A new intern arrives at TOPY...

My first day of internship...I have to confess here that I didn't start off good.

On my bus ride there, I fell asleep and missed 2 stops. Had to pay extra fare and I had to walk around trying to look for the right place...and did I mention it was also raining? Let me tell you, getting lost in industrial area was no fun...factories are far apart from each other and I had no way of telling which way to turn at any junction. Thank god I went early....and thank the pretty lady at the station who gave me a map.

After reaching the company, despite missing the stop and getting lost, I realized I still was half an hour early. In Japan, where punctuality is religion, arriving too early is a no no...it means you don't respect their timetable.

AND I forgot to bring along my pen and my stamp...do you know how awkward it is when they push a piece of paper to you, expecting you to start writing when all you have is a pencil? Damn...that was more uncomfortable than the time I forgot my wallet at the supermarket.

But that guy who greeted me was a nice guy so, no trouble there. I was then introduced to the boss, my section leader, and head of safety. Then, I was fit into a yellow hard hat and a black hard boots, and things kicked off with a tour of the facility and a spectrum of rules to follow.

Remember the phrase "Rules are meant to be broken" ??

Well, no they are not.They are meant to keep you from harm's way...keep you safe.

So do your best to obey them like pathetic slaves.

It used to be "Quality First" but now it's "Safety First". Apparently, they realized that an injured fellow worker and an interrupted machine costs a lot of money, and also that lawyers these days are more cunning, so your safety(their money) concerns them.

Having said that, you would have guessed it, most of it involves rules when walking around or handling machine. They have a manual on every piece of machine in that factory. Yeah, that means they also have a guidebook hanging from a vacuum cleaner, so in case you hurt yourself while sucking dust, it's your fault for not reading that damn guidebook first.



Like most factories in Japan, they adopt a system called "指差し呼称", which means point and speak. For example, when you step into a factory, you have to point while saying;

Point to the right "右よし" - migi yoshi(right ok)-

Point to the left "左よし" - hidari yoshi(left ok) -

Point above "頭上よし" - zujou yoshi(above head ok) -

Point to the ground "足元よし" - ashimoto yoshi(ground ok) -

FYI, Japan Railways adopts the same system. You'll always see a station master gesture along the train before blowing the whistle. Amazingly, no mistakes by station masters was ever recorded, proving that this troublesome gestures actually works to reduce accidents.

When switching on a machine,
"スイッチオンよし" - suichi on yoshi(ok to push START button) -

When switching off a machine,
"スイッチオフよし" - suichi off yoshi (ok to push STOP button)-

And, the interesting thing, my manager's name is Yoshii.

Yoshi to everything!!

But seriously, safety is the highest of importance in my workplace. We haven't had ANY serious accidents since 1980. The last accident recorded was some dude who caught a splinter in his thumb from a wooden chopstick...apparently, he was an operator for a production line and he couldn't push the buttons.

The company lost 2 days of productivity.