New Game! – 10
…looks like Shinobu has competitors…
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Hmmm, vidya and donuts…what are we gonna dough about that…? |
All Sorts of Loopholes
It’s pretty easy to fall asleep on these things…
For the first half of the episode we get a fantastic example of some of the daily teasing and testing that informs a workplace. Once you set aside Aoba getting her sleep schedule used to her new work schedule, that’s what it comes down to. Some days you’re in the mood for the grind, and other days you could very much do without, thank you very much. So we see the day when the potentially salty (nearly oversleeping a train stop) turns to the unexpected sweet and there are surprise donuts everywhere. Then the bosses come in with more and add rice crackers of all things to the pile! Pick your metaphors for donuts and rice crackers and you got the daily grind..
Life is Salty and Sweet
So it’s easy to see that everyone has a “mean” side…don’t ever let any cute exteriors fool you. It’s a dog eat dog world out there, and even when there are donuts a plenty, and rice crackers piled a meter high, it’s a mean mean person that gets by at the end of the day…Is a message that this show skillfully avoids, even while they play around with it. For the past ten weeks I’ve been pretty much marvelled at the way the show’s writers are able to portray working and personal conditions the way they have. It’s narrative cheating to do it in broad strokes, so they often rely on some subtle contrasts to get the message across. The sweet and salty, the unexpected versus the expected bugs, and the fact that the work doesn’t end, it’s a constant, and how you deal with that is the story. This one is about the give and take of both a jobbing life, and the give and take of your relationships. Nene and Aoba both love to tease each other as much as Aoba loves to tease Hifumi as much as Umiko loves to mess with Nene….
So, game abstraction as story metaphor?
This is suggested by the mild teasing during Hifumi’s part of the show; teasing she’d really rather not have, and that she handles with a “nice text” by the end of the show. But as far as how they approach the work, both Aoba and Nene are very much alike even with different positions, and even if that difference drives a wedge between them; and who didn’t see that coming? Both of them are detail focused, and both of them very much want what is best for each other all things considered. Now that can lead, as we see, to a whole misfire of clumsy, but well-meaning, micromanagement into their respective lives. I found it really really surprising and wonderful that the clumsiness they seem to have and share leads to the real breaking point for them both. The help they got from their respective mentors, Yagami for Aoba and now Umiko for Nene got them on the right path though. It also helped Nene realize that Aoba is making the right choices to achieve her dreams.
So, I saw you down there and I thought we should make up….
You don’t have to be Aoba to work here…
…but this suuuuuure helps…
The moral of the story? Work can sometimes be very fulfilling, but it comes at a cost, and it’s hard on the body no matter what your job is. Now I come from the service industry, so working Saturdays or the weekend was a matter of course for me…this crew’s complaints about doing it only comes across as so much Bee Oh Oh, Haitch Oh Oh to my ears, but I think that falls under YMMV. It’s always there, the work. So they dropped hints about Yagami’s mum this episode and it looks like they’ll pick up that thread next time. Until then, do you think mum sleeps in her undies at work?
Sweet texts are kinda like breaking and redecorating….but I think the message got across!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Delicious tasty LOLi.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think you miss one key fact about Aoba’s complaint for coming in on Saturdays and Sundays: She’s not getting paid any more for it. The enthusiasm to work those extra hours for your company wanes REALLY fast when all it’s doing is making your hourly rate go down through dilution. That’s why Nene wasn’t allowed to come in to work: Because she’s part-time, they’d have had to pay her the same hourly rate they usually do, and she’d end up more highly compensated than the regular employees.
There are advantages to being salaried “exempt” (in the parlance of the US), but not getting paid for extra hours isn’t one of them.
But I love how this show works in those digs and slights that new employees always have. Aoba’s observations that “Full-time employment is a loophole to make wages lower” and “I love my job, but sometimes I hate going to it” are both spot on. One thing I kind of expected to see when we had that paycheck episode was Aoba’s wondering why her paycheck was so much lower than pay rate x hours worked, but they glossed over that universal epiphany.
(and even if you are a non-exempt employee, doing overtime is still a cost saving measure for companies: If they have 4 people do 10 hours of overtime per week at their hourly rate, that’s still cheaper than hiring another person to do 40 hours of work, due to overhead costs. At least until you burn out the people you have.)
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Thanks for bringing up the point. I came from “at-will” tipped/commission employment, so you have to chase the money or you don’t get the money, you get “a raise” whenever you have a new guest/customer. Heck, we would cut the hourly kitchen first, then the tipped front of house service staff. The last place I worked got so bad for business, the salaried management did practically all the work at times; fools them for not closing after lunch and reopening for dinner service.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
Vidya and donuts…you mean Rice Crackers and Doughnuts!
Seem that anyone having a doughnut party eh. (with rice crackers) It’s kind rare to had some promo like that ya know 50% of the price of any food items (not just doughnuts)
Also, is she copying some gimmick to this Lady…Uh Good Luck for her! XDDDD