Turning Business Trips Japanese the Mitsubishi Way
James Bonomo (pictured), a former paper sales manager for Mitsubishi and proud gay Italian-American, is suing his former employer for events that transpired during a business trip to China.
The night's events, according to Bonomo:
1. Bonomo and his Tokyo-based boss, Tetsuya Furuichi go to Beijing.
2. The dynamic duo meets with a China Mitsubishi exec and a potential customer for dinner.
3. The dinner party goes to a karaoke bar and gets sloshed, with special attention to fueling Bonomo's drunkenness.
4. Everyone decides to go for "a non-sexual massage" at a bathhouse. Furuichi comments that Italian-Americans have penises that hang down to their knees. Furuichi continues to harp on the subject of large, Italian-American schlongs.
5. Yue Zhibo, a colleague from China, takes a picture of Bonomo's penis on his cell phone and shows it to everyone. Furuichi comments that it looks like an Italian sausage.
6. Zhibo refuses to delete the picture, despite Bonomo's pleas.
7. Bonomo returns to an abusive and hostile environment at work, with inflated sales targets designed to force him out.
8. Bonomo quits and files a lawsuit.
The night's events according to Mitsubishi:
1. Everyone goes to China and stays in their hotel rooms and watches "Kung Fu Hustle."
2. A one-armed man was spotted at the bathhouse in question.
3. Bonomo was on the grassy knoll.
A Mitsubishi spokesperson asserts that everyone else on the trip (who works for Mitsubishi) denies Bonomo's claims and that Bonomo never filed a complaint before he left the company.
Does anyone have any good (or similar) Asian business trip stories? Have any of your superiors ever tried to lull you into a bathhouse after karaoke?
FIRED EXEC'S 'BEEF' [New York Post]
Comments
There's nothing illegal about any of this. Sounds like a pretty standard Nipponese business meeting.
We are after all talking about a professional culture that offers new employees the option to set up seperate accounts for their mistresses to funnel a part of paychecks so the wives don't know.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 23, 2007 02:54 PM
ODE UPON A KEITH HAHN POSTING
O, Mitsubishi sausage guy
posting by Keith Hahn,
I will never understand
why you go uncommented upon.
And why, when clearly Jim Bonomo is a story
as compelling as the word of heaven,
do the DealBreaker readers only
want to talk about 3-somes with Bess Levin (well okay I know why)
Keith Hahn, it must be difficult
to live in Bess's shadow.
Maybe you should post about Bess's boobs,
it's the only way to get their attention (sorry nothing rhymes with shadow)
Posted by: the lazy poet | July 23, 2007 03:46 PM
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his saucisse success...
Posted by: de Cosmos | July 23, 2007 05:58 PM
There once was a man named Bonomo
A proud salesman and Italian homo
His troubles with his boss
Could lead to inevitable loss
His "salami" could become "numbolo"!
Posted by: Fake Carl Sandburg | July 24, 2007 09:27 AM