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

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Assimilation Season

Hiring season.





The fresh from university 'droids have been out in matching suits this week, giddy at 'making it' after a few years of screwing around in university, and six years cramming for it before.

They should act cheerful.  Their sempai, kohai and those in the same uptake (douhai?) are the only people they'll spend much time with, like them or not, and more often the only people they'll get to fuck without paying up front, but rather more through marriage.  Happy to have 'made it', in a declining nation, in an outmoded business model nobody abroad's using, and is buckling within.  They haven't made shit: corporate, civil and demographic Japan are toast long before their pensions come due.

If not for security, what would they have crammed their adolescent brains with trivia for, that will never be put to use at work, or in their interior lives such as they have?  To 'fuck the dog' for long hours?  For two hours of crushed and standing commute each day?  To get to buy a Japanese rabbit hutch?  To breed a family they are alienated from?  A few days of holiday a year, with all the other 'droids?  If I'd been born Japanese I hope I'd have started a small business, legal or other, to avoid the salaryman trap.

I don't imagine any of those who 'made it' have a 'plan B'.

2 comments:

  1. Yep, they sure are screwed. They just don't know it.

    JDG

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  2. With the requisite programming from birth, assimilation took place long ago. Transition, rite of passage... whatever you want to call it, it's black and white, yes and no, ganbarou... and no, these are not the droids you're looking for. But, they are the ones I'm looking for. To spend some of their meager earnings at my bar :)

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