On Monday I walked into the office laden with gifts and called out, “Ohaiyo gozaimasu. Good morning.” Instead of the usual responses, there was dead silence. No one would answer me; everyone looked displeased with me. I asked Takagi-san what the problem was.
“It would be better if you spoke to Kamakura-san,” he said, curtly.
I turned to Kamakura-san. “Is there something wrong?” He stared at me with disdain. “You have committed a grave transgression. How could you have done such a thing?” I was mystified. “What did I do?” “Your vacation,” he growled. “What about it? You gave me permission to go.” “Did you ask the personnel office?”
“No,” I said, bewildered. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. Everyone had approved, no one had objected.
Kamakura-san looked stiffly at me. “The personnel office is furious at this snub. They have told me, your group leader, not
to let you back to work until you obtain their permission. I have informed the team that you are not to be spoken to until the all-clear signal is given.”
I nodded. “Right,” I said. I parked my shopping bags full of obligatory gifts and headed downstairs.
Saito-san, in personnel, said, “How could you have let your team down by ignoring Sony’s vacation policy?”
“You never explained any vacation policy.”
Saito-san stiffened. “That’s because you had no need to know it.”
“I see.”
“You’re only a trainee. No one takes off four days in a row, certainly not a mere trainee. Your whole group is annoyed and disgusted by such behavior.”
I saw that no explanation I could make was acceptable. There was nothing to do but make a formal apology, which I tendered in my very formal Japanese, the only form I knew. With my apology to the Personnel Department accepted, my redemption was complete, the slight mended. The “all clear” signal was passed to my group leader, and from my group leader to my teammates. I returned to my desk upstairs. Everyone spoke to me again and happily received their gifts. — Gary J. Katzenstein, in his book Funny Business: An Outsider’s Year in Japan (read for free)
