Things To Do When You First Arrive / Are Bored
Mar 26, 2015 17:46:37 GMT 9
Shimanchu 2024, long johnson, and 9 more like this
Post by sana on Mar 26, 2015 17:46:37 GMT 9
This is all culled from the old forums - I remember reading these couple of threads a few times before I came and during my CIR-time and they were so useful - so here's a giant dump of info. H/T to all the sempai. Feel free to add.
For the very very first days.
Try to remember peoples names by drawing maps of who sits where and looking at all the meishi you were given.
Look around the office and see what is where - folders, documents, stuff like that. It is not unlikely that there is a lot of useful stiff around that nobody will tell you about.
If you are not extremely confident in Japanese prepare and memorize self introductions, seasonal greetings and answers to stupid questions about Japanese seasons and your eating habits.
Maybe I'm a little slow, but I'd recommend thoroughly going over how to fill out attendance sheets (年休、病休、代休）with the person who has to deal with the bureaucratic joy of filing all these things in your place of employment. I feel like I'm just starting to understand this intricate and strange world after a year of working here. In my experience the sheets aren't intuitive, you're supposed to use 年休 in cases where I'd think you would logically use 病休, there may be esoteric rules in your office about having to use 代休 within a certain amount of time or fiddling with the application dates to satisfy the payroll clerks...every time I think I have it figured out some new rule pops up that applies only in the case where I was bit by an errant badger from North Korea.
If you're bored and have nothing to do, get the CIR workshops handouts book that you got at orientation. Look at the stuff for city CIRs....there is a huge list of things to do in your first month. Just keep working through it until you are done or they give you something to do. There is a lot of stuff that's relevant to everyone, not just city CIRs
You could also start bookmarking important internet sites that you will use a lot. This one, 英辞郎, wikipedia, pop jisho, etc. If you have your own email for work, make a nice bilingual signature so you look more important. Find out if it's ok to make and drink tea/coffee while working and if so, find out where all the stuff is.
Make notes about all the things you wish people had told you before you get here so you can remember to tell your successor when you leave. If you start to do this when you leave, you will have forgotten already.
If you are really bored, start writing a speech about different aspects of life in your country in Japanese. You never know when it could come in handy.
1. Make business cards, if that hasn't been taken care of already. If you can get them done before you really start going around town, introducing yourself, that would be probably be quite rad.
2. Take a 公用車 and tour your area with a free coworker. It might not be possible, but if you're sitting around with nothing to do, it would at least show that you're interested in getting to know your area.
3. If your predecessor did events, try to visit the places he held those events in. See what kinds of facilities are available for events.
3a. Then, if you have any event ideas, start researching how to do them and draft some 企画書, with budget estimates, etc. I think there are some good templates in the CIR handbook.
4. Sigh loudly, and compare your new location unfavorably to your hometown. Go on Facebook and mail your hulemdos telling them how bad it is in Japan. Recite your mails aloud in Japanese before sending them.
5. If your pred visited schools, see if you can visit them and introduce yourself to the principals or vice-principals, and offer your services. It's a good way to meet people, get some free tea (and maybe snacks!), and make a good first impression.
6. Start making general powerpoint presentations or speeches about topics you think you may be asked to do. Chances are you won't use them 100% like that, but if you are ever asked to do something like a general speech or 国際理解講座, you will be able to adapt elements from it.「初めて日本に来てびっくりしたこと」「私の母国」「外人だからお箸が使えません」など are all common topics. Also, if there's ever a time in the future when you want to proactively say "I would like to do a speech/ kokusairikaikouza," you could show that as an example.
7. If there are other CIRs near you, get in touch with them and see if there is any history of joint event-planning and such.
8. Will you have to do regular language courses? If so, start planning a rough syllabus, and handouts and such. If you do it week-by-week it might get tough to handle once other work starts piling up.
1) Take a look at what you co-workers say when they answer the phone, maybe write it down, and then dive for the phone whenever it rings. This will help bust your fears for dealing with the phone, and improve that particular skill. For moderation's sake, maybe stick to phone calls withing your 市役所 or 県庁 before moving on to calls from the outside.
2) Get one of your co-workers to show you around your CO, especially the ones that have things to do with foreigners. If you work at City Hall, find out as much as you can about city tax payments and consultations, pension + national health insurance, and alien registration. This will put you on better footing to help out foreigners who come to city hall.
3) Get information on visas. If you have an immigration office in your town, go see where it is, and go check out what it is like inside. If there isn't one in your town, find out where the closest one is and how to get there.
4) If there are memos, letters, and that kind of thing being passed around your office, look at them closely, make notes on unknown vocab, and type out the memo verbatum to help you familiarize yourself with office written language. It's a bit tedious, but it helps.
For those lucky few CIRs who are also PAs (if they even are on the forums anyway), take a look at any files and records your predecessor kept. Hopefully you won't need to actually use the lessons learned there for a while yet, but it will give you an idea of the kinds of things that pop up.
This isn't necessarily specific, but ask questions. Keep asking questions. Even if it seems like you're being meiwaku, it's much easier in the long run than just waiting for the information to enter your brain itself.
Make notes of what's confusing or hard to figure out or things you wish your pred had told you; that will come in handy when you write your 引継書 for your successor, and provide a place to vent in the meanwhile.
Learn how to swim in the sea of kairan, and cry bitter tears for the countless millions of trees sacrificed in the name of Japanese bureaucracy.
Now's the perfect time to look through the old CIR files in your office, etc. for ideas of events you want to do, especially if you're not that busy yet.
If you're looking for something to do, why not sit down with a travel guide for your local area and read it through. Not only will you learn what is about and how to get there, but you also learn region-specific kanji.
You can also read the local newspaper (online) or read through the articles and files here in the library to get an idea of what kind of things you can do or to get some inspiration.
When you're not meeting people, read the town website. Then read it again.
Also, ask for the 役割分担 sheet for your office. This is one of those documents I didn't know existed until this year but would have been extremely helpful the whole time.
Be patient. Don't expect to be able to do all the cool things you want to do immediately. If you do the things you're asked to do well, then you're more likely to be able to do the things you want to do later. Get to know how things actually work, rather than the way you think they should work. I used to find the whole kairan system a bit unnecessarily slow, but I've come to see some of its benefits. Learn as much as you can about the city, any international associations, and any other groups connected with your position.
Try not to get into a cold-war type situation with the local international association.
Also, don't freak out if your first month is really slow, work will pick up later. My first month I had little to do; but it was good since it gave me a lot of time to study some of the town's history and background, and look at projects previous cirs had done and get a good idea of what to do in the future.
Also, if you do have predecessors, look through any files and work that they left over. I'm the tenth CIR in my town, so reading through all 9 predecessors' stuff gave me a lot of insight on the job and what kind of projects I can do. Admittedly, i did find evidence that one of them kind of went crazy, but most of the information was useful.
Also, practice using your hanko. (It's probably just me, but my hankoing skills were awful to an extent that people complimented me on it whenever I got it right. )
Is the city's webpage up-to-date and satisfactory English-wise? See if you can work on that.
Ask to see if you can put out an advertisement or announcement of some kind offering to translate restaurant/cafe menus for those who want that service.
Contact the health authorities responsible for supplying vaccination information in your city. Do they have English translations for the foreign residents? This information changes a lot and is really, very important stuff. You would be making a difference in the community by doing this.
Find a list of places in your place of work. Are there English translations for the different locations? 秘書課, etc. Correct any strange ones, translate any missing ones.
Do you have an old-folks home in your community? See if you can arrange teaching a simple English class. Basic greetings, travel English, etc. You might want to consider introducing travel destinations in Ireland to them too. A group of people introduced UNESCO sites to the old-folks home in my community and it was a huge hit.
Any sento/onsen in your area that see foreign visitors that might like a rules sheet of somekind translated? Why not contact them?
Not something to do per se, but put a picture of something you're interested in, anything, on your desk. When your co-workers ask you about it, draw them in with conversation, comments about whatever it is on your desk. Show them you can converse, are interesting, worth talking to more.
Try to remember peoples names by drawing maps of who sits where and looking at all the meishi you were given.
Look around the office and see what is where - folders, documents, stuff like that. It is not unlikely that there is a lot of useful stiff around that nobody will tell you about.
If you are not extremely confident in Japanese prepare and memorize self introductions, seasonal greetings and answers to stupid questions about Japanese seasons and your eating habits.
Maybe I'm a little slow, but I'd recommend thoroughly going over how to fill out attendance sheets (年休、病休、代休）with the person who has to deal with the bureaucratic joy of filing all these things in your place of employment. I feel like I'm just starting to understand this intricate and strange world after a year of working here. In my experience the sheets aren't intuitive, you're supposed to use 年休 in cases where I'd think you would logically use 病休, there may be esoteric rules in your office about having to use 代休 within a certain amount of time or fiddling with the application dates to satisfy the payroll clerks...every time I think I have it figured out some new rule pops up that applies only in the case where I was bit by an errant badger from North Korea.
If you're bored and have nothing to do, get the CIR workshops handouts book that you got at orientation. Look at the stuff for city CIRs....there is a huge list of things to do in your first month. Just keep working through it until you are done or they give you something to do. There is a lot of stuff that's relevant to everyone, not just city CIRs
You could also start bookmarking important internet sites that you will use a lot. This one, 英辞郎, wikipedia, pop jisho, etc. If you have your own email for work, make a nice bilingual signature so you look more important. Find out if it's ok to make and drink tea/coffee while working and if so, find out where all the stuff is.
Make notes about all the things you wish people had told you before you get here so you can remember to tell your successor when you leave. If you start to do this when you leave, you will have forgotten already.
If you are really bored, start writing a speech about different aspects of life in your country in Japanese. You never know when it could come in handy.
1. Make business cards, if that hasn't been taken care of already. If you can get them done before you really start going around town, introducing yourself, that would be probably be quite rad.
2. Take a 公用車 and tour your area with a free coworker. It might not be possible, but if you're sitting around with nothing to do, it would at least show that you're interested in getting to know your area.
3. If your predecessor did events, try to visit the places he held those events in. See what kinds of facilities are available for events.
3a. Then, if you have any event ideas, start researching how to do them and draft some 企画書, with budget estimates, etc. I think there are some good templates in the CIR handbook.
4. Sigh loudly, and compare your new location unfavorably to your hometown. Go on Facebook and mail your hulemdos telling them how bad it is in Japan. Recite your mails aloud in Japanese before sending them.
5. If your pred visited schools, see if you can visit them and introduce yourself to the principals or vice-principals, and offer your services. It's a good way to meet people, get some free tea (and maybe snacks!), and make a good first impression.
6. Start making general powerpoint presentations or speeches about topics you think you may be asked to do. Chances are you won't use them 100% like that, but if you are ever asked to do something like a general speech or 国際理解講座, you will be able to adapt elements from it.「初めて日本に来てびっくりしたこと」「私の母国」「外人だからお箸が使えません」など are all common topics. Also, if there's ever a time in the future when you want to proactively say "I would like to do a speech/ kokusairikaikouza," you could show that as an example.
7. If there are other CIRs near you, get in touch with them and see if there is any history of joint event-planning and such.
8. Will you have to do regular language courses? If so, start planning a rough syllabus, and handouts and such. If you do it week-by-week it might get tough to handle once other work starts piling up.
1) Take a look at what you co-workers say when they answer the phone, maybe write it down, and then dive for the phone whenever it rings. This will help bust your fears for dealing with the phone, and improve that particular skill. For moderation's sake, maybe stick to phone calls withing your 市役所 or 県庁 before moving on to calls from the outside.
2) Get one of your co-workers to show you around your CO, especially the ones that have things to do with foreigners. If you work at City Hall, find out as much as you can about city tax payments and consultations, pension + national health insurance, and alien registration. This will put you on better footing to help out foreigners who come to city hall.
3) Get information on visas. If you have an immigration office in your town, go see where it is, and go check out what it is like inside. If there isn't one in your town, find out where the closest one is and how to get there.
4) If there are memos, letters, and that kind of thing being passed around your office, look at them closely, make notes on unknown vocab, and type out the memo verbatum to help you familiarize yourself with office written language. It's a bit tedious, but it helps.
For those lucky few CIRs who are also PAs (if they even are on the forums anyway), take a look at any files and records your predecessor kept. Hopefully you won't need to actually use the lessons learned there for a while yet, but it will give you an idea of the kinds of things that pop up.
This isn't necessarily specific, but ask questions. Keep asking questions. Even if it seems like you're being meiwaku, it's much easier in the long run than just waiting for the information to enter your brain itself.
Make notes of what's confusing or hard to figure out or things you wish your pred had told you; that will come in handy when you write your 引継書 for your successor, and provide a place to vent in the meanwhile.
Learn how to swim in the sea of kairan, and cry bitter tears for the countless millions of trees sacrificed in the name of Japanese bureaucracy.
Now's the perfect time to look through the old CIR files in your office, etc. for ideas of events you want to do, especially if you're not that busy yet.
If you're looking for something to do, why not sit down with a travel guide for your local area and read it through. Not only will you learn what is about and how to get there, but you also learn region-specific kanji.
You can also read the local newspaper (online) or read through the articles and files here in the library to get an idea of what kind of things you can do or to get some inspiration.
When you're not meeting people, read the town website. Then read it again.
Also, ask for the 役割分担 sheet for your office. This is one of those documents I didn't know existed until this year but would have been extremely helpful the whole time.
Be patient. Don't expect to be able to do all the cool things you want to do immediately. If you do the things you're asked to do well, then you're more likely to be able to do the things you want to do later. Get to know how things actually work, rather than the way you think they should work. I used to find the whole kairan system a bit unnecessarily slow, but I've come to see some of its benefits. Learn as much as you can about the city, any international associations, and any other groups connected with your position.
Try not to get into a cold-war type situation with the local international association.
Also, don't freak out if your first month is really slow, work will pick up later. My first month I had little to do; but it was good since it gave me a lot of time to study some of the town's history and background, and look at projects previous cirs had done and get a good idea of what to do in the future.
Also, if you do have predecessors, look through any files and work that they left over. I'm the tenth CIR in my town, so reading through all 9 predecessors' stuff gave me a lot of insight on the job and what kind of projects I can do. Admittedly, i did find evidence that one of them kind of went crazy, but most of the information was useful.
Also, practice using your hanko. (It's probably just me, but my hankoing skills were awful to an extent that people complimented me on it whenever I got it right. )
Is the city's webpage up-to-date and satisfactory English-wise? See if you can work on that.
Ask to see if you can put out an advertisement or announcement of some kind offering to translate restaurant/cafe menus for those who want that service.
Contact the health authorities responsible for supplying vaccination information in your city. Do they have English translations for the foreign residents? This information changes a lot and is really, very important stuff. You would be making a difference in the community by doing this.
Find a list of places in your place of work. Are there English translations for the different locations? 秘書課, etc. Correct any strange ones, translate any missing ones.
Do you have an old-folks home in your community? See if you can arrange teaching a simple English class. Basic greetings, travel English, etc. You might want to consider introducing travel destinations in Ireland to them too. A group of people introduced UNESCO sites to the old-folks home in my community and it was a huge hit.
Any sento/onsen in your area that see foreign visitors that might like a rules sheet of somekind translated? Why not contact them?
Not something to do per se, but put a picture of something you're interested in, anything, on your desk. When your co-workers ask you about it, draw them in with conversation, comments about whatever it is on your desk. Show them you can converse, are interesting, worth talking to more.
It's getting to a point where "oh I haven't got them yet" is starting to sound stupid...
