Recently, I have found my problem solving skills to be in a state of atrophy. This might be due to the lack of challenge at my work place, or perhaps laziness in general. Going from a stressed out University student to glorified human tape recorder(read:ALT) carries with it some serious consequences; many of which I probably won’t realize until long after I am out of Japan. As a way to improve my mind, I have been reading more, attempting some challenging logic puzzles and playing some sudoku. I have found the results of my training to be quite satisfactory, and my head no longer seers in pain at basic computations.
However, Japan always seems to find a way to brake my brain in two. I’m not sure if it is the culture to blame, or rather the company in particular, but I am flabbergasted at what I encountered on Thursday evening at a local dry-cleaners. I had dropped off a dress shirt there the other day and was going to pick it up. I thought this would be a routine trip. Oh, how wrong I was. Here is how things played out. The dialogue was in Japanese, but it has been translated into English for your enjoyment.
Clerk: “Good evening. How may I help you?”
Me: “I’m here to pick up my dress shirt. I dropped it off on the 18th. It was due on the 21st, but I could only come today. Here is my claim ticket.”
Clerk(looking shocked): “Oh, I’m terribly sorry sir. The truck that cleans the dress shirts picked them up already. It’s no longer here.”
Me: “Oh, my shirt is probably done. I was supposed to pick it up on the 21st. It should be here somewhere.”
Clerk(now looking scared): “Oh, I’m so sorry. When they come to pick up the shirts, they take the ones that have been cleaned as well. It will be back on Saturday. You can pick up your shirt then, unless you need it now. Then we can call the central depot and have them rush it to you tomorrow. Do you need it now?”
Me(looking a confused): “I don’t need it now. But why do they pick up the cleaned shirts? Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave them here so they can be picked up at anytime?”
Clerk(now quivering): Yeah, I suppose it would now, wouldn’t it. So, if you don’t need to get it immediately, it will be here Saturday. Thank you for using our service.”
At this point I was really out of it. I wasn’t really angry about them not having my shirt, but I couldn’t understand why they would take my already cleaned shirt back to the central cleaning depot. It didn’t make any sense. On my way out of the mall I concluded it must be one of three reasons:
1. When I don’t pick up the shirt on time, they take it back and wash it again(just to be sure.)
2. They have a fetish for freshly pressed dry-cleaning.
3. They actually lost my shirt and this is a stalling tactic until they find it.
I’m sure the company has a really good reason why they don’t leave cleaned dress shirts at the store they were purchased at. Obviously, my critical thinking skills haven’t reached that level of rationalization yet. So for another day, my head has been cracked in two like a fresh egg.
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