One thing you hear a lot about Japan is how polite people in service industries are. And it's mostly true, in my experience. The customer is god, and most customer servants will take enormous levels of abuse and irritating behaviour from their customers without so much as saying a word or batting an eyelid. They more than likely bitch about their bad customers later, but that's another story, hehe. Interestingly, yesterday, I came across a train station employee who very much broke this stereotype. I'd encountered him before, and he's a really grumpy old bastard. My first run in with him was with my friend Amanda, who came down to Ako on the way to Okayama. She bought a ticket from Himeji to Okayama, then changed her mind and got off at Ako. She didn't want to waste the ticket, so wanted to either get a refund or be allowed out of the station and then back in with it to go the rest of the way to Okayama. Very reasonable.

She speaks fluent Japanese so it was no problem for her to explain the situation, and with the help of a nice JR employee at the Ako ticket window, got something worked out. She could go on to Okayama, return to Ako, show a piece of paper and get a new ticket back to Himeji for no cost, no harm done. When we returned to Ako, however, to do the exchange, she ended up with Mr Grumpy. Despite her fluent Japanese, he just decided to ramble on at her in what was, as far as I could tell, somewhat angry, impolite Japanese. She was not happy, and neither was I, but we couldn't really do anything about it. He didn't listen to her, he didn't help her, and he literally had a go at her for what he obviously thought was a waste of his time. Bastard.

I had my turn with him yesterday. I organised to have dinner with a friend in Himeji, but counter-invited him to Ako as I was quite tired. I didn't hear back from him, so headed to Himeji to meet him under the original arrangements. I had just gotten onto the train when I got a message to say he would come down to Ako. No harm done, I simply got off at Nishi-Aioi, waited for the next train, and came back to Ako. Now that wouldn't be a big problem in Australia. There, I would either pay nothing (if I'd only been in the station for 15 minutes or so) or would have had to pay some default fare, which would have been automatically deducted as I swiped out of the station. In Japan, this situation basically can't be handled without human intervention. They just don't seem to be able to handle the concept of getting out at the same station as you swiped in at.

Now I knew about this rather unusual flaw in the system, so went straight to the counter to explain instead of trying to swipe through. In very polite Japanese, I excused myself, apologised, and said I'd made a mistake. Before I could explain further, Mr Grumpy simply snatched my card from me and whacked it into his console, probably assuming all I needed to do was fare transfer. His foolish assumption caused him to come unstuck when he saw that I had boarded at Banshu Ako. From there, he again didn't listen to me, simply assuming that I had just gone through the gates and was asking for help on how to get somewhere. He unleashed a torrent of Japanese at me, of which I could only make out something about going somewhere. I again tried to explain, in very simple and clear Japanese, that I previously boarded the train in Ako, gotten off at Nishi-Aioi, had NOT left the station there, and had returned to Banshu Ako by the next train.

He got more and more irritated despite the fact I was careful with my Japanese and kept it as simple and clear as I could. Yet again, he didn't listen to what I had to say and assumed that I wanted to go to Nishi Aioi, despite me having clearly explained that I had been there and come back to Ako from there. He told me to enter the gates again. At this point, I didn't really know any better, so simply followed his directions, thinking I had to do it to clear the card. Something made me stop, though, and clarify with him exactly what was going on. I told him yet again that I wanted to stay in Banshu Ako. At this point, he actually lost his cool. For the first time, I saw a Japanese customer service person get irritated. Anger flashed in his eyes and he muttered to himself in a thick Japanese accent, snatched me card away from me, slammed it into his console, cleared it, spoke loudly and tersely at me in a torrent of impolite Japanese while pointing rudely at me with my card, then roughly shoved it back at me.

Feeling cornered because I couldn't understand him despite trying my best, hurt because he obviously hadn't listened to me despite clearly explaining things two or three times and had gotten angry for no reason, and angry because he had been so impolite, I felt very upset but could do little but walk away. As I did, I couldn't help but say loudly, in English, "Thank you so much for you polite assistance". A bit of a cheap parting shot I know, but I was so unhappy. If I had known enough Japanese, I would have complained about him to someone higher up in the station. As is my way, I tried to think about whether I had done anything unreasonable. I couldn't really think of anything. I always try to be very polite to people, and living in a country where I can't understand the language perfectly means I've become very patient at listening and speaking/explaining. I know that my Japanese is just good enough to cover the situation I was in, if the person I was talking to listened carefully and was patient. He didn't, and wasn't. My only crime was not being able to speak fluent enough Japanese for it to have been like an 'everyday' transaction for him.

So my final summary is that, yes, yet again it is my level of Japanese that let me down and made the situation worse. That's a given. But after what happened to Amanda, this guy has a history of being a dick. Therefore as far as I can see it, he was much more at fault than I was. He didn't listen, he made bad assumptions, was impatient and rude and let himself get angry at a customer who was being polite and trying his best to understand and explain. Inexcusable. So I just concluded that he is a grumpy old man and is to be avoided at all costs, and tried to forget about it. I had a bit of a rant about it to Minato-san too, and felt better, hehe. It's strange how such little things can really affect you. I hate bothering people, and understand that I'm often going to be a pain here because I can't speak the language fluently. That said, I certainly didn't deserve the treatment I got. Perhaps that's what hurt me most. The fact that I'd done everything I could to be the best customer I could, and he'd been so blatantly rude. It makes it all the worse when you've tried to do the right thing and you get nothing back for it.

So there you go. Take it from me - Japan is not all smiling faces when it comes to customer service. "There's one in every town."