Culture shock part II

So here I was thinking my culture shock weekend was in the past... when the issue of Jeff's parking comes up. To try to keep the saga brief, here is the bullet-pointed story:

* I have to pay to park at my apartment.
* Jeff was parking there too on the two or three nights he came down.
* We received a notice that ONLY those who had paid were allowed to park there.
* Jeff parked at the supermarket and got a notice on his windscreen.
* I told my school that they needed to sort somewhere for Jeff to park.
* They came back to me with a carpark. For 3000 yen ($50) a month. That he will be using two nights a week :S
* Today I was told I also need to pay a one-off fee of 3000 yen to the real estate agent.
* Today I was also told I need to pay the full 6000 in the next two days.
* Today I was also told I need to pay a fee to transfer the money.
* Today I was also told that I can't set up an automatic payment to a private company and therefore must go to the bank to pay every month.
* Today I was also told that I must take an hour's leave to go down to the bank with my supervisor to pay.

I'm picking I don't have to go into the details of why this is very very frustrating.

Oh, ok, the one bit of backstory you need to know (if you're not already Japan-savvy) is that if you need to go on holiday, you take holiday leave. If you need to go to the bank, you take holiday leave. If you get sick, you take holiday leave.

Between our Christmas holiday trip and our upcoming trip to NZ, I have only two days of leave left. Hence I got rather panicky at being told I needed to take some of that to go to the bank ("it's only an hour", "but then, if I get sick and need to take the day off, I have to come to school and throw up for an hour!"). Finally I just said no and went online to get detailed instructions on how to do payments from the ATM. Now I just have to race to the ATM from work to make sure I have plenty of time to work this out!

I should be doing some Japanese study now but I'm just feeling kinda stressed and jittery. It's not like the sky will fall if I don't accomplish this payment tonight, but it does mean a long day tomorrow coming back to Myoodai after teaching at Tode to get my supervisor to help me do the transfer. I'm determined not to need him though!!

It's just super frustrating that my school wants me to take time off for this when they had to do almost NOTHING to set me up when I first got here. Really, they took me to my apartment, that was it. And now they are saying I need to take leave to do this because it's 'personal'. Umm, actually they took me on as an employee knowing I had a husband and knowing that my family is part of their responsibility!! Pain in the freaking ass!!!

Ok, calm down Charly. Not making anything better by getting frustrated at Japanese beauracracy! Hope you're all having a less frustrating day than I am!