Thursday, September 4, 2008

Go ahead, bait me

I had a glimmer of hope yesterday at the Kaisha. I had just returned from dinner to see that I had missed an email from one of the Professionals in my area. After I apologized and explained that I had been at dinner, he asked me how it was. Now keep in mind this is a guy who has always been really nice via email but when I see him in person he doesn't say hi or if he does, it's like he's embarrassed to have run into me. Mr. Email Personality. After my apology email, he should have just said "don't worry" or not sent anything in return. Instead, he had to go and lengthen our exchange by way of a question and put my hopes up. I thought the guy was leading into asking me to dinner some time (not in a romantic way). Like, hey Geisha you've been working here a while and I know absolutely nothing about you and everything about all the secretaries in our area, so how about it? But no, he was just asking how my dinner was. Great.

That didn't top my physical run in yesterday afternoon though. I was going back up to the office and was heading parallel to the wall where the doors to the elevators are. A skizzy oyaji was heading right towards me, and I could see we were going to collide right in front of the doors, and also that he was not going through the doors while it was very clear that I was. So the million dollar question is of course, what did he do? As we come face to face in front of the doors and I start to try to head through them, that old fucking bastard decides that instead of stepping out of the way he is going to jab his elbow into me as I walk by because I am intruding on approximately one inch of his space. NO ONE walks so close to those doors unless they are going in and there is constant heavy traffic in and out of them. Had I not been going through them I would have stayed far from the wall, thus not obstructing anyone like fucking asshole illustrated for me in full colour. I need to do some hooping or some kimono kitsuke and fast or I am going to lose it one of these days. I also feel the need to ask Japan, What is your fucking collective attitude problem? There are bastard old men everywhere (by old I mean before they are called geriatrics but after 40) but I have never been treated as poorly as I have been here. Most old men ex-Japan would graciously move to the side if a younger woman who was not totally minging was trying to go through some doors.

As a consolation prize, the old man who runs the Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki place in Roppongi was more than a gracious host last night and totally made my day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiroshima-style rocks. It's still my favorite kind.

And yeah, oyaji here are a breed apart. Literally.

Edo said...

Why does that always seem to be the case? Unless they're super-awesome oyaji (which seem to be about 1 in 1000), they just tend to be creepers or horrible, horrible people. Personally, I think they might consider us to be potentially stealing their men (despite any evidence to the contrary), which is also what I attribute 20-something-woman bitchiness to. It's an idea, anyway.

Although I guess "oyaji" isn't a nice word for a reason.