How to be an honest person (language barrier? What language barrier?)
1st Sep, 2006
Keeping in touch is much easier for me than it is for those back home. While they still have their busy, task-consumed lives, I’ve had the luxury of having mine completely emptied, allowing me to fill it again from scratch. After the job and all those little errands that go with it, correspondence is one of the first eggs into the basket.
Japan Post must love me. I spent $150 on postage during my first month in town, every week turning up with a new handful of letters, postcards or packages to send. On this particular occasion I filled my parcel postage form as usual, presented it at the counter, and paid the ridiculous fee for airmail. I fiddled with my change whilst the staffmember was preparing my mail, only looking up when a senior approached from behind to check on her, and pointed out that in this case, EMS would actually be cheaper than airmail. Well, I wasn’t going to complain. He rang my parcel through again, calculated my new total, and gave me the correct change from the 10,000yen note I’d used to pay. Delighted with the discount, I moved on to my next errand for the day at the BOE. Halfway across the carpark, it clicked. I counted the change in my purse, and there could be no mistake – I’d been overchanged. Severely. Seeing as they’d both given me the change from my ichiman yen, I’d only ended up paying the difference between the airmail and EMS postage rates.
Sometimes doing the right thing is really the most difficult option.
Had this been Australia, I would’ve walked straight back in to correct the mistake. But given that I don’t speak much Japanese, and the staff don’t speak any English, it wouldn’t be so straight-forward. As I carried out my business at the BOE, the whole time I turned the dilemma over in my mind. It really would be easier to keep the money. I couldn’t even guarantee I’d be able to communicate the mistake to the staff. And it would mean walking away with an extra 4000yen, which would’ve been really appreciated right then, seeing as I'd basically sacrificed my weekly grocery money to send a parcel. But I know me, and I know I couldn’t live with myself if I kept cash that was as good as stolen.
Could I ask my supervisor to explain the mistake for me? Given that he doesn’t speak English either, I figured I’ve have just as much chance braving it on my own. I left the BOE, and, armed with a make-shift address pieced together from my phrasebook and a fistful of yen, I marched back into the post office.
Explaining the error wasn’t easy. The staff quickly figured that a mistake had been made, so did their best to pacify me – by trying to give me more change. My protests left them further confused, but several minutes, two diagrams and a lot of charades later, they took my meaning and gratefully accepted the mistaken change, apologizing profusely. It was quite the cross-cultural workout, but I felt better (though poorer) afterwards. Now the more pressing matter on my mind was what exactly my supervisor had meant when he'd asked that we 'Next now... let's only go to beer together'.
Keeping in touch is much easier for me than it is for those back home. While they still have their busy, task-consumed lives, I’ve had the luxury of having mine completely emptied, allowing me to fill it again from scratch. After the job and all those little errands that go with it, correspondence is one of the first eggs into the basket.
Japan Post must love me. I spent $150 on postage during my first month in town, every week turning up with a new handful of letters, postcards or packages to send. On this particular occasion I filled my parcel postage form as usual, presented it at the counter, and paid the ridiculous fee for airmail. I fiddled with my change whilst the staffmember was preparing my mail, only looking up when a senior approached from behind to check on her, and pointed out that in this case, EMS would actually be cheaper than airmail. Well, I wasn’t going to complain. He rang my parcel through again, calculated my new total, and gave me the correct change from the 10,000yen note I’d used to pay. Delighted with the discount, I moved on to my next errand for the day at the BOE. Halfway across the carpark, it clicked. I counted the change in my purse, and there could be no mistake – I’d been overchanged. Severely. Seeing as they’d both given me the change from my ichiman yen, I’d only ended up paying the difference between the airmail and EMS postage rates.
Sometimes doing the right thing is really the most difficult option.
Had this been Australia, I would’ve walked straight back in to correct the mistake. But given that I don’t speak much Japanese, and the staff don’t speak any English, it wouldn’t be so straight-forward. As I carried out my business at the BOE, the whole time I turned the dilemma over in my mind. It really would be easier to keep the money. I couldn’t even guarantee I’d be able to communicate the mistake to the staff. And it would mean walking away with an extra 4000yen, which would’ve been really appreciated right then, seeing as I'd basically sacrificed my weekly grocery money to send a parcel. But I know me, and I know I couldn’t live with myself if I kept cash that was as good as stolen.
Could I ask my supervisor to explain the mistake for me? Given that he doesn’t speak English either, I figured I’ve have just as much chance braving it on my own. I left the BOE, and, armed with a make-shift address pieced together from my phrasebook and a fistful of yen, I marched back into the post office.
Explaining the error wasn’t easy. The staff quickly figured that a mistake had been made, so did their best to pacify me – by trying to give me more change. My protests left them further confused, but several minutes, two diagrams and a lot of charades later, they took my meaning and gratefully accepted the mistaken change, apologizing profusely. It was quite the cross-cultural workout, but I felt better (though poorer) afterwards. Now the more pressing matter on my mind was what exactly my supervisor had meant when he'd asked that we 'Next now... let's only go to beer together'.
See, my response in that situation would simply be to walk in, leave the extra change on the counter and walk out again before saying anything. Or if they twigged and tried to make me take it, leave it in an unmarked envelope.
Posted by Rocke | 7:28 PM