A trouble Nathans Japan had.

Another Otaku topic.
On August 12-14 a comic market was held in Tokyo. Comic market (Comiket) is an event to sell fanzines (We call it Doujinshi). Anime fan groups, manga fan groups, such some fan groups rent a space and sell their magazines in this convention. Here is the site to show inside market. I laughed to see this panel "You can't enter the market with costume". ha ha ha. Anyway we can easily suppose the Comic market would be full of Otaku for four days..

During the event, some food booths stood around the market place. An American hotdog shop Nathans was one of them. Then here is the catch, one of the part-time workers at Nathans had a blog and she wrote about her part-time job at that place with some photos. "I am working at Nathans in comic market!", "I am enjoying and we all are doing our best!" , "Our customers are all Otaku!", "there are Otaku! Otaku! Otaku!, ahhh weird! scary!".  Well maybe she updated her blog in such a way usually, Today I was happy! lucky! cute! lovely! scary! weird! , Yes typical harmless girls blog, maybe I did the same sometimes. But things had to go differently in this case. Some 2channeler caught her blog and comments quickly and a thread on the 2channel-message board was made. Yes, the festival has begun. Many people accessed her site and protested "you look down your customers!" and some complained to Nathans directly too "Your employee looked down us!". Nathans researched what was going on, then she deleted her blog. Yesterday this issue was published on some site. I was a little bit amused to read their apology. Sorry for my rough translation.

"We Nathans came from racial melting pot -New York-. People love us always regardless of nationality, values. Such company quality should be taken over here in Japan.....blah blah blah.
As a result of our research, our franchise company hired a part-time worker by themselves and the part-time worker's inappropriate comments caused this. That comments were completely diametrically opposed to our company compliance...blah blah blah.

Hmm...like it matters??
I understand their feeling to make this end, and maybe that would be the best way to do as soon as possible. But I am bothered by a feeling of strangeness. Do you think Nathans reacted like this? I also understand Otaku people felt bad to read such her words, but then they could complain to Nathans??
I don't think so. She was so careless, she was the one who be complained and apologised. Ahh I suppose sooner or later you will be asked in job interview, "Do you have blog? Could you sign this paper to promise you will not write about us?"

Anyway I could find her deleted blog (yes, here is another internet otaku) on someone's archive but I won't link there. She looks pretty girl, she was so smiling on her blog. Well she would never supposed to be named "MOLE" (actually she had a pretty one ) by otaku and her blog made a news on Yahoo Japan....Yes she was careless.  Wow what a scary! weird! I don't like people who overreact! :-)

Comments

[guu]

it is always something
recently, i was such a big fan of 踊る大捜査線...
but now i cannot watch it at all because of comments like:
http://www.odoru-legend.com/suspect/news/houkoku01.asx
http://www.odoru-legend.com/suspect/news/img/poster01.jpg
because african-american people go to work like everyone else?
bad enough that bobby ologon make african-american people look stupid...

[Mari]

Hi Nichol Thank you.
Yes bra bra bra sounds like three brassieres.
I am so embarassed and laughed. ha ha ha

[nichol]

This is a bit off topic but it's actually 'blah blah blah'.
This is all I have to add now, sorry.

[Julian Morrison]

It's corporations being cowards. They would prefer to apologise too much and sack a replaceable employee, rather than stand up for her and say to the otaku "are you six years old? you complain about such small insults".

[Mari]

Hi There
Yes I must be carefull for my comments. Thanks!
Blogging make our world wider, I have never imagine just regular people are so interesting, I am enjoying very much their real voice, thoughts and feeling, idea. I don't want to read just clean harmless dairy. I eat this, I went there, I bought this.

[Other]

http://japundit.com/archives/2005/08/26/1089/

[Dan]

it really is kind of sad.

especially in cases where people get fired for posting incriminating things about their companies on the internet.

it will probably soon be standard to make posting such things GROUNDS FOR FIRING-- contractually, officially. everywhere.

(the girl/nathans case isn't a case of a company's "dirt" getting revealed.)

the internet allows people to actually share relevant information-- effectively, en masse. but obviously it will be clamped down by people/entities who have the most to lose from mass-information-access on the internet.

[Lumpy]

It is actually getting to be a big issue here in the USA and people have been fired for blogging. It is also becoming an interview question.

Sad Days... :( Especially for "the land of the free".

[cecile]

i can't believe she got in trouble for that! its normal for people to have opinions about the people you meet. and they are exactly just that, your opinion. people are open to disagree but they can't impose to you on what you can or cannot say! hayyy...

[BlogPetのtokiokun]

きょうは、ここまでblogしなかったー。
ここへひまもblogするはずだったみたい。
mariのひまにblogされた！
tokiokunは、ひまもblogするつもりだった？

[Dan]

awwww come on!!

give us the link!

i want to see the mole(s).

i also want to congratulate her for SPEAKIN HER MIND.

otaku should Get Over It.

(as far as Nathans.... it's traditional company policy for any corporation to completely over-react when a customer GETS OFFENDED. bra bra bra, we strive for the greatest customer experience possible, we train our employees for ultimate customer satisfaction, we apologize, we apologize, our mission is diametrically opposed to that awful girl!)

this is one of my favorite things you've posted

[Charles]

I liked your link to a page about Comiket, because it ends with a picture of "burnable garbage." That's a pretty good definition for manga in general.

Unfortunately, there are always people who overreact. The internet allows anyone to post an opinion regardless of how strange, insulting or easily misinterpreted. People of strong opinion naturally feel they must disagree and make sure everyone in the world hears. This is how some girls, innocent blog becomes national news. Society has many legal protections from crime but do not apply to stupidity.

Be careful with your blog, Marie, or some otaku of snack food or strange architecture may take revenge. Never involve your place of work, either. There are many "news" people and companies who are very happy to find some easy way to destroy a business or person. Such wreckage will make the "news" organization more popular with people who think such things are important.