Thursday, September 18, 2008

Geisha's acting debut

I arrived at work today to an email about the Christmas party. No not the one this month, the one in late December. I think the time span alone gives you an indication of the kind of production the Kaisha puts on for its annual Christmas do. In short, there is food and no shortage of alcohol, usually a Kaisha-made video and a stage production put on by the newbies. The stage production usually involves lip-syncing, cross-dressing and general let's make fools of ourselves. Does anyone else know and love Kojima Yoshio (he is a little last year I realize)? We had someone dress up and do him last year. By dress up I mean wear a Speedo. In front of the whole Kaisha. For someone who has practically danced around naked in front of 600 of his closest colleagues, this Professional now takes himself much too seriously.




Back to the email. In the past those of us in the untouchable class (foreigners) have not been involved in the stage production but this year they want us to participate and have asked for some skit ideas. Here are some of the ones I've come up with so far:

-A parody on the line of secretaries at the bathroom mirror every day after lunch, obsessively applying make-up and doing their part to contribute to office gossip.

-A satire on the Professional and secretary relationship. They meet at the Kaisha, get married, she quits to stay home and then gets increasingly jealous and irate after realizing that she spent more time with her Professional when they were colleagues than as man and wife. To make it worse, she is worried he is cheating on her with one of the young and barely-twenty new secretaries. There's always someone younger and more fuckable honey.

-White girl ghetto. Kind of a funny piece that also makes you want to cry: the other foreign girl at the office and I will do a small series of skits showing what it is like to be less than a minority.

-An amusing piece on the Dos and Don'ts of acting like an adult in the working world. DO introduce yourself when asking someone you have never met to do work for you. DON'T assume I can't speak Japanese and walk by my desk noting to your colleague that I must be lonely in my otherwise unoccupied cubicle quad (true story).

Incidentally, I was mistreated again yesterday. I believe I mentioned this before when I was raving about how much I heart my Kaisha but I will do a quick re-cap. When entering and exiting the elevator hall I have often had the door closed in my face by the person in front of me. Not that it's too hard to figure out, but a person who knows I work on the same floor. I had actually forgotten about the geriatric Professional until yesterday.

The first time he snubbed me we were going into the Kaisha and he gave me a dirty look like I was from a rival Kaisha and trying to sneak in, and then shut the door behind him instead of allowing me to pass through the same air space as him. Yesterday we were waiting for the elevator and this time he gave me a dirty look that said, Oh it's you again. How did you manage to sneak in this time? First of all, how did he manage to sneak through the system without being made to retire? The guy is past the golden oldies age and should be home gardening or otherwise occupied in gentler pursuits. The next time he snubs me I am going to ask him if he is on the wrong floor and actually looking for the geriatric ward in the building.

One more piece of titillating news on the Kaisha front. I am going to one of the Other Asian Countries in the next couple months and am getting my vaccinations in order. My sweet mom sent me a list of the ones I've had by email with a subject line that reads "immunization record with love". I clicked print and then realized the printer was going into overdrive for one of the secretaries who was printing out thousands of pages. When it looked like hers had finished I check the top sheet and my email was nowhere to be found. Computer savvy people: did it get cancelled? did it get printed in the middle of all those pages? Obviously I can't just ask the secretary if she's seen it. So either it didn't print or some client is going to find my immunization record nestled in the report we sent them this afternoon. Fuckity fucking great.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yaye GEG acting debut! I vote for the secretary in the bathroom thing! You and the other Whitie can dress up in a ball gown, put so much glitter on your face that you look like a disco ball, and twirl and whirl in front of the mirror.

Then, to make it all the more realistic, have a Japanese secretary pretend to be one of her white, female coworkers- completely unable to get a spot at the sink because of all of the twirling and whirling ridiculousness that's going on in front of her.



V's workity work has already started planning their freaking Christmas party, too- can you believe it? I have already informed him I am going politely decline karaoke after our nice French dinner with open bar.

owenandbenjamin said...

It is in the middle of the thousand pages. At least you weren't printing porn like some people I know.