tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post529487565671677629..comments2024-02-15T04:42:41.606+00:00Comments on James' Empty Blog: An ethical foreign policy?James Annanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-73018975474756001932007-04-05T10:30:00.000+01:002007-04-05T10:30:00.000+01:00According to my understanding of what the "teacher...According to my understanding of what the "teacher" said, the main expected utitlity of the notebooks is to defend ourselves against undue accusation of misconduct (fraud etc.), rather than to prevent real misconduct.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-56057781197777731522007-03-30T07:08:00.000+01:002007-03-30T07:08:00.000+01:00And just to back up what jules said, the obvious c...And just to back up what jules said, the obvious channel of responsibility for this is that of line management. Unfortunately, both of our direct managers are absentees with permanent positions elsewhere, who only turn up to the lab once or twice a month (as expected they weren't at this lecture), and who freely admit that they have no idea how the Byzantine rules work. Next above them is the program director who happens to simultaneously be leader of a research group, director of another program, and director of the whole lab too so I hardly feel it is reasonable to bother him with every piece of bureaucratic trash I might pick up.<BR/><BR/>I went to the meeting today in a good humour, read the English handout and sat listening for 30 minutes to some old fogey by which time I thought I'd done my bit. The guidelines are presented in an incredibly patronising and scolding manner (someone obviously thinks all us researchers need a good telling off) although the main underlying request to keep better records is not entirely unreasonable. I'll wait and see what sort of a bureaucratic monster it turns into before passing judgment.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-23921947804704069352007-03-29T21:00:00.000+01:002007-03-29T21:00:00.000+01:00They expect everyone, including you, to show up. T...<I> They expect everyone, including you, to show up. They don't necessarily expect you to understand, and someone should be perfectly happy to brief you later on what you missed.</I><BR/><BR/>Japanese bureaucracy and language being what they are, our colleagues would much prefer that information is provided for us in English from the source. They do not feel happy carrying the burden of having to explain the rules to us. It is hard enough for each individual to understand the rules as they apply to themselves, and they really can't do it for their non-Japanese speaking colleagues who do have a habit of having unusual circumstances, making the rules even harder to apply.juleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02591920483149775255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-90545804646313090442007-03-28T20:05:00.000+01:002007-03-28T20:05:00.000+01:00I have to start by saying that Japanese is oom mor...I have to start by saying that Japanese is oom more difficult than German, but the policy when I was in Germany was that there was no policy, there were expectations. If the meetings were small you could do English, more formal ones were in German. If you couldn't keep up you just went to sleep and asked later if you still had a job.<BR/><BR/>The whole thing is one of expectations. They expect everyone, including you, to show up. They don't necessarily expect you to understand, and someone should be perfectly happy to brief you later on what you missed.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-42978909185301812092007-03-28T09:02:00.000+01:002007-03-28T09:02:00.000+01:00Eli,I explicitly acknowledged that they are perfec...Eli,<BR/><BR/>I explicitly acknowledged that they are perfectly entitled to insist on Japanese language ability if they wish, but they chose to offer many of us jobs in full knowledge of the fact that we do not speak the language.<BR/><BR/>The real problem is that they have no policy on the matter - information in English is provided (or not) in a totally ad-hoc manner, and exclusion on the grounds of language ability is commonplace. I think you'd have to agree that making people sit through a 90-minute seminar in a foreign language just so a bureaucrat can claim the staff have been informed about a new policy is pretty absurd, especially when said policy deals with the subject of ethics in the workplace!James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-56225615681849319732007-03-28T04:55:00.000+01:002007-03-28T04:55:00.000+01:00Sorry, look out the window, you are in Japan and t...Sorry, look out the window, you are in Japan and they speak Japanese. OTOH, you get to teach in Japanese too, which is a very good revenge.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.com