what exactly is it that gives *your manager* - who is, after all, another flawed human being, not unlike yourself or anyone else you might meet - the right to actually pass judgement on you and give you a rating?
They pay you.
What I find to be real racket is when your employer does peer reviews. Anyone with sense realizes there's a finite pot of money for raises, so why not mark your co-workers lower than they deserve so you get a bigger share of the pot?
Despite my company's willingness to keep me on, the labor laws make it very difficult, if not impossible, to do so when I don't physically work in the country.
This sounds like you need a visa to work in the United States. Is this the issue? If so, you're probably out of luck. In any case, I agree with another poster -- talk to a lawyer.
I telecommuted from Japan to California for a year. I'm an American citizen. The only difficulty I had was in obtaining a work VISA in Japan and the only real difficulty there was that my company was clueless about filing the paperwork. Since they had a Tokyo office, when they finally talked to the right lawyer, it went smoothly.
I kept a US address (a friend's house) and had everything go there so my company's records never had a Japanese address for me. But I didn't try to sort out the legal tax implications of the whole mess -- I just kept paying California taxes and let my partner pay Japanese taxes on his work. As a result, I kept all the same benefits, 401k and what not. I decided that trying to sort out the tax situation was probably so difficult that I just wasn't going to get into it. My US company was was unconcerned.
My biggest concern when moving to Japan was getting a good Internect connection. Fortunately, the local cable company had just started offering cable modem access.
Before I left for Japan, I added a Power of Attorney on my accounts. While I could have called them long distance, the time difference meant that it would have been difficult to resolve any problems that came up. I felt better knowing a trusted friend could sort things out for me, even though he never had to. (I would have used my parents, but they don't know much about brokerage-related stuff.) To transfer money, you can wire funds to Japanese banks (costs about $30). Your VISA card will work in some ATMs, check out the machines at post offices and Citibanks.
As for the silly person who classified Japanese people as "nasty" -- I disagree. Go to Japan, hang out in a different culture. It will be an adventure, even if it isn't perfect.
A good book on Japanese calligraphy will have examples of the various kanji scripts that can be used. Some of them are quite flowing and would be considered to be "cursive".
I don't see how IAMPETH is any dorkier than any other hobby organization. But then, I'm a bit of a calligraphy geek -- I've been learning Copperplate calligraphy through a night class.
If you're interested in writing as an art form, there's a Yahoo group on Ornamental Penmanship. (IAMPETH gets mentioned a lot, of course). They have a nice collection of examples in their files.
One of the odder things I found when looking on the net for Copperplate information is that homeschoolers are publishing some of the reference material. Given the difficulty of Copperplate and its limited use to decorative writing, I don't know why anyone would teach their kids this kind of writing for anything other than an art project.
A system that would allow me to contribute small amounts to other people's accounts would be nice too. Then it would be possible for an insightful/useful/funny frequent poster to get a reward for their being a good Slashdot contributor.
As much as the recording industry might like to prohibit used CD/DVD sales, they can't until the law is changed. This battle was already fought years ago over the sale of used books -- and the industry lost.
Slashdot Mirror
Are they knitting hemp?
They might be, there's quite a few hemp yarns on the market.
They pay you.
What I find to be real racket is when your employer does peer reviews. Anyone with sense realizes there's a finite pot of money for raises, so why not mark your co-workers lower than they deserve so you get a bigger share of the pot?
Despite my company's willingness to keep me on, the labor laws make it very difficult, if not impossible, to do so when I don't physically work in the country.
This sounds like you need a visa to work in the United States. Is this the issue? If so, you're probably out of luck. In any case, I agree with another poster -- talk to a lawyer.
I telecommuted from Japan to California for a year. I'm an American citizen. The only difficulty I had was in obtaining a work VISA in Japan and the only real difficulty there was that my company was clueless about filing the paperwork. Since they had a Tokyo office, when they finally talked to the right lawyer, it went smoothly.
I kept a US address (a friend's house) and had everything go there so my company's records never had a Japanese address for me. But I didn't try to sort out the legal tax implications of the whole mess -- I just kept paying California taxes and let my partner pay Japanese taxes on his work. As a result, I kept all the same benefits, 401k and what not. I decided that trying to sort out the tax situation was probably so difficult that I just wasn't going to get into it. My US company was was unconcerned.
My biggest concern when moving to Japan was getting a good Internect connection. Fortunately, the local cable company had just started offering cable modem access.
Before I left for Japan, I added a Power of Attorney on my accounts. While I could have called them long distance, the time difference meant that it would have been difficult to resolve any problems that came up. I felt better knowing a trusted friend could sort things out for me, even though he never had to. (I would have used my parents, but they don't know much about brokerage-related stuff.) To transfer money, you can wire funds to Japanese banks (costs about $30). Your VISA card will work in some ATMs, check out the machines at post offices and Citibanks.
As for the silly person who classified Japanese people as "nasty" -- I disagree. Go to Japan, hang out in a different culture. It will be an adventure, even if it isn't perfect.
A good book on Japanese calligraphy will have examples of the various kanji scripts that can be used. Some of them are quite flowing and would be considered to be "cursive".
I don't see how IAMPETH is any dorkier than any other hobby organization. But then, I'm a bit of a calligraphy geek -- I've been learning Copperplate calligraphy through a night class.
If you're interested in writing as an art form, there's a Yahoo group on Ornamental Penmanship. (IAMPETH gets mentioned a lot, of course). They have a nice collection of examples in their files.
One of the odder things I found when looking on the net for Copperplate information is that homeschoolers are publishing some of the reference material. Given the difficulty of Copperplate and its limited use to decorative writing, I don't know why anyone would teach their kids this kind of writing for anything other than an art project.
A system that would allow me to contribute small amounts to other people's accounts would be nice too. Then it would be possible for an insightful/useful/funny frequent poster to get a reward for their being a good Slashdot contributor.
As much as the recording industry might like to prohibit used CD/DVD sales, they can't until the law is changed. This battle was already fought years ago over the sale of used books -- and the industry lost.