Week 2

May 15 – 19, 2006
It never ceases to amaze me how deficient I must seem to my supervisors. They stare over my shoulder endlessly, check and recheck everything I’ve checked and rechecked, and talk to me like I’m the biggest idiot that ever walked the face of the earth. The person (and when I say “the person” I know exactly who that is) who decided I need more than one day in a section to get the idea of what they’re trying to do, also underestimated my intelligence quotient. This体験 has been the biggest waste of time in the history of the world with maybe the exception of the wanderings of the Children of Israel and the Dark Ages.
The weird thing is standing up for 8 or more hours a day is better on my back than sitting on a stool with no back rest. They let me use a stool for four hours or so on Friday. All this time I thought it might be easier for me to complete my tasks if I had the comforts of those who have to work in an office, but now I realize once you start giving everyone a seat, then all the sudden everyone has back problems, especially when you don’t get the expensive chairs with a back rest. It’s got to be ethically wrong to make someone sit on a stool for 8 hours a day. It’s better to train all your workers how to stand for 8 or 9 hours a day. That way the biggest problems you run into are sore feet and minor injuries sustained from falling asleep on the job doing the most mundane tasks that smart people can think up. Also with stools there’s all the money you’ll have to invest into a company chiropractor, especially since the tea they serve is supposed to create calcium deficiencies and it’s served at every meal. That’s probably the only reason why their workers haven’t broken in half yet. They’re just like me. On the week ends I crave calcium products and buy accordingly, I don’t drink the tea but I don’t get calcium any other way.
If you’re as bored reading about this week as I was experiencing it, you still have no idea how torturous these days have been for me. I don’t expect anything to change next week. Maybe the only redeeming value of Tuesdays and Thursdays is that I’ve started teaching English Conversation Classes and the students are somewhat anxious to learn. But these are still tainted by the fact that I have to spend an extra 2 hours working to accomplish this task. I hate devoting myself to some company of people I’m never going to see again in this life.
Family’s where it’s at. I’m surprised how much time these people spend doing things for their company. Working shouldn’t overpower so much of your life style, should it? It should be a part of the big picture that helps you to pass the woes of this life; not create new ones. There are newlyweds that work from 7a to 8p everyday including Saturdays not including traveling time. When do they see their spouses? For maybe 4 hours a night and an hour in the morning? No wonder members here take time out of Sundays to go to an運動会during sacrament meeting. Otherwise, when would they ever spend time showing their kids they love them? It’s hard enough to spend only 5 hours every 24 hours trying to keep your marriage alive, especially when you get home and don’t really want to do much but hang out and relax. Whatever my occupation is in the future, I’m glad there are places that can understand that working for the success of companies isn’t as important to society as building families. This experience has reinforced this idea to me more than I thought was humanly possible. I hope I don’t sound too bitter… I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way.