WORKING IN JAPAN: PT. 36

Unemployment

Unemployment. The second most freeing thing, after having money…

I don’t clean train stations any more, but may look for a similar job indoors soon. For now, I will develop some other streams of income, write a lot, and try to help people.

Unemployment, though… A surreal life situation indeed. A person can toggle the fourth dimension through selecting activities, by which I mean that time passes at an adjustable speed. You’re as bored as you want to be, weird about money, and occupied in self-chosen stints. Fatigue isn’t stressful but bills feel a bit worse, sharp jabs in a continuous shadow box against thoughts of your bank balance.

This would all be much better if I was rich, but, as it is, it’s like sitting in a broken rollercoaster car. That’s why I’m likely to go back to cleaning, hopefully indoors and closer to home. It would be ideal to clean a supermarket at night, after hours, at some chain store a kilometre from my flat.

I was reading about segmented sleep. This article said that years ago humans would go to bed in the evening and wake up at midnight, do a bunch of stuff, and then have another good old kip until morning. These periods of slumber were called ‘first sleep’ and ‘second sleep’, as common sense would recommend. Some argue that this is how we are supposed to rest, and that the habit was stomped out by the industrial revolution. I’m thinking of attempting segmented sleep, and will report back if I do.

Speaking of the industrial revolution and the strictures of the modern corporate rhythm, I often fantasise about the kind of company I would build if I had the start-up capital. Instead of dictating office attendance from 9-5 or 9-6, I would hand everyone a list of tasks for the week and, once these were done, they could go to Disneyland for all I care. Occasional on-site presence would be required, in a facility festooned with classic arcade games and ping pong tables. The hierarchy would be flat, all employees encouraged to speak their minds.

In all honesty, however, I don’t have much business sense and would probably go bankrupt. Every project would stall, passively demolished by the kooks and psychonauts I hired. Profit would be negative, and the office space would devolve into a playpen for dysfunctional adults. Mission creep would set in and we’d end up offering too many services, all of them badly. There would, however, be some interesting drinks in the fridge.

Years ago, when I worked in a shop in the UK, I was the cause of a few headaches for the manager. It wasn’t malicious but I was flaky and unpredictable, which annoyed him. Like me, he was called James. Anyway, one day I was talking to someone else who worked there and they told me that I had come up in conversation with the manager. ‘James was talking about you,’ said my coworker, ‘He said you were the stupidest person in the world.’

Now, I don’t think I am stupid but I will admit that I can sometimes come across as dim to people who have employed me, especially for office-bound roles. I tend to lose focus, misunderstand instructions, and forget things. One of my least disciplined, most self-indulgent, selfish opinions is that work should be entertaining, and I don’t know where this comes from. I understand that the world isn’t like that and that having a job isn’t usually some sort of cocaine neon magic show, but right down deep in my gut I feel like most companies should make more of an effort, and that if people had 20% more laughs at work they’d get 40% more done.

The brilliant thing about solitary cleaning activities was that I didn’t need to concentrate on something unstimulating. In fact, I didn’t need to concentrate at all. This freed up my mind for flights of fancy, book ideas, and whatnot. There weren’t bosses wandering around, people to try and look good for. I think one of the things I need to do, in future, is stop making an effort to be nice to bosses and just be naturally nice to them. Because most of them have been reasonable and friendly with me, and the only impediments in our working relationship have come from my high expectations and kneejerk objection to authority.

If possible, I would like mental toughness training from Shaolin monks or the CIA, some course that tells me specifically how to navigate the dullness, exposure and occasional microaggression of daily office life.

But I think I’ll stick to working alone. That seems to suit me best. I’ll start applying soon, for cleaning roles in my area. Or find out if they need tourist guides somewhere, because that might be unsupervised but not technically a solitary job. Talking to random visitors is great.

Until then, I will sleep a lot and read. I also have to find that homeless guy again to ask if he needs a pillow.

You can read the previous part of this blog here.

Part 37 is here.

I have a cool crime novel called Mugger on Kindle. Give it a read if you want some suspenseful noir!!