#gaijinproblems

I would never have thought paying my rent could be a victory.

Here's how I achieved said victory recently -  for the first time, I am missing having a checkbook:

January - oops, I forgot to pay rent. For some reason I thought the first month was part of my initial payment (ha!). Following a phone call notifying her of my tardiness, my company's wonderful HR person (who helped get me into my apartment), kindly offered to show me how to pay. We ran around in the cold without jackets looking for an ATM to take my card, since most of the time you can wire transfers electronically. It did not work, so we took out an enormous amount of yen and scurried over to a nearby bank. We filled out forms and forms and forms, and finally they took my cash and a fee and sent my money away.

Not wanting to do that again, I requested the official form to set up a registered payee with my bank account. When that came several weeks later, again it was HR to the rescue to fill it out and show me where to put my official stamp. Sent that in the mail and hoped I was done with it all.

February - tried to pay rent and set up a repeating payment using the "convenient" website. Unfortunately, I learned the bank does not allow online transfers after 2:30 (it was 2:45). So I called, again got charged to transfer money, and was told I would need to fill out yet another form to register my approved payee (landlords) for repeating payments.

March - the repeating payment form takes a month to process. So I get to have another lovely chat with the bank to make sure I pay my mofo rent on time. I saved this in a calendar reminder, so here's hoping I'm not evicted.

Alternatively, here's how I pay rent in the States:

Set up a repeating payment with my online bank account. Done.

In lieu of that, send a paper check every month.

I would happily slip cash under a sketchy doorway, as was once suggested by my former Brooklyn landlords. But what is Japan without paperwork, after all?