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Volunteer
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Dateline: Tokyo, Japan The Command Center: where the nights turn into days, the days never end and all stories are told. The John Hancock Office in Tokyo serves as the pulse of the John Hancock Hospitality Program. Twenty-six home office volunteers directed by the Meeting Management staff will execute their assignments for the several hundred guests at the Olympic Winter Games, learning to navigate through the city of Tokyo, the city of Nagano and all of the Olympic venues. They will overcome language barriers, learn to deal with a new currency and lead our guests with a confidence level that would suggest that our volunteers were almost native. The Command Center functions out of two small rooms. The inner room houses the seven members of the Meeting Management staff, the outer room is the home of Janet Andrulli, Joanne DeNicola and a rotating staff of volunteers who assist in resolving issues and building harmony. Through this office we are able to resolve almost any issue which involves the execution of a multi-faceted hospitality program: dÈcor, accommodations, clothing, accredidations, hospitality, transportation, illness, communication, Olympic events, security, laundry, food & beverage. Most days the office opens at 6 a.m., with the exception of those days when we take groups to a fish auction at 4:30 a.m. The day ends after the last bus rolls in about 2 a.m. In the event of an emergency there is someone on call for John Hancock. We have had some really funny experiences in the office unique to being on the other side of the world. In the first few days of setting up a fully operational command post we discovered the phones were completely foreign, covered with symbols we did not understand. We were unfamiliar with dialing through the hotel, never mind to another Prefecture or to our mother ship in the USA, the Hancock home office. Our cell phones are Japanese and though we were clear on the numbers, the symbols were unknown and we quickly assimilated green with send and red with end (call). The pagers we were going to use were so complicated that we sent them back to AT&T with a note saying thanks anyway! We have learned that Fed-X, UPS and the photo developers don’t work on Sundays. However we have also learned anything is possible if you don’t give up. With the language barrier, projects can take on a life of their own. We asked the hotel concierge to call our office as soon as UPS came one morning. Through series of miscommunications the concierge told the UPS person that the John Hancock contact had gone to church (not true) so the UPS employee went to church to looking for a John Hancock volunteer. The package did eventually leave the hotel. Not only did we unpack a huge shipment of supplies once in Tokyo, we then repacked a large shipment to be sent on to the Hospitality Village in Nagano. We had to hire a truck for the delivery and it came with two drivers who spoke no English. Off they went with maps and cell phone numbers with instruction to call our volunteers in Nagano as soon as they arrived. Our volunteers would help them unload the 50+ boxes. Well, the truck arrived and we received a call in Tokyo saying our truck would not be allowed inside the gate even though they had passes and phone numbers. When we asked why, the answer was simply, "I don’t know!" Needless to say our truck was eventually unloaded. By the time we leave our home away from home we will have mastered many adventures which will have allowed us to achieve our Olympic goals. We will have many new friends who have helped us accomplish all our goals. And we will be sad to leave a country we now feel part of.
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