Before deep diving into the other significant event that would alter my career trajectory, I want to talk about bonenkais and shinenkais. These are end of year and new year parties. One of the previous ones for 2002 saw a brief mention of the 2002 bonenkai. But I don’t think I talked about one of the UNIX teams shinenkais. In that situation, I do know it was the only one we had because in 2004, I would have transferred to a different team while my boss, Joe, had left the company by then. I want to say that our new years’ party happened sometime in January at the earliest as the company was slowly re-awakening after being shutdown for the typical late December to early January Japanese style holiday tradition. But I do distinctly recall the location of Aoyama’s Barbacoa.

Barbacoa is a Churrasco spot where servers walk around the tables and serve slabs of roasted/grilled meats. One of the guys in our, Alberto, is Brazilian and he may have been the one to suggest the spot. After all, who can deny a meat buffet with an all-you-can-drink menu by our favorite nerd party animal? At the time, the meal typically would cost 5000-en with an additional amount for the drink menu. I believe you get 1-2 hours where you can start off at the salad bar and get appetizers as the servers start coming around to the tables. You get a chip that you can pause the service at any time (e.g. restroom, you’re just flat out full). I won’t go into the meat selection as the link shows the various types but I will say that the quality is high at least when I went.

My lead was a vegetarian because he and his girlfriend (later wife) decided to change their diet after the mad cow scare. So his selection was more limited but at least we didn’t have to pay. My French bud Thierry sat a few seats down next to Shibata-san, who was a tall Japanese contractor, who could get “friendly” at times. Also, there was Michael, a goth guy we picked up later in 2002 along my row. Anyway, the wine kept flowing along with the beer and at some point, I knew I must’ve went beyond my typical fill because I had turned into a very bright red. Then at some point, Thierry started calling for my name as Shibata-san was hugging him and telling him, “I love you Thierry!” for which Thierry yelled to me, “Keith, change seats please!” I just said, “No way!” as Michael and I laughed heartily at this display of inebriated affection.

Now, you could get harder liquor but you had to cover that yourself since it wasn’t on the main all-you-can-drink part of the menu. Vitaly, who was our resident Russian tape backup specialist and a black belt in Judo, apparently got really drunk that night. Now, if you know anything about Russians and Ukrainians, you’d realize that hard liquor is part of their lives. So seeing Vitaly speaking in broken English and just laughing drunk was one of those rare moments, indeed.

Afterwards, the group started to split up with some people (like Joe) going home. However, Alberto and Mauro decided to hit up a karaoke spot (why not?) and a few of us, including Michael, my lead (Urs) and myself naturally decided to tag along. We might’ve had some people from the BTO admin side with us like one of the women. But we ended up at a spot in Aoyama not too far down for karaoke. Now, I can’t sing without committing genocide and I was horribly drunk so I was just around for the ride. The room wasn’t very big and they started figuring out what to play. At one time, Mauro decides to do La Bamba. Now, Mauro was one of the guys in the DC, an Argentinian who was fairly tall and bulky, young, spirited, very smart and incredibly enthusiastic about Linux (which later landed him jobs at Amazon and Google). But I will say this about him: he did a goddamn great rendition of La Bamba. As the song picked up, some random oyaji salariman enters our booth and starts joining him. None of us protest and just watch as the two perform a duet of La Bamba. I’m sure Michael and I were laughing really hard at the scene just thinking WTF is this. Once the song finished, the guy waved goodbye and we kinda threw him out (but not rudely). This is Japan as they say.

Now, that I think about it, 2003 would be the first time I experienced a full year of seasons out in Japan. Before, I would go briefly and come back mostly around late fall/early winter or spring. Even in 2002, I wasn’t there for the entire duration. In 2003, I got the opportunity to experience Japan/Tokyo’s seasons in an uncompromising manner. Maybe the first thing I would say is that it gets fucking cold out there. I know there’s people who live in colder regions (heck we had Russians and one guy might’ve been from Siberia). But for an LA/SoCal boy who had been mostly used to shorts/t-shirt weather, the winter was brutal. We didn’t get snow that often but you knew when a snow storm was about to hit because the air would get so frigid, you’d feel it piercing your clothes. And you had to wear a good coat, mittens and scarf to cover your face/ears from the biting winds. I already pointed out how I nearly froze my hand off climbing the stairs up to Akasaka Park Building one day.

Also, I mentioned that my apartment was freezing too because of the poor insulation. Three of the rooms had heater/AC units that were awful to use. They weren’t standard and probably installed at different times because they were all different. But one problem about using these is the bad, moldy air they’d blow in. During the summer, I used to get sick for using the AC. I forget the Japanese word but effectively it’s like going to Vegas and staying in a hotel where the AC is blowing all the time. Your throat gets dry and you end up developing a very bad sore throat for days, maybe weeks. I think part of that is due to the unit not being cleaned and that the air quality in Tokyo is bad with all the cars and especially the smoking.

Some people ask me when are the best times to travel to Japan. To me the absolute peak season has to be during the Cherry Blossoms (hanami). The weather is still cold but not overbearing and the air is quite fragrant. But seeing the cherry blossoms in full bloom is a thing of wonder. A friend of mine, who is well versed in Japanese culture, mentioned that the tradition of drinking under the cherry blossoms was done by writers/poets because of the inspiration the scenery would bring. Sadly, that part of the culture has been lost to a sheer hedonistic version but you can certainly see interesting things just hanging out in parks and witnessing people get drunk and do silly things.

Others mention Golden Week, which is more for the Japanese than foreigners as people generally return home or go on vacation during this period. Only for one job did I have not have to work and could experience a proper Golden Week. But I think by that point I was pretty tired and had other things in mind. Between Golden Week and the summer, you have a small season called the rainy season, which occurs sometime in June. By this point, the weather hasn’t completely warmed up but you can experience light drizzles which get annoying.

Summers though are terrible. I think if you combine the business work culture in Japan with the summers in a city like Tokyo, you’ll find the experience horrid because you’re on a train, dressed in pants and maybe a suit while stuffed inside with other people while an AC blows in your face. Once you get off, you’re back in the humid heat and this situation bounces back and forth until you arrive at your destination. Even in just shorts and t-shirt, the summers cause your clothes to stick to you and the trains end up smelling of funk from the dampness of attire.

Fall isn’t bad but it depends on when you arrive. There is a small period where you can experience typhoons, for which I lost a few electronic devices and had free showers outside. In a city like Tokyo though, typhoons nullify having an umbrella because the winds are so strong and the rain hits your horizontally such that your umbrella either breaks or does not provide enough protection. I will say that once fall truly hits, Japan becomes quite beautiful almost like the cherry blossom season because of the leaves falling and changing color. Also, as winter approaches, you’ll see more decorations and the winter fashion for women comes out, which is really nice.

Weather aside, things at the bank were about to get rough. There was an incident that the FSA would come down hard on the company that year for. I remember how the actual executives from the head company came down to handle the matter because of the level of severity. Several auditors showed up and we were instructed not to talk to any of them or redirect them to our internal audit staff. At the end of the day though, these people managed to find what they were looking for, which caused a major stir that shut down part of our trading for each infraction (the issue was that two traders were doing after market trades on a Taiwanese semi conductor company that the business approved of; the other trader was in Singapore and arrested while this guy was removed and his whole team dismantled). That caused about 70% of loss in sales which trickled down into everyone’s bonuses for that year.

However, in one of the more devious corporate maneuvers I had seen, the HR director devised a plan to reincorporate the company onto Japan soil (it was one of those Cayman Island companies), which was a good and bad thing. The problem in the rebranding was that everyone’s contract would be re-evaluated so you either signed with whatever they gave you or you got nothing. For long standing employees, this was a massive blow because it nullified their tenure. Some people who were being overpaid got massive pay cuts. I think for myself I simply didn’t make that much so nothing changed except how I wouldn’t receive a bonus later on.

In turn, a lot of people bailed and we ended up getting a bad reputation for a period where rival companies became suspicious and knew what happened. It was effectively a toxic situation and being so low on the totem pole, my value was almost nil. I did try to search for a new job but found it very difficult in this period especially as I tried to stay in the same domain. Without the domain knowledge though and being specialized, I really had little to no value apparently.

I remember one night a bunch of us ended up going to the local Hobgoblin pub in Akasaka. Then one guy walked in where my boss pointed him out and said, “That guy is Jason Bajaj. He either is the reason I received a bonus last year or won’t get one this year.” From what I know he eventually exited and created his own hedge fund. But the wording my boss used was quite profound and stuck with me.

With sales plummeting and everyone panicking, various reorganizations took place. My boss got pushed aside by one of the most political muthafuckas I’ve encountered at a company and absorbed my team. I was moved to the fixed income group and my main role was changed to become a pure SA. It wasn’t what I was comfortable with which made things tough and I took a lot of heat for certain aspects of the job by my new lead, who was under a great deal of pressure and didn’t apparently like me in the end.

One time the new boss took us out to Roppongi after we got absorbed. There was some dinner beforehand but the group split up. Somehow we ended up at a strip bar with foreign women. I met a very cute East European girl, whom in retrospect I wish I did better in terms of retaining contact. But the place was horribly expensive and we ended up paying for ourselves. I think the service ended up being something like $300. The girl at one point took me in the back to give me a lap dance but I was really nervous and embarrassed. She also made me convince her tush, which I wasn’t comfortable doing (yeah, I know…). I guess she thought my shyness was cute because she told the other women about it but I’ve really been an alpha male type and become socially awkward around people like this. Also, my coworker Alberto was game, which kinda shocked me but then again did not.

The real problem was that money was going to get really tight for me since I still was dealing with various debt and my apartment was killing me in more ways than one. So at one point, I decided to move. Because I started to hate the Yamanote (uptown) zone because it was too crowded, modern and full of foreigners (besides myself). I had started missing the Shitamachi areas like Minowa and began investigating places further south. That would eventually come in handy because of how a huge part of the tech division would be moving but I didn’t know it at the time.

This is when I started exploring on foot areas like Nippori, Iriya and Minowa since there was a completely different vibe compared to the modern Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akasaka zones. Somehow I stumbled upon the Kitasenju station and started checking out that zone along with a few other spots along the Chiyoda-sen route like Ayase. Ayase though was a little too far and seemed to have less things surrounding the area. But Kitasenju was lively and more of a small suburb with good shopping and a few restaurants. The station itself was connected to the Lumine department store, which I think had a small international market. Since my spot over in Harajuku didn’t have a lot of markets near me, I knew I needed something more accessible since I would go out to eat most of the time and/or bring home bento, which got tiresome.

Eventually, I came across a nice little spot that was much smaller than my spot in Harajuku by the Ushida station. This spot would remain my living quarters until I left Tokyo that time around. Initially, I thought the move was going to save my remaining sanity as Meijidori had almost stripped every sane neuron I had. Instead, my apartment was positioned right next to the Keisei-sen. Even at the 5th floor, the apartment shook whenever the express lines passed through. The only saving grace was that they would finish just before 1am and start up about 5am. So I had 4 hours of peace, which was a hell of a lot more than in Harajuku.

Yet what I was about to encounter was one of the worst experiences in my life. Getting to work meant I needed to use the Chiyoda-sen. At first, I’d take one of the local lines to get to Kitasenju to transfer (it was using one of the Hibiya-sen lines that would go into Saitama) That line could be murder depending on when I got on. But the Chiyoda-sen itself was rough because you’d get to the platform and if you’re lucky, you’d receive the train that would start from Ayase. If you were unlucky, you’d get the one from Chiba, which was packed. After you boarded, the train might wait a minute or two longer for other trains to disembark so their passengers could get onto this train. Then came the pushers.

If you’ve never experienced a morning in Tokyo with the pushers, you are joyously lucky. These people’s jobs is to squish as many people as they can inside of the train. You could be directly at the door and these pushers would shove another 10-20 people inside. Occasionally, you’d get the wind knocked out of you or worse yet have someone else’s wind blown in your face. In the winters, it would be awful because the heater would blast at you and the summers would be the opposite. Some trains didn’t even have the handrails so you’d stand up parallel towards the door. Then as the train stops, everyone would almost fall like dominoes in one direction with only their mass providing any sense of protection from falling flat on your face. Once in a while, I would be directly against the door where my window was getting smushed against the glass. Just imagine how COVID must’ve been!

To say this didn’t add to my already peak stress levels from work is an understatement. My new manager came up and accused me of coming in late because of the change in location. And there’s little you can really do because you’re just exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally all the time.

The area around Ushida itself was more family oriented too. Mostly large apartment buildings with a wide road next to me and the stations across the street. For food, I mostly ate at McDonalds next to the station, the Family Mart or the Jonathon’s and Denny’s. Apparently, the McDonalds and Family Mart are still around as is the old apartment building. Moving though was going to be a pain because I had to break the lease, owe the reikin and deal with new reikin/shikin, which meant more debt to the company.

Once I was out in Ushida, some parts of my life improved. I did enjoy the area itself much better because it didn’t feel so damn crowded all the time. Also, the zone around the station was really cool with little restaurants you could discover as well as the main street with all the stores. It did make getting into the popular areas of Tokyo a little more time consuming but I could do things like hit up Akihabara on the way home periodically.

Socially, I was still able to meet people but going to Com Inn would be tougher and I’d have to really consider staying out late because of the distance. The thing with Kitasenju is that it’s across the river which made crossing harder on foot. There is a bridge though that wasn’t far off from me I could’ve used but we didn’t have Google Maps at that point nor good mobile devices that would’ve made traveling on foot in Japan so much easier.

My friend Sugi-san did invite me to at least one Gokon, which was cool because we ate over at a canenabe spot (crab nabe). That was really good and it must’ve been in the winter. Unfortunately, I ended up with nothing that night again. Another friend at work tried to set me up with her friend but I had almost no interest in the friend and had more interest in my coworker. After dinner, she accompanied me to my apartment in Harajuku because we met up at a restaurant in Aoyama. My friend ended up being quite drunk and I think I could’ve gotten somewhere if I were more of an aggressive type. Story of my life.

Nonetheless, the shadier side of my life would peak when I would hang out with Sugi-san. One time, he invited me out to Kabuki-cho with his friend. This might’ve been one of the darndest times of my life because I really saw a bunch of shit I probably shouldn’t have seen. But I remember hanging out near the theater area where you have various people coming up to you advertising their shops. Sugi-san talked to a ponbiki (pimp), who appeared as some nerdy guy with glasses in a black suit. I think he was trying to figure out places we could go to. Suddenly, a large Nigerian approached us and was about to harass us when the ponbiki flashed a pink or yellow piece of paper which caused the Nigerian to do a 180. It made me realize just who was in control of the area. I didn’t say anything but I think Sugi-san might’ve acquired a coupon or determined where we could go.

In turn, we walked around the crowded zone and made our way to what was known as a “kissing pub”. I had no idea what to expect and just followed him and his friend inside. This spot had to easily have been the wildest place I’ve ever been to in my life. You enter this large room where a bright, shimmering disco ball flashes above you while high pitched anime type of music is blasting your ear drums off. Rows of benches are setup with a small tray table where various Japanese men are sitting with a drink waiting around. You’re given a spot that I believe is numbered and may be asked about your drink preference. Some guys get beer but I think they generally give out water (mizuwari) to mix with some alcohol.

As this is going on, there’s a guy at the front with a microphone calling out names over the PA system while these girls in skimpy evening gowns are rotated in and out to come and sit on the patrons’ laps. Of course, these girls all have aliases (fake names) and you can chat briefly with them. But the main thing is that you can kiss them and somewhat feel them up. There are limits to where you can feel them but it’s one of those situations that’s just so mind blowing especially for a shy guy with limited Japanese that I had no idea what to do. But you effectively get one girl for 10 minutes over a 40 minute period, which comes out to 4 girls per round. We stayed for 80 minutes so you can do the math (and we did return one more time later that year).

Most of the girls are friendly and were curious about me because I was an obvious foreigner (well as obvious as it could be). One girl was really bitchy to me and I believe she just wanted to get everything over with or didn’t care for talking. Another girl smelled downright rotten; like either some guy rubbed his armpits over her or she needed to bathe badly. You can’t forget that around this time was the rise of the ganguro/yamamba. But holy god was that awful and made me rethink my impression of women.

Of course, I was mind blown and addicted but Sugi-san wanted to go elsewhere. Now, I could be wrong but it was either on this occasion or the 2nd time we went to one of those places where we hit up this Chinese hostess bar and Sugi-san gained a look of concern because he didn’t recognize the place. Someone popped his head out the door and Sugi-san talked for a bit, learning that the previous tenant had been shot up by the mafia (yes, THEM), along with the customers and girls too, which is why the place had changed. I was pretty horrified because I didn’t hear about any of this on the news but it kinda goes to show how the underground world would be swept clean of these incidents (and there were a lot that didn’t make it)

As we were walking around a bit stunned, we encountered some guy lying face first on the ground. Numerous flies were buzzing over his head and I didn’t know what we should do. Sugi-san turned to me and started laughing telling me, “Hey, he’s one of the guys that got shot.” I was like, “That ain’t funny man.” I never found out the condition of that guy because he could’ve been some homeless person or just another drunk that partied too hard (and I saw a lot of those types out there).

I do remember that on that particular night we managed to hit up a hostess club so I think the previous story was probably the 2nd time we were out there. This other hostess club was Japanese and the one girl who sat with me was really cute but drunk and horribly annoying. She had this high pitched voice and wore a kimono but kept making some loud noise and laughed a lot. By that point, I was so drunk and tired I probably didn’t care.

I don’t remember what else we did that night because we couldn’t easily go home as the trains were shut down. Most people might end up hanging out at a McDonalds (which was 24/7) or some other 24/7 cafe. I know along the street outside of Kabuki-cho there was a coffee shop type of spot that you could get curry or noodles so I might’ve had curry to calm my stomach. But what a night.

The thing is that despite going to these types of places my heart was unsatisfied. I was striking out a lot with all the women I wanted to date. I remember one night when I got drunk I started cussing up a storm which scared some girls off. But it made me realize that drinking by myself wasn’t a good idea since I think it pushed a lot of negative subconscious thoughts to the forefront. Hence forth, I almost never ever drank alone again that I could recall.

At work, things were very stressful as I was frequently given tasks that were meant to push me out or make me look bad. So I started shopping internally for a move. I spoke with a few groups but almost all of them dissuaded me from joining. I did meet someone else who was running an ecommerce site for movies over in Shibuya. We would hang out on occasion and I wanted to work on his stuff but he just had no money to pay me. But we stayed friends while I was out there and I’d come by to visit and have a meal. When he got drunk though, it could be frustrating like one time he told me something that hurt my feelings since I was very alone and had high hopes and dreams while living out there. But it just made me feel even more inadequate since I was getting to the point of feeling hopeless and that my identity as a 5th generation Japanese American meant I couldn’t connect to anyone.

At work, my original boss eventually decided to quit. He had been moved to a room where he was assigned a dead project on purpose. Usually, in Japanese companies, there’s this thing where a company might try to send a person to some isolated spot as a way to embarrass that person and more importantly to get them to quit to avoid dealing with unemployment since firing has consequences. My boss one day called me up and started telling me, “Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep.” I didn’t want to be a fucker but I knew he was mentally gone. The guy put in incredible hours at the place and built a very sturdy team up. So it was clear he was heartbroken. I felt bad but he was a really smart fellow, saved his money, knew a bunch of people and had some patents to start a new business up. I guess things would work out especially because his wife just had a kid.

But it meant things at work were going to continue to increase in pressure without having the various shields I was provided before. Luckily, I got transferred to a new team for Access Control (or as the Australian guy would call us, “Asshole Control”). Well, I don’t know if luck really is the appropriate word but it did buy me time and some breathing room. Maybe one of the benefits was a new hire who just graduated named Soy. I think he was a little younger than me and less experienced for sure. So I was kind of the senpai to him at least in terms of the tech side.

Soy was a lot of fun and pretty much gave me new life since I was in bad need of new friends. He lived further down on the Hibiya-sen from me at the time but was on a strict budget because new hires simply didn’t make much. But we hung outside quite a bit whenever he took a smoke break or occasionally we’d grab dinner together and a drink. His girlfriend was a bit possessive so getting him away from her (or even with her) could be challenging just to go out. Since my favorite story of Soy didn’t happen until the following year, I’ll save that for a 2004 post. But let’s just say this guy had some interesting luck.

Sometime in the fall though was probably my most impulsive but deeply satisfying Japan experiences ever. As Kita-senju was close to the Asakusa station, I got up really early one morning and decided to hop on over to the Asakusa station. For whatever reason, I got on the Tobu-sen to Nikko. I think I might’ve done some research about Nikko beforehand as a place that was famous for its temples (especially the three monkeys of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) I believe my parents may have visited that spot in the late 60s or early 70s in their one trip to Japan.

But getting out towards Nikko was such a relieving experience because of how you simply can get away from the city life and into this mountainous, natural region. Like all of the pressure from the city that would give me constant anxiety and headaches simply disappeared the further I moved away from Tokyo and approached Nikko. From Asakusa station, Nikko is roughly two hours. I think I might’ve gotten on the wrong train and needed to track back a little so my overall time was a bit longer than I had wanted.

Once I arrived, I pretty much fell in love with this spot. There’s a little town that mostly is about tourism. I found one spot for tourist to get more information and located a hotel to stay since I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to get back to Tokyo easily. From there I did the temple tour which was a wonderful excursion with a LOT of steps. But you get to see more of a traditional Japan with the pagodas and shrines. Outside of the monkeys themselves, I really had no context of the spot, which is sad because the area was lovely. The trek was vigorous but at that point in time, my cardio had become excellent from walking in Tokyo so much. Only the stairs would inconvenience me and provide a challenge.

I think the overall voyage took two hours or so to get through. By the time I was done, the sun started to set and I needed to get back to the town to find some food and rest for the night. In addition to the temple walk, there was a botanical garden I went through but truthfully that really wasn’t my thing. I might’ve spent an hour there at most to procrastinate returning to the loud and boisterous Tokyo. But at least for that two days, I felt spiritually, physically and mentally relieved.

Much of the rest of the year ended up blurry. But towards the end, I met a woman who I eventually asked out. I won’t reveal her name because in truth I think she was bad luck. But what happened was that I had continued to go to Com Inn and met someone who I was having dinner with on occasion and helping out with her English. She was a hakken worker (temp job) so her life wasn’t really stable. I think at the time she was 6 years older than me but that was fine because I liked older women (still do). Also, I tried to help her get a job at my company on my team but my lead didn’t care for her. I think it devastated her but we ended up going to Ginza one night and I asked her out. She took a moment to consider but said yes. I was so happy in the moment because she became my first real girlfriend ever and I was on top of the world.

I wish I had been less naive. That little pause should’ve told me everything about how she really felt about me (either that or she was really stupid). But I did feel very used by the end of the relationship. Yet when you’re young, dumb, desperate, inexperienced and heart broken, you’ll seek any form of justification for a sign of hope. At least, the first few months ended up being fun because the experience was novel. Eventually, she would partly move in with me, despite having her own place in Chiba. But it was both nice having someone around and at the same time grating because I was used to being alone.

As the year continued to wind down, work was hectic with the office slowly closing down. There still needed to be people to support the business and I wasn’t savvy enough to take my vacation. In turn, my group got chosen to do a bunch of busy work putting stamps on a large number of packages. And later on during the “break”, Soy and I were handled various oncall duties at the office. The previous lead from my last group sent me a horribly pissed off VP from Fixed Income who started yelling at me with, “It’s all your fault. Why should we have to fill out these forms?” I don’t remember how we ended up resolving the issue but later I learned that VP was an asshole and hated doing anything. But again as the lowest rung on the totem pole, I got to absorb the brunt of the blame.

Also, I will say that I still tried to go to a few joshi puroresu shows. By that point, my interest had severely died down and I was more focused on my Tokyo life, an aspect I never really had while living in America. But the shows weren’t very good anymore with smaller crowds. But if there was one at Korakuen Hall or Kitazawa Town Hall, I might show up to check it out. I started going to these ‘Jd Kitazawa Town Hall shows because these new Athresses like Yumi Ohka were starting. They didn’t last long and weren’t well trained. A few were really cool. One girl spoke good English so I spent a long time just chatting with her. Also, I would talk to Yumi quite a bit (who was the only person that continued to wrestle ironically). She was tall and cute but kinda like an ostrich. I did see Emi Tojo effectively end her career at one show where she was supposed to do something like a sunset flip power bomb type of move off the top turnbuckle but came crashing down on her neck and ended up with a severe stinger. That was really sad. She stayed around for some shows later on after healing up but her in ring career was dead. I did get to talk to her and she seemed cool and was cute. I read later on she got involved with some underground cat fighting type of promotion which is sad. But I have a feeling the “entertainment” side she was involved in wasn’t exactly mainstream. More like some of those seedy spots I’d hit up. Either way, incidents like that really discouraged me more and more in going as I felt horrible for these people.

I did mention the bonus situation: so there wasn’t any for me. Someone later told me that all the executives and management intentionally gave bad reviews to everyone to ensure only the upper people would be given bonuses. I had a stuffed Tigger that I had been carrying around nervously. Instead of my previous manager, I had that lead guy sit down with me in doing the annual review and he doc’d my mostly because I changed groups (he used other excuses but I knew what was going on). Since my father was having financial problems, I think a bonus that year would’ve really helped. So I ended up hating this guy for the rest of my life.

Eventually, there was a bonnenkai but the feeling was a general downer. The CEO admitted as much with the company facing immense hardships from that one incident. I think I hung out with my new group which helped a bit. The food was good of course and we once again held the event at the New Ohtani down the street. Afterward, there was another party over in Aoyama at some club someone rented out. A bunch of us clustered in a corner and one of my coworkers who was about to quit got really drunk. She kept going through this weird emotional back and forth all night where one minute she would cry and another she started laughing. I think she was having boyfriend issues and hated the job because the two other women in the group picked on her and gave her all the shitty work. At one point, she grabbed my arm and sunk her teeth REALLY hard into my shoulder. It hurt so badly that I started bleeding. I think COVID vaccines are far less painful than that bite that rat administered to me.

Gradually, the party wound down and a new crowd entered. I guess these people were hip because they looked at the rest of us who weren’t sales traders and executives as street garbage. One person had to get that drunk girl a taxi and when I showed her the teeth marks the next time I saw her she was really embarrassed and told me she didn’t remember a thing because she ended up throwing up the entire night.

But maybe that’s the way I end the 2003 period in the form of a literal painful memory that I completely had forgotten as well.

The post Work/Life in Japan in 2003: Corporate Implosion, New Friend and A Glimmer of Promise Part 2 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I talked a lot about the seedier side of Tokyo in my last journal. Today, I want to talk more on how I managed to actually have a living out there. When I originally visited, I knew almost nothing about Japan nor Tokyo outside of whatever TV show I would watch on the weekends or perhaps from something a friend would tell me. Most of it went over my head and seemed more abstract. Once you’re out there, the intensity of the city really hits you and you feel constantly overwhelmed. But there were a few immediate pressing concerns:

• I needed a new job since the tech industry had fallen in America
• I needed to find a place I could rent/stay longer term than the New Koyo
• I had to uncover jobs that would forgive my low level of Japanese
• I needed to network better

The one good thing that the Hotel New Koyo provided was a small sense of community. You could meet a wide array of characters from school teachers, to the aforementioned Bob with his past shady life, tech workers on vacation or those that were laid off, etc. But some of these people were incredibly useful in helping me navigate my way around Tokyo/Japan. Someone introduced me to the infinitely useful Tokyo Classifieds, which was a small magazine of ads and ongoings for the area, like a Tokyo version of Craigslist. You could pick one up for free over at Tower Records.

In the Tokyo Classifieds, you could find a variety of services, goods, people moving out, moving in, help wanted, job postings and foreign friendly rentals. I used this service for a variety of things like picking up cheap items from people leaving the country and meeting some friends who wanted to speak English. I do think that this guide might’ve been the thing to help guide me to finding a place outside of the New Koyo which didn’t require as much paperwork nor a sponsor if you weren’t a permanent resident nor citizen. Also, it might’ve introduced me to the Tokyo Linux Users Group or the Tokyo PC Group.

If you managed to stumble across the Tokyo PC Group, it was a very helpful organization that would have meetups at least once a month in Harajuku/Ometasando. There was a guy out there named Ken Cotton, who practically everyone knew because of this group or that he knew all the foreigners in town involved in some form of tech. Through him, I think I managed to make additional connections that would eventually lead me to the Tokyo Linux Users Group (TLUG) which was smaller but more focused.

Along the way, I recall going to a job fair/recruiting event. Since the English teacher thing went up in smoke in my face, I was a little wary about attending these but I might’ve went with someone who was graduating from college. Since I already had been working, I might’ve felt out of place. But one spot wanted to hire me for a position in Okinawa. The pay was abysmal (30k which was lower than my pay at the race parts company and the shady ad tech company) and I’d have to travel out there. Maybe it would’ve turned out okay in the end just because Okinawa is a beautiful spot with wonderful people. But at that time, my heart was set on living in Tokyo.

Afterwards, I came into contact with another person running a meishi (business card) printing service that used some PHP code on a linux server. He was willing to sponsor my visa as I had found a place over in Ebisu which was near his office. There was a major problem though: I had no idea what he wanted me to do. His English wasn’t very good and my Japanese was poor so I didn’t even know how much he was intending to pay me. But I tried to go to the place a few times where I had been given a key card and could use the internet (which I didn’t have at my flat). Also, around the hall was a very pretty girl named Kana, who was doing web development. I’ve wondered if that was the same Kana as the WWE’s Asuka just because I remember hearing how Kana early on had been a web designer. I never managed to find out though.

At any rate, I stayed on with this guy for about a week and went to a few meetings where he spoke exclusively in Japanese. But I was struggling hard and he came down on me one day. Since I couldn’t understand what he was mad at, his voice changed to a softer one once he switched to English. But it was clear that I wouldn’t last so I continued my job search.

At some point, I might’ve been posting to the TLUG’s Usenet group or some board because I recall getting a message from someone at the bank I eventually would work at saying that they wanted to meet with me. As it was early in January, things were slow and very cold. I believe I was getting over a horrible cold too but met up with these guys. They were over in Akasaka and I got interviewed for the job at the English pub called The Hobgoblin (which was a favorite of the gaijin from the bank at that time; good nachos and fish n chips btw). There might’ve been at least 3-4 people, three of which would be my managers. It was a good interview for me because it was casual and mostly asked about my background. When I told them I built my own home router using FreeBSD over an iDSL line to serve out a shoddy website, they were pretty impressed and figured I was legitimate, despite not having a great deal of experience.

One of the guys was a clear joker though and gave me the most “technical” questions of the bunch. He asked me stuff like, “What do you do when a user complains their cupholder is broken?” Of course, those were the days when CDRoms were a thing. But Andrew was always a bit of a wise ass. Probably, one of the more down to earth guys actually who gave me some great advice. Either way, I got a free meal out of that, which was nice because my money was slowly being drained by the trip. At the end of the night, my eventual boss talked about Linux and how if they did their jobs right they could “win”. I had no idea what he meant at the time but it translated to his group expanding Linux into the company as the “win” since he was a hater of Microsoft and ran the Unix servers.

But I managed to get an offer from that which would require a lot of paperwork and waiting. Before I get into any of that, I wanted to return to the apartment. Oh boy, this place was comparable to the graffiti laden, random syringe in the shower, knife-as-the-key, punk kid/transient art co-op at UC Berkeley that I nearly signed up for back around late ’98. The difference is that I had no choice at this stage and it was one of the few spots in Tokyo that I could rent out as a foreigner that did not have the typical reikin (key money) deal. Let me tell you about this hell hole. It was an actual Japanese apato (apartment), which technically meant it was only two stories maximum and made from wood rather than something sturdier like concrete. As a result, it wasn’t well insulated and had rickety steps as you climbed to the 2nd story.

The bathroom was super tiny with one of those high level tubs that you couldn’t really relax and spread out in. Instead, it was meant to be crouched inside while you dunk your head under the faucet. The toilet was probably one of the few modern appliances inside having a Japanese style faucet built above the rear where you normally would have a cover. I never quite understood the purpose of those and didn’t bother using it while I was there. The kitchen itself was something I never touched besides possibly washing my hands. But the kicker was this half sized refrigerator with a microwave on top. This refrigerator was horribly ghetto in every way but it had cockroaches living inside! It was so disgusted that I’m sure if I had stayed until summer, I would’ve gone completely batshit crazy. But when they showed me the place, they didn’t reveal the cockroach issue. These things only came out at night and I only really started encountering them once I began working for the bank. Symbolism perhaps?

In addition, because money was tight, I didn’t know what to do about furnishing this spot. I think I bought a sleeping bag and a pillow and just crashed on the floor. My meals mostly were Matsuya or bento. But that didn’t go full force until I started working there.

Around that time, a university friend had decided to visit Tokyo. We worked together at that race parts spot and continued to keep in contact once I moved to Japan. He knew that I was over there and we hung out maybe once or twice. I think he was with some friends and/or visiting friends. But it was his first time out there and his Japanese was minimal at best (mostly through anime/food). He’s what I would consider the prototypical gaijin Japanese fetishist who goes over there for the otaku aspects.

Anyway, at one point, around New Years, he was returning back to the states. So we talked briefly the previous night and I thought, off you go. Instead, a few hours later at night, I get this call on my keitai (which btw I was using via prepaid cards) and it was Joseph. I was like, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be flying home?” His response was, “No, I missed the flight and I need some place to stay.”

So Joseph had taken the train and completely missed his stop because he was on one of the express trains that passed Narita. And if anyone feels this is familiar, it’s because some of Japan’s trains have express lines, which, if you’re paying attention or know the schedule, might take you to another destination (happened to me a few times). Either way, I told him to meet me at Ebisu so he could put stuff away at my new spot. Even though the apartment was a wreck, it was serendipitous that I had just got it since I was able to help my friend out.

We ended up hanging around Tokyo and walked around that night. I remember it being exceptionally cold too, possibly raining. We hit up a ramen spot that was along the street heading towards Shibuya. Can’t recall the shop’s name but I may have discovered it beforehand and really liked it because I ended up going back periodically. My friend ordered cold ramen though without knowing it. I forget how much longer we stayed out but it was fairly late before returning. Maybe I didn’t want to go back to the roach infested spot but I eventually had to sleep.

Fortunately, Joseph was able to reschedule his flight and took off the next day. Also, I think the other guy from the New Koyo, Kris, had left the New Koyo and found himself a spot with his latest girlfriend over in Shinjuku. That might’ve prompted me to find my own place. I think he was doing small contract work to keep himself afloat out there while his girlfriend also tried to help support them. But I might’ve lost contact briefly during the later half of my trip during that run.

I do remember going to a bunch of clubs with them, one being the infamous Gas Panic. I believe there might be multiple Gas Panic clubs in Tokyo but the one we attended was over in Shibuya. If you want to find the worst of the worst, the sleeziest spot with the cheapest, shittiest liquor, go here. It’s basically a meat market, maybe a younger crowd trying to be hip. Very gaijin friendly but awful music and vibe, at least to me. But I think because Kris was a foreigner, it was one of those spots he’d hang out because it was easy to get in and had a familiar, comfortable vibe. He did really like those shady spots though.

Regardless, my time on my passport was slowly running out and I needed to have a work visa to stay longer. Once the job was approved, I had to deal with a variety of bureaucratic things to get setup. It’s a complete nightmare in producing all the artifacts for procuring a work visa in Japan but one of the problems is that you can’t be in the country while your visa/stamp is being processed. Some people just hop over to Korea but the safest bet was for me to return back home to LA.

That meant having this apartment I just got lying around. As with my luck at the time, I met someone one of the computer events that became my friend for a while out there. He was seeking a spot to stay and would pay the rent while I was gone. So I gave him the keys and kept in contact while waiting for my papers to be processed. It was a horribly stressful period because I had no idea what to expect. Each day was radio silence and I got nervous that nothing was happening. I think the expected time was around 5 weeks though and I might’ve left sometime in early February back to the states. But I do know that I didn’t start working officially in Tokyo until April. So the time period might’ve been a lot longer.

Once I got the stamp, I had to go to the embassy downtown and turn in other documents. I believe I might’ve had to get my university diploma and send it over as well, which was equally stomach curdling. But that shows the amount of paperwork required to get a work visa. From there, I still could use my password but they would add a different stamp to it to indicate you were an employee of the country with a stamp that was good for a few years. You still needed to get a card you had to carry around much like a driver’s license in the states. But with that card, you could leave your passport at home. Also, as an employee with this card, you could take a different line when you were at the airport in Narita, a much shorter one.

I will continue a bit more later since the first actual working month of living in Tokyo was some of the best times of my life.

The post The First Month of Moving/Living in Tokyo Continued appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I had a thought where if you increase the qualifications for these so-called menial jobs as well as improve the pay rates, you would end up with better customer satisfaction. For instance, I recall reading how Trader Joes and CostCo (I believe) have higher salaries with better benefits. I know when I go to Trader Joes, the people working the cash register are pleasant and motivated. Even if I don’t always go there, I know that my experience each time will be good at the very least.

Now, imagine if we apply this as a standard across the industry. I think part of what will happen is that there won’t be something that essentially is a pit where bottom feeders know they can survive. There will be a forced necessity to increase the quality of people leaving schools so that those entering the job force at any position would require a certain level of education and ability.

Think about it this way. Imagine if those situations where police officers are said to be brutalizing a citizen did not occur because these people had the ability to critically think as opposed to be indoctrinated by a system that encourages absolute obedience (in taking away ones humanity). Maybe they could stop to think more quickly about the consequences as opposed to instinctively reacting.

The same could be said for the TSA. You hear some of the most ridiculous searches and situations where someone with a modicum of common sense might know to create an exception. And if that allows for a terrorist attack, having more smarter people might eventually foil the attack. I know in other countries, they have better ways of sniffing out potential terrorists rather than blunt searches that really aren’t effective outside of pissing off customers.

I think a huge issue in the world is just a lack of critical thinking. Society allows and even encourages the inability to think out of a situation. Instead, people are taught not how to deal with problems but how to pass it on to someone else. Part of it is for business reasons. But in my estimation that doesn’t last since those places that encourage these types of environments eventually have things catch up.

The post Work: Paying Higher For Positions and Demanding Smarter People appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Right now, I would say that if I can survive for at least a year and the company manages to do well then I can really start planning long term. I figure if the company can grow for two more years then we’ll be in a really good spot and I’ll have enough confidence to look into property.

Recently, I sat down with a friend and was looking at spots near me. The two condos that I’m situated between at the moment are selling for $375k. I did some number crunching and with a 20% down, I would be paying less than what I’m currently paying in rent. The great thing is that I’m close to that 20% mark but I’m waiting to see if my current place goes on sale. I doubt I would purchase it this year if it opened up, but I am keep my eyeball on it.

Of course, I’d prefer to move outside of this state just to get something bigger. I doubt I’ll have a choice in the near term future but at the very least if an opportunity for property opens up, then I could start building equity up in something that I would own rather than just rent. Perhaps, with some luck (as in getting shares in my company with future IPO plans) I could buy out of state down the road with some good planning on top of having my current place. In that manner, I might be able to rent out my spot in the future.

If that doesn’t work out and my place ends up being far more than what the other two spots are going for, then I could still make a move to either of them knowing their price. They might not be perfect but at least the move wouldn’t be difficult compared to moving closer to where I’m working.

In either of these scenarios, the thing I’m thinking of is that I would be able to start saving up for a new car. It would take some time before I could rebuild the basic capital for putting a reasonable down payment on say a hybrid of what I currently drive, but I’m looking at 2-3 years down the road. By then a hybrid model of what I’m driving hopefully will come down in price a bit and/or me making a significant increase in pay (and hopefully job title as well).

I suppose the unfortunate aspect in this will be that I still won’t be able to own a pet at least for now. I would’ve preferred moving closer to work but the apartments around there are simply far too expensive. Also, I’m not exactly certain if I would want to move in that direction. There’s some negative aspects as well namely that the area is much harder to navigate, especially when it comes to shopping. I suppose that’s all theoretical but I have to wait a bit until things stabilize enough where I feel comfortable to make some permanent decisions.

If anything though I really hope this job continues to do okay. It’s been good thus far but I’m super paranoid. I take things one day at a time and things can change on a whim. At least for now, I’ll enjoy what I can and see how far I can take it.

The post Looking Towards the Long Term appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

For the past three weeks, I had been waiting upon a job I really wanted that I felt I did a reasonable interview. I handled my part faithfully, showing up early, being positive, even finding the interviewer as someone I really wanted to work with. However, I allowed myself to wait a few days before checking back for the results. The interviewer had previously told me that he would be deciding the following week. So once the following week hit around the middle, I called my recruiter back up. Unfortunately, she was going to be out of town in heading to NY for a corporate party, which I would assume last only for the weekend. Naturally, she promised to be checking her emails the entire time so I kept low.

Around that time, another solid sounding opportunity came up but I (stupidly) did not contact the other agency back in time as I had been waiting for this job. With the holidays coming up, I figured that there wouldn’t be much of a point of pursuing the main job I was targeting as the hiring manager did mention he would be in NYC at that time. There was a few more phone calls along the way, but I kept my hopes up on this one job.

Sometime in between the main recruiting agency contacted me about another position that was setup with another recruiter within the organization. This one was for a spot with a shall we say less than stellar public reputation. I kinda knew going in about what the company did because of their infamy. Usually, that doesn’t matter as at the end of the day for a tech worker. The real bottom line is what we get to work on.

The morning prior to the interview, I consulted some friends in chat to see their thoughts on this company. Everyone mutually agreed that the company was run by douchebags. In turn, I decided to do a bit of research on this company using Glassdoor. Low and behold, it turns out that the company internally has a poor reputation and that the management overworks their employees and is filled with backstabbing and typical corporate BS politics. Immediately, I regretted my decision but decided to move forward at least with the phone conversation.

I kept my phone near me the entire time but had accidentally turned off the ringer. Nonetheless, I was pretty faithful in essentially wasting an hour for this phone call. I kept looking on the dot for the phone call but did not see nor feel anything. Of course, at some in between moment, I had completely missed the call. Instantly, I tried calling the company back only to receive a disconnected number. So my image for this particular company did not improve and these guys never tried dialing me back.

Instead, I emailed my recruiter to inform her of the situation. She told that this company, due to the nature of its business, handles all its calls in this manner. At this point, I pretty much lost all interest in this company and politely told her that I had zero desire to move forward. Instead, she did everything to try and convince me that Glassdoor is irrelevant and basically put a huge guilt trip upon me since after all it was her client. But in reality the situation was handled poorly and I had been growing extremely discontent with this group.

So in between that point and today, I had been waiting for my main recruiter to contact me back. Instead, another agency phoned me and wanted to place me at a company, who did not sound familiar in name at first. I tried to investigate this company and found something that sounded similar to what the recruiter had mentioned. Just to be sure though, I asked him to spell out the name so I could look them up online. Lo and behold I had actually spoken with them back in August. It turns out the same recruiter who tried placing me at the company I was gunning for this entire time was the same person who sent me over there.

At first, I wasn’t 100% certain so I had to backtrack through my emails. Yup, right there. I have the dates and after the phone screening with their internal recruiter, I heard nothing back either with that company nor the recruiter.

Frustrated, I decided to resolve the current position and phoned my main recruiter up. She greeted me politely as always but revealed to me when I prodded her that the company I wanted had “passed me up”. She said she had tried sending various emails to the hiring manager but didn’t get any response. Yet she did tell me they “passed me up” along with “they closed the position due to the budget not being approved.” WTF?!?!?!?!?

If this scenario sounds fishy, then let me say you’re right. Her rhetoric alone reveals that she wasn’t telling me anything. Now, I don’t know if the situation with the company the other internal agent had tried sending me to had any impact on this situation, but I’ve never had any positive luck with these people. Of course, they’re perfectly willing to send your resume all over town, have you fill out their little forms and even ask for referrals. Most sound like standard practice in the world of recruiting.

And that’s the core issue.

Even before today, I had done a little research to see if I could find any dirt on this agency. One of my coworkers revealed that this agency was formed through the merging of two other agencies. I recognized one of the agencies as someone I had used in the past but never received any results. That agency was so shady that after a while I simply avoided them. Also, I tried looking this agency up on Glassdoor and another website or two and found numerous negative reviews both internally and from prospective candidates.

Also, I found an article a few weeks ago that talked about some really shady practices recruiters do. Part of the reason was because a similar agency that I had used before had asked me to drive to their office. The thing is that I already had met with one of their head recruiters in person so why would I need to revisit them? Shouldn’t they have something like that on file? Also, because I don’t have a lot of spare cash these days, I was hesitant about going.

So I did a little research on this company (which turned up on Yelp) and people just floored them to death. There wasn’t a single positive comment outside of the head recruiter who apologized to death about previous employees and how they had done a massive internal clean up. Well, I don’t think their internal practices improved any as they seemed to be doing the same thing with me.

Regardless, one of the comments really struck me where the person talked about how agencies that want people to show up and pay for parking probably are the lowest scum of the earth. It’s not a real requirement in using a recruiter. However, the idea supposedly is that these agencies do a pre-screening of candidates. I suppose if the only requirement is whether or not a candidate would show up at all then that would be fine. However, this agency is a dime a dozen and they never provided me with any useful information to prepare for an interview. They never had anything useful, even parking information that they would only provide the day of the interview. So what good is a pre-screening for employers if these clueless recruiters do what a good online form can do in less than an hour?

The other major disturbing thing that probably is the kicker in all of this is how many recruiters have no interest in getting you hired. Sure, if they can sell you, they will. But most are what people call “churn-n-burn” types. That is, their real business lies behind shipping your resume to as many companies around town as possible because they get a commission from that.

See where I’m going with how I’m being used here?

The bigger wrongful trend is that everything becomes mass pollution and your real interest have zero meaning to these soulless half wits who, like lawyers, politicians, upper management, accountants, stock brokers, marketing people and sales agents, all should be placed into an active volcano (on a side note, judging by how my list of types keep growing, this volcano will probably end up being the size of Olympus Mons).

What you want from a job has nothing to do with most recruiters’ agendas. The recruiters’ job at the end of the day is to make a commission. So they’ll try to sell you to whatever they believe they can get the highest bid. There is some small level of skill matching that these people do but most do such a piss poor job at understanding how skills and technology match up. I personally believe that part of the sell involves the number of skill matches to what an employer wants. Unfortunately, these days to get perfect matches is virtually impossible.

Going back a bit, you might say, “Well, it really is your fault in all of this. You should’ve followed up with both interviews.” In most cases, I would agree and admit to everything as being my fault (at least with the telecommute job there’s no question). However, I’ve been “working with” recruiters for years now and have come to learn how these cockroaches operate.

One of the people in the comment section emphatically stated that you should never let a recruiter handle your career. I think if I had known and understood this advice back in 2000, most of my headaches would not exist today. A good portion of my career has been heavily influenced through recruiters. Not all produced any results and some I would argue had a massively negative impact on my career and thus my life.

Back when I was living in Tokyo, I had a friend who was a recruiter (actually he was a friend of a friend and we initially got along but that dissolved later on). He revealed some of their techniques like cold calling companies to build org charts, using first names in attempts to trick receptionists in revealing other people and their positions, swapping people between companies, etc.  Sometimes this guy would go out to expensive restaurants and bill the tab to the company in calling it a business expense.

It is a really shady business, so if you do plan to use a recruiter, I want to provide some tips that hopefully help you avoid jams like the ones I’ve encountered:

• Research the agency before agreeing to use them.
• Keep an out-of-date linkedin profile to avoid agencies from phoning your receptionist and harassing you at work
• Avoid agencies that make you pay for parking
• Insist on Skype calls if they require some face-to-face meetings (more agencies are doing this these days)
• Don’t agree on allowing them to send your resume every where. Always ask about a company’s name so you can do more research on your own. If they refuse to allow you to do the research, don’t free since most recruiters around town more than likely will have the same company on profile
• Make sure you keep a record of all the companies you send your resume to in order to avoid duplicates. The main reason is that the employer will get charged each time your resume is received by them.
• Tell recruiters to fuck off unless you’re absolutely intent on quitting a company. You probably will do more damage switching jobs in the long term unless your company has major issues.
• Make sure you never appear desperate. Recruiters have you by the balls once you agree for something less than what you’re worth. They’re nothing more than used cars sales people trying to get that extra percentage from your salary, which can be huge. Don’t compromise here unless you really have nothing else.
• Never let an agency or recruiter EVER manage your career. A recruiter years ago stated to me, “Allow me to manage your career.” This is your life, not theirs. Remind them of it and put your foot down at all times.
• Make sure you get as much information about the interview process and company as possible. Recruiters usually don’t give a shit because they’ll always have something else lined up for you, which they’ll still receive their commission from. Make them help you succeed in providing as much information as possible so that you can beat the interview and ensure it’s the proper environment for you to be content at.
• Don’t let skill qualifications impede you. One of the biggest problems these days is the intimidating number of requirements for jobs. With all the new technologies emerging, it’s virtually impossible to hit every single mark. Start training recruiters to move away from skill based keyword searches and focus on your career goals and overall abilities. Solid programmers can pick up new frameworks, languages and systems if we’re given a fair amount of time. As technologists, we need to take back these elements from recruiters and companies and make them realize that we have a good enough foundation to grow.
• Whenever a recruiting agency contacts you, you should, believe it or not, add them to your contact list. The reason is that you don’t know when they’ll inconveniently call you at work and disrupt you. Also, if you continue to pester you, you can block them.
• Force recruiters to give you feedback after an interview process no matter what. Negative feedback also is good here because you can at least learn from your mistakes. Recruiters who give you inadequate replies like, “They passed on you” or “I didn’t hear back from them” are lying. There’s a good chance that they might’ve sent other candidates to the hiring manager whom they might make a healthy commission.
• If you find that your recruiter is not providing feedback or following up with you, black list them. Apparently, many recruiters carry a black list. You should too (and share it with others to rid ourselves of these pests)
• If you do find a solid recruiter, keep that person around and maintain a very good relationship with them. For technologists, these people should know more than the buzzwords but be familiar with at least the core ideas of the areas they hire into. If you can help these people out with their business, then we can also weed out the bad ones.

I may be sounding negative towards recruiters and in truth for the most part I detest them. On the other hand, I have worked with a few very respectable recruiters, some of whom knew more than a lot of developers. On average though, those recruiters are few and far in between and you have to contend with the vast majority of the “churn-n-burn” industry. The only way we can fix this problem is to become more aware of how they operate, share lists of good and bad recruiters/agencies and take control of them rather than the other way around.

The post Frustrating Experiences with Tech Recruiters appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Some answers given were “the most efficient” or the “fastest.”

In my estimation, the best code written is that which makes the most money.

What!?!?!?!?!?!

I’m certain many people in the industry and in universities alike will have extremely conflicting opinions on the subject. There was a similar discussion on WWE Legends where someone asked who was the best wrestler ever? While there will always be great technical wrestlers, people often times will go back to guys like Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin because of their box offices and/or what they accomplished for the wrestling industry.

In that vein, the best written code is that which gets all the cash. Why is that? Why isn’t it the most efficient, or the algorithmically precise or things which solve the most complex things in life? Simple: no one cares. People who care would pay the money and use that code. If code is really great, people would have no problem forking over money (or other forms of compensation) in order to use it. Hence, why companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Blizzard, etc. in this vein write the “best code.”

The “best code” can be efficient, solve complex problems and be aesthetically pleasing, but these are not necessary requirements. They usually are a part of the reason why a product can sell. For instance, Google’s view on making everything speedy and responsive is one of the reasons why they are so popular. For a long time, Blizzard was held in high esteem for having relatively bug free games. Facebook has solved the issue of helping you finding your friends in the world. So these cases show why the type of software works.

However, some people might think just because code does similar things it can be the “best code” written. This to me is a huge myth. At the end of the day, computers just will end up processing code all the same. End users won’t give a shit what the code looks like nor how it was written as long as it solves their problems. But more importantly, even if code is well written, when no one uses it, code essentially has zero value. It’s that simple.

I wanted to relate this to some personal experiences I’ve had with regards to various work environments I’ve been in and my own projects. For many years, I had made attempts to create my own projects for the web, but none of them succeeded (obviously). However, I also worked at some high profile companies. In only one case, did I see anything close to both the near ideal engineering environment and code base. However, it was for a well established company. In another case, I worked for a social media content company. The site I worked on had mediocre code that we were slowly improving over time. But the more striking part was two other sites that I discovered were purchased for $5 million a piece. In those situations, the two sites had some of the most god awful code. However, they generated revenue, had high traffic and a good community.

Then I worked at a domain name company where my coworkers were from excellent schooling (Caltech, Stanford, UCLA, USC, etc.). We attempted to put process in place, holding numerous meetings to gather requirements, think through all the little issues and then come up with an architecture that would be able to scale and handle all types of use cases. At the end of the day, big fights broke out, people got laid off (me) or quit. However, all those meetings, which lasted around 6 of the 7 months I was there, went nowhere and the code ended up being a hacked up version.

I might be biased in getting laid off but I think if we managed to write “crap” code that made money and managed to penetrate the market at the right time with the fever against ICANN, we probably would have had a chance to do well (even if the business model sucked at the time; that said, more domains were released over time so the idea wasn’t bad, just the management and implementation).

Going back to the lunch, my new friend did ask me whether the projects gave me any enjoyment or betterment. While I did learn some things such as my limits, weaknesses and a few techniques that I could use later on, I do feel that my time would have been better spent overall chasing women (since quite a few projects I was doing was in Japan at the time).

But let’s put it another way. When you’re employed, you’re not going to be building what you want. You’ll never write the best code because most of the time you’ll have little insight into what you really need to build. The requirements gathering phase will always be extremely vague because product people, project managers and software managers alike (as well as higher levels of management) will do the bare minimum to define every aspect. Most likely, they too will never have a full view of what they want to accomplish. But then again this is software and if we wrote everything perfectly on the first try, why would it ever evolve?

So why this rant? Part of this rant has come from an article I read recently about the problems of academic computing vs business computing. The article goes to discuss how universities tend to oversimplify the problems students need to solve by providing only the easiest examples.  Also, the theories of software engineering and coding, while having their place, would tend to not be used at all in practice once you get into the industry.

What academia does provide is a foundation for problem solving and recognizing certain patterns with a few solutions for those patterns. But it does not attempt to provide you with all solutions just enough tools to get to the next step.

Is this a necessary thing for creating the “best code?” Not really. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. can all tell you differently. If you’re motivated, energetic, full of ideas and willing to improve/learn, you can write the “best code.” But just having a degree does not equate the “best code” nor being the best programmer.

On a side note, in my career, I haven’t encountered many computer science degree wielding engineers. The ones that had a legitimate computer science degree tended to be on the managerial side whereas the better coders were mostly self taught and/or college drop outs (some didn’t even bother attending college). I think since they didn’t have the indoctrination of academia, they’ve felt compelled to be better than their compatriots. Also, the people in school who did the best in terms of grades were not necessarily great programmers. They simply could take test better, or worse they cheated on test and homework assignments.

I think this is why guys like Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison feel that academia is a waste of time. In many ways, they are right. It isn’t uncommon to find people with degrees doing something completely unrelated. Also, you’ll frequently meet people who complain that after receiving their degree that “they learned nothing at a university.” For me, it’s all about satisfying expectations. I think that people feel entitled to some job after college that relates directly to what they’ve done. But if you choose something like liberal arts, what opportunities can you get easily outside of teaching?

From a numbers game point of view, school (definitely in America) can be a waste of time and money. Take masters degrees for instance like an MBA. A friend of mine once said that anything less than a top 10/25 school is worthless. Why? Because no top business will ever recruit from there. Another friend who works as an architect has an MBA from UC Davis. When I told him that I considered getting an MBA, he dissuaded me from it. He pointed to himself as an example. I can cite numerous other people who all felt the same way.

The time and money it’ll take you to obtain a masters degree (say 2 years on average) implies roughly $100k debt and potentially $200k (or more) of lost income (where I assume that in a programmer’s case, that a decent programmer can earn $100k/year these days). Also, there’s no guarantee that after getting a masters degree (or anything for that matter) that you get the job you want or any job that matters.

But raw skills, experience and a proven track record will always outweigh a straight out degree. If your code increases revenue, traffic, usage, etc. those aspects will qualify you as one of the “best programmers.” As an English major and as someone who has worked for great companies and has made it to the level of CTO, I can attest to this.

Lastly, don’t forget that academic institutions have their own agendas. School != some godly entity that will look for your best interest. Schools are run by people all the same. Not by some benevolent deity who will serve your needs. Schools serve their own needs, which is to sell more books, pay for professors, get more research grants, more prestige, more rewards and so on. Professors themselves want you to buy into their philosophies, their schools of thought, so they can continue their research and have more publications sold and be given more research grants for what they want to do. When professors ardently defend themselves against people like Peter Thiel, they simply are rationalizing their own personal experiences, but not the workforce at large.

At any rate, I hope this article will help convince you that at the very least you should stop beating yourself over the head for not writing academic code. Academic code is useless and belongs in textbooks. In fact, I think they shouldn’t even attempt to use that as examples since it only gives people bad ideas of how things ought to be. Having a sense of balance and understanding how to get things done is more important. Also, being confident in oneself in their own abilities while striving to better themselves at all times. But most of all, just get things done so you can collect a nice paycheck for all that hard work you’ve done.

The post The Best Code Written and Myth of Academia appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

On another trivial Keith Note, Steelhouse is the longest company I’ve worked for in America. Certainly, my current situation with my mom has forced me in some way to settle down. But at the same time, I wanted to settle down for a while at least with regards to jobs. I’m not someone who enjoys doing interviews. They really grate on my nerves since most ask you some silly technical question like the difference between an inner and outer join. Come on. My resume says 13 years of industry experience. Even if I don’t know the academic definition of an inner vs outer join, can you give me some credibility?

I think creating personal goals like this has helped too in making me settle down. It would be nice to see a company besides Nikko Citigroup go beyond the 2 year mark on my resume. Also, I’m very interested in seeing the company grow and expand. It’s fun seeing how a place has started and where it’s going. I can’t wait, for instance, to be able to work in the new building down the line. Our current spot is getting a bit cramped but to me moving into a bigger building is a huge thing. It signifies the concrete growth of a company. It’s kinda like when you place Starcraft and you upgrade the Hive each time.

I know the market has been volatile for a while. Part of it, imo, is the temptations offered by recruiters to snatch up talented engineers. But you really have to look at the big picture. Someone once told me that switching jobs just for a few thousand bucks isn’t worth it. He’s right I believe because there’s limits to that. You really want to grow inside a company and see yourself move up. And the only way to really do that is stick it out.

I think if more people attempt to stick it out at their companies the market can settle down a bit. At the same time, companies need to offer incentives back to employees to retain the top ones. The older, larger companies would provide things like college reimbursements, 401k matching plans, pension plans, stock options and career paths. Now, it feels as though people can’t grow, which is why people switch jobs.

But to make that happen you really need a collaborative effort both with companies and the employees. Of course, not every company can offer the same level of compensation. Yet the ones that have good prospects need to start thinking longer term. I mean, that’s how Google managed to grow in a period where other companies had faltered.

Either way, there really wasn’t much of a point to this post outside of some thoughts regarding my job, career and the work place in general. Gratz me.

The post 3rd Longest Company I’ve Worked For appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

With the product launched, there’s a little more breathing room in terms of fixing things up and getting it to where it needs to be. Of course, the road to getting to that point wasn’t easy. For myself, I spent more than one night up quite late into the night tearing my hair out in trying to get the thing to a semi-usable state. And there were some umadbro moments too.

From an application point of view, I think the biggest issue was organization, especially on the client-side (i.e. Javascript). As a result, I started looking for a framework to help resolve some of the architectural issues and believe I have found a pretty damn good solution called JavascriptMVC. Once I evaluate it at home, I’ll write more on it.

The good thing is that with the application pushed to production, I was able to make my long awaited return to the gym. So far, I managed to hit four days this week, which is pretty good. However, I still have to get back to my old schedule and level, so I feel I’m a long way off. I have more than one reason to hit the gym but I’ll explore that topic in another blog post.

Returning to the topic of work, outside of the project going live, there were some other major points of good news. First, we got a small round of venture debt funding. So already we began hiring in the sales and client support area. Don’t know when some of these people will be coming in, but it’s always a great sign when a company makes an effort to hire.

Another cool thing was that my company was on NBC LA. We had a nice video on one of two big start ups in LA. The online video had a nice sampling of the company and its culture. I was happy that my ugly mug barely made it on camera (I have zero photogenic attributes). However, the fact we made it on camera and on a section of the news again demonstrated a positive facet for my company.

The week had its down moments as well. But I want to address the particular issue in a separate blog. Of course, I’m still trying to make my way on World of Warcraft. Kinda getting bored of it though. Need to find something else to do because it’s becoming really repetitive at the moment.

Anyway, next week ought to be another intense week. Or maybe it might not be depending on how far we can get with our fixes.

The post Fulfillig Albeit Brutal Week appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

That said, there has been glimpses of a light at the end of the tunnel.

One thing is that we won a nice award over at Launch, receiving the “Most Likely to Succeed” trophy. It’s not our first and we’re still in the finals for the Stevies. The president gave us some great stories when he returned for our all-hands pow-wow and I just felt really pumped in hearing the positive reception to our product.

I do believe that the next two months will probably see some blood shed in terms of hours and clearing towards the home stretch. However, all things considered I do think it’s worth the effort. Part of why I’m so high is simply that what I do has high visibility in the company so I can directly impact the bottom line. Sure, we’re still a start up so naturally everything people do in the company contributes.

However, I feel certain that this is where I need to be. I’m not lost in a mess of established cliques trying to vie for recognition with upper management. Instead, I can help establish the foundation and achieve bragging rights for whatever I do.

As a result, I feel extremely motivated and am willing to put forth the necessary effort to help move things along. I think my 12+ years of experience in the industry is starting to really pay off as I can contribute in a positive fashion. Add to the fact that I enjoy the environment and what I’m doing, it makes things less painful compared to prior situations where my existence had no meaning.

I’m very much looking forward to putting my stuff out into production and seeing the reactions of our customers and future customers. I think that the product can only get better.

Down the line, the other thing I’m looking forward to is the company growing. It’ll probably be a while before we make some major growth (maybe a few months). But when the engineering side (especially my group) expands, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

The post Long, Productive Week appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.