Salaryman

So, I've finally slowed down a bit. Here goes on my first couple of days. The first day, I got in just a couple of minutes early and talked to a couple of the new interns. The group that was there was very diverse. We had a couple of engineers from BYU, an accounting major from Bucknell, Finance from UCLA, Asian Studies from Princeton, Law at American University, and MBA's from Vanderbilt, Cornell, and Sloan.

The first day and the second day were both full of training. We had heads from nearly all the departments, and a few members of Central managment come and speak. Musha-san, who is the chief economist also gave us an over view of the economic situation in Japan. I asked a question about Post-Office privitization, but he felt it was to broad a topic to discuss in the little time we had. So he gave me his short answer and moved on.

The first day was broken up by a lunch at the Tokyu Excelsior Hotel. There I met my buddy for the summer, Brad Stewart. He is Australian, and a really cool guy. Having been in Japan for 11 years as a student, member of the foreign service, and a professional at Lehman and Deutsche, he knows a lot about the industry and the region. Plus, he is a lot of fun to talk too.

At the end of the first day I found myself on the 27th floor at a resturant with a great view. Nariko, the person who has been helping us with all of the orientation and preparation before the program, said that the dinner would be social time with drinks and fingerfoods, I didn't know that fingerfoods included tons of nigiri sushi, karaage, great fried foods, and cool desserts. This resturant, called shunjuu, was kind of small, but there, over drinks, I met the Chariman of the Bank, Mr. Hashimoto, and other high ranking members of the bank.

The second day was more training. I felt bad, because I didn't know a whole lot about the things people were talking about, and the people that did know a lot weren't really participating in the training. So the presenters didn't really get a lot of great feedback from us. Plus, it was a little weird, but we never clapped for people. I guess I should have started the trend.

That evening was capped off with dinner with Kimi. We got to hang out a little in Shinjuku and had dinner at a fun little Chinese place.

Wednesday morning we went to Bloomberg for a training on their equipment. I have to admit that I didn't get all the nuances of the setup, but it was really effective. That building was fun because they had the Bloomberg news going on right there on the first floor, and had an open resturant on the second floor. Nice place.

Today was my first day of work. Lots more to learn. I've started a couple of projects though, and I think there will be a lot of great things for me to do coming up this next week. I'm really looking forward to it.