Murphy Returns

Murphy’s law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong at the time of the greatest inconvenience to as many people as possible

A friend and employer looking out for me gave me first dibs on taking over four 90 minute classes of one of his teachers who had to quit to take care of her aged mother. This sudden increase in hours, especially all on the same day and on one of the two days I am allowed to teach evenings has been challenging as I have not work so many hours in most weeks since the panic, to say nothing of all in the same day. In truth, while I knew working so many hours in a single day would be challenging after 5 1/2 years not being able to, it is more so than I counted on. Still, the anticipated income was a shot in the arm and I was anxiously awaiting payday yesterday to see how much was in my account. The other med/nursing school is also helping me out. I was again asked to write the English language portion of the entrance exam for one of these. In addition, they gave me various tasks to do on campus to increase my hours to the maximum allowed for part time faculty. A note, with my several employers, I have two paydays a month; the other is the last weekday of each month.

Shocked. My account had half of what I was expecting. This atop of discovering that my coin banks held 40% less than I thought they did and that of the two apartments I am considering, I am heavily leaning towards the one that does require both a deposit and key money, I was counting on funds from both to cover moving costs and have enough to live on for the month. I suspected that these new classes failed to register in the system but didn’t think to bring my bank passbook with me so that I could rule this in or out. There were other possibilities. I have been granted several extra classes and tasks at my main med school last month and it is possible these didn’t log into their system yet, but I doubted they would total the amount I was missing. Japanese University pay systems are esoteric, or at least can be. All mine have been.

So I rushed home from one of these extra tasks yesterday to get home in time to grab my passbook and get to the nearest ATM for my bank to update it before the 6pm cutoff. If I missed this deadline I would have to wait until Monday before I could get a look at who paid what amount into my account. Though I should not have been, I was surprised that The Kid was not at cram school which started 30 minutes prior to my return home. There were expecting that I would drive them there. If I did so, I would not be able to check on my pay situation. Told them I was not able to, grabbed my passbook and walked the 20 minutes to the bank in the rain.

As I suspected, the new classes failed to register. Emailed my boss, who apologized and said he would have his secretary inquire about it on Monday. This is not a unique occurrence. While not a guaranteed situation, it is common enough to put the lie to oft praised efficiency and accuracy of the Japanese. Experience has taught me to expect that I will have to wait until next month’s payday to receive this pay, while, when I have been over paid, I had to pay it back with in days. They actually get rather nasty with you when they fauci up and over pay you. That is how it works here.

I still have enough to move in, provided I do not have to pay deposits for any utilities, which I doubt, and to make it until what will be a massive pay day next month….unless the same problem repeats, which would sink me, but it will be even tighter than I expected, tighter than it should be.