Taking a break was a job in itself. Getting out of the high-security area where we were assigned workplaces was easy (the door opened from inside without requiring any ID), but entering it was tough. It used finger-print recognition technology for identifying legitimate users and being vendors, we were not in the 'pass-thru' list.
So, we had to either wait till we found some employee who was entering the premises and tag along with him or had to knock on the door and hope that someone inside would hear our knock & open the door for us. But, this was a minor inconvenience that we learnt to get adjusted to.
What was tough was not having access to even a single cup of coffee during the whole workday which lasted anywhere between 10-14 hours. At my office, I usually down around 4-5 cups of coffee a day. So, it can be imagined how tough it would be for me to manage without even one cup. Ofcourse, there was a well-appointed pantry at the client's place. But my Japanese colleagues had mentioned it in passing that the pantry was out-of-bounds for us non-employees.
The first day passed painfully, without the dose of caffeine that my body was used to. But, I
was sure I could not go through the whole week without caffeine. So, on the second day, I decided to check out the pantry. It was quite small compared to the one back home in our
office, but then what is big in Japan ? I see the mandatory coffee-maker with jugs of hot
black coffee. I do not see any cups or stirrers - maybe they are in the cabinets.
Anyway, when I am checking out the pantry, an attractive lady who works there drops by for
a cup of coffee. We smile on making eye-contact. I want to ask her help to get a cup of coffee,
but do not know the Japanese for that. Anyway, I am determined not to let my ignorance of Japanese keep me away from a hot steaming cup of coffee.
Using a mixture of hand-gestures and English, I am able to make her understand that I would like a cup of coffee. She smiles and takes a conical-plastic cup, plugs it into a cup holder, pours out coffee into it and points me to the tray of stirrers, sweeteners etc in the cabinet.
Pic-1 : The plastic cup with stirrer.
Pic-2 : The cup-holder into which the cup slots in securely.
Pic-3 : The assembled coffee-cup ready for use.
I thank her profusely and move to the reception area to enjoy my first dose of caffeine after what seemed like eternity. Coffee done, I go to the pantry, chuck the cup and stirrer into the trash can, wash the cup-holder at the sink and leave it in the tray nearby which holds the washed articles.
And that is when I see the washed cups/stirrers in the tray and realise my mistake of throwing the cup/stirrer in the trash, like we would do in India and elsewhere - we do not normally reuse the disposable plastic stuff. But here, they wash and reuse them.
Commendable practice given the fact that we are going to soon make the earth one giant
trash-bin full of non-degradable plastic, given the rampant abuse of plastic. But, before you
start replicating this in India, ensure that the disposable cups you use are of the same quality
as the ones I saw in Japan. The ones we get here are so flimsy that it is usually a big deal if
we can manage to use it atleast once, let alone wash and re-use.
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