mr. Marketroid does, you can only control your reaction to him. If you bear up well under his bullshit, that will earn you more respect from everyone (including your boss) than to fight him. If you do that, his irrational actions will only damage himself, rather than you.

Charles' recommendation is certainly the "classically" correct one in that what you would be told by everyone from your dad to Tom Peters to Wayne Dyer to Lao Tsu. However, it must be borne in mind that "doing your job" in an office environment means asking yourself when necessary, what would Machiavelli do? And I think the M Man would be hard-pressed to offer better advice than what Taro suggested a few posts up.

As for me, I like taking the bigotry and narrow-mindedness of the these kinds of oyaji fools and using it against them, judo-style. Knowing that his antagonism toward you is doubtless borne of his insecurity toward white folks, I'd immediately take on a haughty, arrogant tone, like a British imperialist in Hong Kong c. 1900. If he's in your way, just jerk your head in an impatient way, as if you can't be arsed to even deign to speak to him. If you think you can pull it off (and this is only for professionals), snap your fingers when you want him to get moving: "I say, Monseiur Chinaman, do hurry up! What's that, you're Japanese, not Chinese? Well, really, is there a difference? You people do look alike, you know."

[Mulboyne]

[quote="GuyJean"]I would throw that question back at him]
That's risky. If, as is likely, he doesn't know, chances are he'll come up with some ideas on the fly and then decide that those were the qualifications all along. Before you know where you are, he'll have convinced himself that amdg is under qualified. In company politics, it is best not to ask questions to which you don't already know the answers. In Japanese companies, the usual way is to create the answer yourself, indoctrinate everyone with it, and then ask the question.

[GuyJean]

.. In Japanese companies, the usual way is to create the answer yourself, indoctrinate everyone with it, and then ask the question.

So true.. Just bolo punch the fucker.

GJ

[amdg]

Thanks for the input everyone. If I understand what everyone seems to be saying, and I think I do, then the basic advice seems to be use the scissors instead of the fist, for a quicker takedown.

I'm off to Den Den town with the wife now to get a voice recorder that looks like a pen. I'm going to start documenting our little exchanges.

[ttjereth]

i would simply notify his manager that the guy is creating a less-than-hospitable work environment. if that doesn't work, just report the guy to h-r and watch him shut the fuck up. any legit company won't want this happening. workplace environment is a serious issue both for productivity and from a legal standpoint.

That was a good one! You should do standup!

[Midwinter]

If you play their game, they have already won.

And if you roll over and take it, you might as well be their bitch.

[eddie]

[quote="ttjereth"]:grin: That was a good one! You should do standup! ]

honestly, i'm so lucky to have never had the experience of working for one of those small to mid-sized japanese 'kaisha'. in this case probably the best thing to do would be to don black face, wear a bikini to work, and fall on your bottom every twenty minutes or so. you'll be a top gaijin in no time and your boss will finally understand you.

[dimwit]

Is this new guy from inside or outside of the company? Guys in their late 50's usually have no marketable skills, so I can't imagine one being hired from outside the company unless he is an old crony.

From what I know, it seems to be common practice for talentless managers to make some changes when they appointed the new section chief just to show that there was some justification for appointing them. Patronizing the foreigner may just be one of his reforms.

Good luck.

[amdg]

He's from outside the company. His job is a completely new position, as we are starting a new side company and he'll be running it. I'll still be employed by the old company, but part of what I do will be in the new company offices.

A bit vague, I know, but it's complicated.

I've been asking around for information about where he came from and what his experience is, but no-one I've spoken to seems to know yet. He's only been around for about 4 weeks.

My relationship with the actual boss is (was?) pretty good in fact, but last week I got called into his office and he seemed slightly peeved that I hadn't yet given him a report on my plan for the next business trip I'll be doing. This is unusual because I usually don't give a pre-meeting report, just a post-meeting report. It seems he has some new ideas about what a business trip should be about, and I think I can guess where they came from.

The troubling part is that the boss has high expectations of this new business venture the cocksucker will be heading. So right now he might very well be the golden-haired child of the office. I've done quite a lot in terms of generating business in the past but that is old news right now as the boss seems focussed on the new possibilities.

Fuck it though, I'm going to speak to the boss tomorrow about it.

[ttjereth]

He's from outside the company. His job is a completely new position, as we are starting a new side company and he'll be running it. I'll still be employed by the old company, but part of what I do will be in the new company offices.

A bit vague, I know, but it's complicated.

I've been asking around for information about where he came from and what his experience is, but no-one I've spoken to seems to know yet. He's only been around for about 4 weeks.

My relationship with the actual boss is (was?) pretty good in fact, but last week I got called into his office and he seemed slightly peeved that I hadn't yet given him a report on my plan for the next business trip I'll be doing. This is unusual because I usually don't give a pre-meeting report, just a post-meeting report. It seems he has some new ideas about what a business trip should be about, and I think I can guess where they came from.

The troubling part is that the boss has high expectations of this new business venture the cocksucker will be heading. So right now he might very well be the golden-haired child of the office. I've done quite a lot in terms of generating business in the past but that is old news right now as the boss seems focussed on the new possibilities.

Fuck it though, I'm going to speak to the boss tomorrow about it.

Good luck!

Maybe you'll get really lucky and the new business will fuck something up really bad an the new guy will end up taking the fall for it.