*to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Κυνόσαργες

Friday 28 March 2014

Doing the Japanese' work, because they won't.


1.  The hotel restaurant changed wait-staff halfway through our meal, and I had to remind the new staff twice what course came next.

2.  The evening before our departure from a Zao Onsen hotel, I went to the desk to change our departure bus for the next day.  The tool on duty went to a back office to pretend to make a call, and returned to tell us that the bus service was too full to change from an afternoon to morning bus.  On the way back to my room I realized that: at 18:00 any innaka bus office was closed so he got nobody on a phone, there's no way buses were full leaving Zao on a Friday rather than coming, and I could try with somebody else in the morning who might not brush the Gaijin off with BS.  I did, succeeded, with a useful clerk standing right beside the idiot at the desk in the morning.

3.  At Yamagata station I went to the JR Midori-no-Madoguchi office to change our return tickets, and got told I could not, as they were part of a package.  Only after I told that idiot I was certain we could change them once, did he think to send us across the lobby to the JR View travel agency I had bought them from, where I did so successfully.  In both the second and the third, hotel and JR staff would have left a traveller not speaking Japanese to waste a day waiting for a mode of travel, rather than attempt to think outside the box.  Of course, there were no apologies for that.

4.  Just as the first three required a certain persistence and knowledge of Japanese, all but two of the hotel staff insisted on using rapid-fire keigo and passive voice, keeping to the script rather than consider it is more polite to make yourself understood to your customers than insist on the mannerisms of a 'droid.

Just another experience of Japanese tourism industry fail.  I'm usually spared since travelling with the J-wife, but when travelling with a friend from abroad and I have to take charge, it is less shocking than maddening that the lack of English is less of an issue than that of common sense, should Japan have a 'snowflake's chance in hell' of more tourism dollars.  Here's another idea: any restaurant in Japan serving all customers at a table their meals at the same time.

Incidentally, Zao sucks.  Besides the fact every Japanese ski town is a bore, unless one of the few that serves, and has businesses run by, Australians (Hakuba and Niseko), runs are planned without thought to connectivity, scenery or skiing pleasure, and the top third of Zao's ostensible 1000m vertical is a single run.  On-hill food, and rentals in our hotel and outside of it, were middling to poor.

13 comments:

  1. I think I blogged about my experience in Osaka. I wanted to leave the karaoke place to buy a pack of cigarettes. The girl on the front desk kept telling me in keigo that I couldn't because I was there alone. I actually understood her but was trying to get to - what is the solution for this - when she got another staff member to explain... not in Engish but in non-keigo Japanese! WTF!

    I get a bit annoyed with tourists who expect all Japanese to speak English but if it's at a ski resort or other place that's aimed at tourists, I don't think it's unreasonable. Japan is so heavily flogged as a ski destination in Australia that you'd expect some English speakers (real ones not the Japanese version) on staff.

    I've had a few experiences like the ones you mention and you can only deal by asking someone else. Once someone tells you something's not possible, it's pretty much all you can do unless you like wasting a shitload of time trying to talk to someone who doesn't want to listen.

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    1. A personal fave is the hotel/hospital/bank/government office with 'International'/'kokusai' in the title, but nobody who speaks English/Korean/Chinese...

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    2. I couch surfed once with a woman who worked at the ward office in the international section. She was fluent in English and very well travelled and worldly but because of the stupid moving workers around every 3 year policy, said she could end up anywhere. You'd think they'd make an exception for people with special skills.

      Having said that, I never had a problem with my ward offices in Japan. I did ring the "English" language helpline for AU once though. LOLZ!

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    3. Yes, this! There are people in Japan who speak English in every organization, at a passable level. Hell, I helped a few of them learn it: those I taught in a class, and those horizontally and in a few other positions; as have many of the people commenting here. They are not put at the front desk, and why? Japan.

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  2. What I find most astonishing is going to those tourist informations booths, and not being able to get an English speaker.

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  3. Ah yes, the overwhelming inability to answer simple 'yes/no' questions in less than 20 words (or 30 words if speaking to any service industry staff who are using keigo), because 'time is money', except when it's my time, as a customer, that you are wasting.
    'O-mo-te-na-shi'? yeah, in your dreams, along with 'safe Japan', and 'polite Japan', and 'in Japan everyone is middle class!'.

    JDG

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  4. For me, this mirrors the same kind of crap customer service you can run into back home; It happens often enough in both places in my experience, the only difference being that a lazy facking doosh can't cover up his/her laziness/ineptitude back home by speaking politely and apologizing the way they can here. That being said, I've never gotten exceptional customer service as consistently as I have here in Japan. If there were a customer service olympics, Japan might just get the gold every time.
    The saddest thing about here is that idiots in customer service are never motivated to improve by being called out for being useless; they're only called out when customers complain about lack of 'omotenashi' or whatever...

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    1. I find gold-level customer service in rote-situations here, no question, apart from the effluvia of polite Japanese. But when I really need help, when anyone does, it is for the stuff off of the official script, and in that case give me a non-Japanese most of the time.

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  5. This might not make you feel better... or maybe is the reason why gaijin are treated to AWESOMELY? While in Alaska, we were told by several waitstaff... as if we were local about how shitty the tourists are. You think that might have part to play in it? {{Or am I just being delusional and Alaskans are right.... most gaijin are rude travelers?}} Not to sound like an ass but most of the tours we took that specifically stated tips were a way of life, folk.... no matter from what walks of life (I am talkin' the Rodeo Drive woman) people were from they felt tipping was only a city in China. And the service they got reflected it. Recent observations is all....

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    1. 'Don't fuck with the help.' is one of my mantras. Not just because I've done those jobs, and not because I am to the left of Che, but because of 'Fight Club'.

      http://youtu.be/xWVxI6XZAuE

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    2. And THAT Is why I don't. One of my best gal pals is in the industry, I feel for her sometimes with the douche baggery she has to put up with ..... but I would never want to cross her because she controls the liquor.

      "He who controls the spice, controls the universe." - F. Herbert

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  6. This. Oooh yeah. The best one that happened to me was trying to book a last minute train ticket during a busy weekend. I asked about tickets for the 11 am train and was told the reserved seats were all gone, but I could buy unreserved and should line up from around 10 am to ensure I got on. I had literally opened my wallet to pay when it occurred to me to ask if there were any reserved seats free on the 10 am train. Why yes, he said, there are. Would you prefer one of those then?

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    1. Yes. You simply have to imagine all the options, as nobody will do it for you. It took my visiting friend three times to stop suggesting I ask someone for directions or information. Me: "Trust me. I can figure this out faster myself, with or without my smart phone. Japanese don't do lateral or heuristic thinking."

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