Alexander's

Nothing I've ever witnessed in Japan shows the mentality better than the lab cleaning I could enjoy yesterday.

First of all -- days ahead of the actual event -- a plan is made. I guess the professor has a general idea of how the office should look like, then one of the assistents measures all the furniture in the office, sits down with very expensive 3D visualizing software and spends one or two days rendering several possible scenarios. Next the professor decides on one of the plans. Obviously different kinds of desks are irritating, so three very nice and extremely sturdy desks are thrown out, just to get new ones, that seem cheap and uncomfortable compared to the old ones, but I have to admit they fit the general scheme of the room at least as well as the old ones.

Next -- this is still about two weeks before the actual event -- the plan gets postet on the pin board and an e-mail sent to everyone reminding them to attend the cleaning party. Everyone looks at the plan and no one really cares. Yes the plan looks nice and a bit different, but basically everyone want's the closest possible equivalent to his former workplace.[^1]

And then the actual hour of the big cleaning and restructuring dawns and the fun is about to begin.

11:00 Only three of the eighteen expected students are here.
11:10 The assistant professor enters the room to inspect the progress or start the work -- seems unhappy about the few attending students and leaves again.
11:11 The secretary comes rushing into the room. Wielding a phone in one hand and a list with the private numbers of all the students in the other.
11:12 After establishing who is here all the missing students are called and ordered to come at once.
11:15 An assistant comes and takes over the supervision. Everyone now asks the highest ranking student what he should do, who in turn asks the assistant. The assistant looks at the plan, and then the order goes the same way back again.
11:25 The next batch of students arrives.
11:30 I'm finished with my place and start vacuuming the floor.
11:35 The French student in my lab is also finished with his desk and starts to help me.
12:10 I go for lunch. By now about half of the students have arrived, the professor came twice to inspect the progress of the work and it looks like we will be finished before I come back from lunch.
13:15 I come back from lunch. While I was gone they ripped open the floor and are thinking about rewiring the office. The assistents is standing in the middle of the room and giving orders.
13:30 I notice it takes longer for them to tell me what to do than when they do it alone.
14:45 I find a nice stick and start a few Jo swings at the assistent -- turns out that the assistant also trains Aikido -- "Bad idea I'm a black belt" -- in the half second it takes me to understand his Japanese I loose the Jo that is now rapidly approaching my poor belly.
20:00 I leave for home. The office still is a battle field, but everyone is working busily or reporting the progress to the next in hierarchy.

I guess this work could have been done by a pair of underpaid cleaning ladies in about 2-3 hours. Yet more than ten highly intelligent Todai students were busy from 11:00 to 20:00 and I wouldn't go so far as to call the room clean. Restructured -- surely; cleaner than before -- maybe; but definitely not clean. And even after this the computers are still not connected. I guess it will be days before the network is again up to speed and working flawlessly.

PS: Today my professor came in and described what kind of work I should do today.

Today we find you a new desk.

[^1]: I can now decide between a crappy new desk with considerably less space, or an old desk in a sub optimal position