ダンボの旅: Over 1000 Students

This week we officially started classes at the Academy here with the Japanese Students. Wow, that's about the only way I can really think to explain it right now. Well that and intense. The week started off with a huge presentation from Our Parent companies President and an official former Toyota president.

Walking over one would have thought that our group of 145 all dressed in slacks, clean black Jackets and dress shoes would be pretty slick, not gonna lie we did. But it was nothing compared to when we finally entered the assembly hall and saw all the other new hires and trainees assembled. All assembled and upright in their respective companies uniforms.

However the most impressive part was yet to come. At 9am on the dot we were called to attention and all 1000 jumped to attention, and then bowed as one mass. Now the intense formation and bowing practice of the last week began to make sense. There we were now only a mere 145, but now we were linked with the 1000 or so other company men and women assembled there to receive our blessings and advice from the Presidents before we began our journey of training/careers. It was really a nice way to start off honestly. In the US, at least for me, I got little more than a brief tour and introduction before pretty much jumping into the new job. Here however, as I later found out, job transfers and hiring is actually a more scheduled thing that will happen about one time in the spring and fall or so. So large assemblies like this are common, and so are the parties as I found out later in the week...