Starting at a Japanese games dev

Two months after being offered my job, I was finally able to start working on the last Friday of January.

I arrived at the requested time and was shown by the receptionist to a table where two other people starting that day were sitting in silence, avoiding mutual eye contact. I couldn't help but kick off with my "Japanese Lesson 1" material and started the introductions. We were soon met by our leads and taken to our departments.

During the day we were shown around the entire office and introduced to everyone, which involved lots of bowing and exchanging the words "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" several times. This translates more or less into "Please be kind to me", and is the most common expression when meeting someone.

As usual, most of the first day working at a games developer is spent getting your PC set up. Creating a login, password, installing and setting up all the required software, network paths, etc. Learning what-does-what in Windows software is a little trickier when it's all in kanji. Luckily though, the software I need to use the most (Maya and Photoshop) were both available in English. When I'm in deep "into" my work, there's little to remind me I'm actually working in foreign country.

In addition to that, the two artists sitting nearest to me in the office are the two employees who speak the best English - it really couldn't be more convenient. Needless to say they've been a tremendous help to me the past few weeks in translating my questions (and answers), reading error messages on my screen, explaning work practices, teaching me new words, etc. etc. I'm not sure I would have managed without their help. Also since my arrival, all my colleagues have now added their names in romaji to the list in our instant messaging software, making it possible for me to read their names.

At some point during the first day I received my contract. Apparently it is not unusual to get this on your first working day, and it's only one page. Being that short it is of course pretty basic, the only striking clause being something along the lines of "Should the company get sued for something you did, you get sued, not the company". You don't need to sign - or rather stamp - it on the spot, but return it to following week.

While I'm not the first Westerner to work at the company, at the moment I am the only one. All in all, the company and the employees have been extremely accommodating. I can do my work without problems and best of all, I'm enjoying myself. So far so good!