Saturday, January 22, 2011

Things I've said at work

There are a couple of interesting things I've managed to squeeze in during my time at work that I've myself found a bit freaky but never got any strange reaction to. Let me give you a few examples that come to mind.

"I have such sights to show you!" - Said to guests from head office before I'm going to give them a tour of a Japanese facility; don't think anyone ever got the movie reference (do you?)

"You must unlearn what you have learnt!" - Said to people from head office when I'm going to explain some peculiarities of the Japanese market, again, this reference should be obvious but never gotten any reaction to it more than like I said something important

"These are my colleagues, Kaz and Mas" - Introducing a couple of colleagues with complicated names for a person not used to Japanese names, so using the nicknames we agreed upon earlier. I stopped with this since the moment I said it I realized that it sounds like two douchebag rappers and these guys are about as far from rappers as you can come...

"So I guess we just sit tight for now and hope that the Kamikaze (Divine wind) comes and save us?" - Said in Japanese in a local meeting where we were debating whether to give some potential bad news to head office soon or just shut up and hope that some solution would magicall show it self. Note that "Kamikaze" in Japan does not usually put the suicide bomber planes in mind, it refers to the Divine Wind that historically have saved Japan in times of need. Most amusing was that no one reacted particularly to my choice of word, everyone just nodded and went along with it.

There's probably quite a few more interesting things that I've at some point said, but this is what comes to mind now.

3 comments:

TheOctopus said...

"I have such sights to show you!" - I get the reference, in so far as that I know it's a fairly well-known movie reference but have never actually seen the movie (and had no idea until I looked it up on teh Googles just now).

I am however guilty of using the word 特攻隊 to demonstrate the hopelessness of a particular project in a company meeting.

Céline said...

Interesting post.
I am a newcomer here and I like it !

aimlesswanderer said...

U need to check the translated dub or subs of Star Wars in Japan. You may need to modify your quote.

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