212: Japanese Companies Employ Kunoichi Ninja To Answer Incoming Phone Calls

<p>Ninja are masters of illusion, invisibility and subterfuge.  All of these traits have pretty much died out in modern times, except for a small bastion of steadfast office workers.  Some Japanese commentators have tried to imply that the salaryman is the modern day samurai.  Loyal to their modern <em>Han</em>, the firm, giving up their lives for the greater good, sacrificing family for their corporate captains of industry.  This sounds pretty good until you meet some of them.  Unremarkable, grey, uninspiring, they are more often like the army of the walking dead.  The system has drained all the life out of them, as they trudge forward in lockstep toward retirement.  Japanese “office ladies” however are the true warriors in the modern day firm.  They are the <em>kunoichi</em> (くノ一) or female ninja of modern times.</p> <p> </p> <p>They are always poised ready to strike.  They are tasked by the older males of the firm to answer the incoming phone calls.  They relish this opportunity to slay salespeople making cold calls.  They have subterfuges aplenty at their ready to get rid of us when we call their firm.  We boldly make the call, identify ourselves and our company.  They immediately recognise we are cold calling salespeople, because they have been doing this for years. They have picked up that tell tale hesitation, that lack of sureness in our voice, that warbling reluctance to engage with such a formidable enemy.</p> <p> </p> <p>Their first weapon employed is a thick, grinding silence.  You speak and they say nothing. There is no acknowledgement of your very existence.  It is as if we are an illusion, a figment of our own imagination.  We are unseated immediately and now feel firmly in retreat, pushed on to the backfoot, by this vicious employ of the void.  Suddenly ums and ahs are tumbling forth from our mouths, as we try to regather our fragile senses and press on.</p> <p> </p> <p>If we don’t know the person’s actual name and most often this is the case, we ask to speak with the person holding a certain posi