Author: Ian

Guest Reflection – 3 New Developments a Day

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So two weeks ago I posted about making good use of your time and the challenges that go along with it, which a lot of folks seemed to appreciate.  (A sign that maybe we’re all struggling with the same problems??)

One of those folks happened to be my old board-game playing cohort Darryl Parker, web designer and self-employed entrepreneur who opened up Schoodac’s coffee shop in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire back in 2015.  He wrote some wise words down in the depths of the comments section about how he manages his time, and I found it way too thought-provoking not to share as its own post: Continue reading »

How to Deal When Your Day Job Makes You Do Pointless Shit

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We’ve all been there: You’re sitting at your Day Job minding your own business when your boss or some coworker comes up and asks you to attend a boring meeting, fill out a pointless report, finish some useless project, or take on a new task that you know will absolutely 100% never benefit anyone or anything.  It’s times like this when you sit back, throw your clenched fists in the air, and voice that familiar lament we’ve all felt a million times:

Why do I have to do this????

Being handed pointless tasks at work reminds me of being in middle school when a teacher needed to fill a lesson period and would give us some hastily photocopied worksheet that didn’t even try to teach us anything or hone any skills.  Instead, the whole point of the worksheet Continue reading »

A Short Piece (Promise!) About Making Good Use of Your Time

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I think a lot about time.  Namely why I never seem to have enough of it.

I think about the things I do in the short term to waste time, like scrolling through news after work and watching chains of Youtube videos after dinner and lying in bed too long on weekend mornings.  When these things start to become habits, that’s dangerous, because the amount of time they take away increases over a longer period and you lose even more of your time in these small chunks.

So, I’ve been trying to catch these habits and get rid of them before they do more damage. Continue reading »

I Got SICK (But I’m All Better Now)

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The title says it all—last week I got hit by a nasty case of strep throat that had me writhing in tonsil-pinched agony for three nights and coughing in a runny-nosed mess for four days, plus some lingering coughing and sneezing I just couldn’t shake.  (That’s the most graphic I’m going to get in this post—promise!)

We’ve all been sick before and know what it’s like (no fun, except for the staying home and watching movies part), but this week I want to share three illness-related observations you might not have thought about: Japanese health care, taking days off, and falling behind on creative work. Continue reading »

Why I Blog About My Shortcomings

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A few weeks back I was talking to a friend about this blog, and he summed up the entire thing like this:

“It seems like you’re always talking about some problem you’re going through, and how as soon as you’ve dealt with it you’re FINALLY going to get some work done for serious this time.”

As usual I’m exaggerating, but his point was basically the same: I often sound like a procrastinator who’s vowing to finally get down to work as soon as the latest distraction is out of the way.  Especially in the wake of my last post about kicking bad habits in Japan, I’ve been thinking: have I fallen into a pattern of letting one distraction after another interfere with my work?

Here’s an even crazier thought: have I fallen into a pattern of blogging about these same distractions so that everybody can see how inefficient and easily distracted I am?

To supplement my point, here’s a list of distractions and difficulties I’ve written about since I started this blog: Continue reading »

Bad Habits I’ve Fallen Into in Japan

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Opportunities aside, a big disadvantage with packing up all your stuff and moving halfway around the world is that it screws up your rhythm big time.  Back home I had a set work schedule, a familiar desk where I could write, and ingrained habits for how to get my shit done.  In Japan, not so much.

Part of why I love schedules is that they help me develop better work habits: by doing my work at similar times of the day in similar ways in a similar place, the process becomes more familiar and less intimidating, thus helping me ward off procrastination and save time by getting down to work faster.

This is the same reason I do things like make my bed every morning and eat a similar breakfast (eggs over easy with toast if I have the time, cereal with milk if I don’t) so that instead of having to think about how to get my day going I can just do it, like a kind of reflex or muscle memory.  Get enough of these little routines Continue reading »

The Economics of Living in Japan (For Me, Anyway): Part II

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Last week I shared how much I’m paying for rent, health insurance, and transportation in Japan, and it turns out that I’m saving quite a bit!  In the second half, let’s see how my other expenses measure up…

 

Food

 

Groceries Back Home: $150 ~ $250/month

Groceries in Japan: ¥15,000 ~ ¥25,000 ($150 ~ $250, estimated)

Winner: Tie

 

Back home I cooked almost every night (though some nights I loosely defined “cooking” as prepping a box of mac and cheese) as part of my regular routine, and that’s mostly been the case in Japan now that I’m more settled.  During my first few weeks here I found myself relying more on convenience store lunches (which are excellent) and pre-prepared foods from the grocery store, which actually worked pretty well since there’s a lot of sushi, noodle, and meat dishes Continue reading »

The Economics of Living in Japan (For Me, Anyway): Part I

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Here’s how much it costs to live in Japan.

One of the reasons I came here was purely economical: things in Japan are just plain designed so one person living on their own can live more cheaply and efficiently.  This means that for most people, compared to living in the States the same amount of salary will cover more necessities and leave you with more money to save and spend how you want (!!!).

To demonstrate, here’s a rundown of how much I make and how much I’ve been spending living alone in Japan versus living alone in the States.  Obviously this is just intended for reference, since everyone moving to Japan, whether you’re working for JET or for a private company, is going to have a different situation.

So, let’s do some numbers… Continue reading »

Eikaiwa Bums Chapbooks Now Available! (Plus Thoughts on Webstore Mechanics and Why Personal Touches Matter)

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The big moment’s here!!!!!!!!!!111

The actual, printed copies of my chapbook, Eikaiwa Bums, got to Japan this week and are ready to order.  I’m not going to lie—opening that envelope and seeing them stacked up was all kinds of exciting, and it was something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time :-)

Quick catchup in case you’re just joining in: Eikaiwa Bums is a 20-ish page short story about life at a for-profit English conversation school in Japan.  It’s based on some themes from my Japan novel that I pitched to the good folks at Blue Cubicle Press and that they published last month as part of their Overtime series of chapbooks about work.  (If you’re interested in how the story went from novel draft to Blue Cubicle chapbook you can read all about it here.)

I’m sure a lot of you out there are asking the same question: How can I get a copy of this fine piece of writing? Continue reading »

Does Your Job Make You Censor Yourself?

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  • Have you ever wanted to post online about something you were involved in but were afraid of how your job would react?
  • Have you ever kept a creative project secret from your coworkers even if you could openly talk about it with everyone else?
  • Do you worry that some aspect of your life outside of work clashes with your at-work persona in ways that could potentially cause a BIG problem?

All of these are feelings I’ve dealt with, and they’re a big deal. Continue reading »

My Boss Was Crooked! Part VIII: What Did I Learn From All This?

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At long last we’ve come to the end of this ridiculous adventure—Part VII ended with me walking across the company parking lot for the last time and asking whether this whole ordeal was worth it.  (If you missed the rest of this series you can check out the other chapters here.)

At this point I’ve been out of the company for five months and had some time to reflect.  My brother’s also found a new job, Stu’s gotten settled in at his, and at least four of my other former coworkers left after I did, giving the company a total annual turnover rate of over 100% depending on how you do the numbers.

I now find myself thinking a lot about an important question: If I had the chance to do things over, would I have taken the job in the first place?

As mind-bending as those last few months at the company were, the first half of my time there was pretty easy, and I made a decent amount of money without a lot of stress.  More importantly, though, by standing up for myself and the rest of the team Continue reading »

My Boss Was Crooked! Part VII: The Company Disappeared Me!

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When we left off in Part VI I’d secured a new job and was waiting for the perfect time to give my notice—but I was also feeling guilty about abandoning my cause to make things better in my shitty work environment.  A lot of my coworkers were still having a rough time, and I knew I had to do something about it.

If you missed any of the earlier episodes you can get caught up here.

The day I quit was pretty anticlimactic.  I messaged the boss with my resignation letter giving two weeks’ notice and explaining that I’d taken a teaching job in Japan and needed time to prepare for my trip.  I also made sure to mention that the new job provided benefits such as sick days as a not-so-subtle jab at the boss’s stinginess.

In my letter I spelled out that I expected the company to pay me for my two unused vacation days, since this was laid out in the handbook, and I quoted the relevant sections as evidence.  I’d talked to a few other coworkers who’d left the company without being paid for their unused vacation time—they didn’t know the handbook policy and hadn’t bothered to ask, so I wasn’t taking any chances in case the boss decided to conveniently forget about his own handbook rules. Continue reading »