Just smile and nod.

Since this just happened like 5 minutes ago and I'm on my lunch break, I figured I'd make a quick post. Normally at work I just kinda sit at my own desk and program by myself, occasionally asking my mentor some questions. I've been interacting more with people since I got a new assignment that put it in a larger team. The problem is that most of these people don't really speak English. At first, the people I talked to most knew pretty good English because they worked or studied in America before. Though I usually spoke Japanese, when it got to tough technical vocabulary I usually had to resort to English. But with my new project, it's been tough to figure out exactly what they want me to do, and to ask my very specific and slightly nuanced questions in Japanese.

My lack of language ability was just demonstrated to me when one of the computer technicians came by and started spouting off some Japanese to me. He had a clipboard in his hand and was looking at my computer's serial number. I figured he was doing some kind of hardware registration check. He asks me a question (I can tell from his intonation more than from the actual words he uses) and points at my monitor. He says the name of the groupware program that we make and also use, so I open it up. Apparently he sent out a company wide e-mail this morning telling us to download this utility and run it. Of course, I get maybe 10-15 of these e-mails a day and they're all in Japanese, so by now I've given up on trying to read them, and focus on the ones that are just sent to me.

He points at the monitor. I click. Then I just let him have the mouse. Easier that way. I run this utility program, it spits out a few numbers and other data that he jots down, and then it finishes, leaving this nifty window open that I have no idea how to close. He says some more things to me, I just smile and nod. He's like "daijoubu?" (Is it okay?) I just answer back with the same question, "Daijoubu?" (I have no clue, is it okay? He answers "Daijoubu" (it's okay), maybe because he already knows I can't understand anything else. Haha. Don't worry, it's all daijoubu.


Here's a screenshot of my desktop with that cool utility program running and the groupware program in the background. I'm not sure what the icon is, looks like a yellow cartoon ghost wearing a police helmet and carrying a set of padlocks. Beats me. Any of my more Japanese literate friends are welcome to help me out with translation.