The First Few Hours

About one month before I was to leave for Japan, I received a "Welcome to our School" card from the staff of the GEOS school I was being sent to.

It had greetings from all of the staff, a floor plan of the apartment I would stay in and a bunch of other miscellaneous information about Odawara, the city where I was to make my new home. One of the staff had even scribbled "Go Canucks!" in the card. I was looking forward to my stay in Japan.

I read as much as I could about Japan窶琶ts culture, history, standard of living, etc窶蚤nd, as I had assumed, the floor plan in the card depicted a small but seemingly cozy apartment窶琶t had a loft and was right on the beach! Sounded great to me.

After arriving in Japan, my coworker, Chris, took me to my apartment and I immediately noticed that it bore no resemblance to the drawing in my welcome card.

It was box with a single patio window that had a beautiful view of a factory wall. I said nothing, dropped my bags and went down one floor to Chris' place for a beer.

After a few brew, I showed Chris my welcome card and asked him why the apartment was different. He said Molly had moved into the place other day and that it was de facto policy that the veteran teacher got the good apartment.

"Besides, she said that you were the New Guy." I nodded my head. I could have complained to the manager in the morning and demanded that I be moved into the apartment promised to me but that probably would have branded me as a trouble maker.

Since I had just arrived three hours ago, it didn't seem like a good idea to raise a ruckus. I knew nobody, had no friends and hadn't even started working yet.

It was the Law of the Jungle窶杯he New Guy gets the "worst" apartment and all of the second rate furniture and appliances. In the end, it really didn't matter as I found out that while the "good" apartment was on the beach, there was an expressway not 50 feet from the balcony.

The noise and vibrations would have driven me mad if I had lived there. But, it was the principle of the matter that left me bitter: I was supposed to live there but my selfish coworker looked after her own ass first. I learned a lot that night.