No ADDress for me

So I had the screening/service-explanation interview for ADDress on August 1. Everything seemed fine, and they asked me to send an email with the desired start date, which I did right away. In the call they said the next step is signing the contract, so I was waiting for that, but they didn’t get back to me. It’s summer and people are going on holidays, so I didn’t worry in the first week. After 12 days, on August 13, I sent them a follow up email, which was also left unanswered.

I looked for a phone number on their site, but couldn’t find one. So on August 18 I went back to the interview scheduling form and scheduled an other interview for August 20. Later that day they sent me an email saying that unfortunately I failed their screening process and that they won’t provide more details on the reason:

検討の結果、誠に残念ながら今回の入会を見送りせていただくことになりました。
今回はご希望に添えず大変申し訳ございません。

ADDressのコリビングサービスは他の会員様と共同生活をする場の提供をしております。
複合的な観点から弊社独自の入会基準を設けております。今回の見送りについて基準の詳細をお伝えすることは出来かねます。大変恐縮ですが、ご了承いただけますと幸いです。

In the email they also said that because of this they are cancelling my second interview booking. I was pretty disappointed, when I first read the rejection. Then I started thinking about what to do next, and came up with a plan, that is in some respects even better than the original plan with ADDress. But that's a topic for a later post. Overall they had all the rights to reject my application, however the way they did was rather unprofessional. I wonder how long would have it taken them to tell me if I would not have scheduled the second interview.

The ADDress sign-up process

So my process of signing up for ADDress so far.

I have decided to do this end of July and completed the registration form on July 26. After confirming my email address I was asked to provide some basic details and an ID (residence card worked).

Next morning I got an email saying that my identity has been confirmed, and that I should sign up on a https://form.run/ form. This form provided more information about the dedicated place option (専用ベッドオプション) and asked about whether I want it and where, if yes. It asked about the preferred start date, some demographic information (occupation, level of remote work, where heard about ADDress). In the end it also had a question about the reason of using ADDress (ADDressに申込みをした理由). I put 自転車で全国を見たいです
. 日本語を学びたいです
. which (hopefully) means seeing the entire country by bike and learning Japanese.

After completing the form the site said that the next step is going to be a screening interview before signing the contract: 続いて、サービス利用開始に際してご契約前に、電話・オンラインによる入会審査がございます。 and that I should use one of the provided URLs to book a timeslot: 面談のご希望日時を下記のどちらか1つよりお申込みください。 I was really hoping that I’ll be able to keep all communication written as my Japanese is not there to confidently do a phone interview. So when scheduling the interview I left a comment about the fact that I can speak some Japanese, but would prefer English: 私は少し日本語が話せますが, できれば, 英語が好きです。

The interview was scheduled to August 1 10:00am. I was pretty nervous, and tried to guess what they might ask and prepared some replies about what I do, what are my plans, why I want to do this etc. After the introduction in Japanese, she offered to switch to English. She said her English is not very good, but it was absolutely good (and hands down better than my Japanese). I love Japanese service: this was advertised as a screening interview, but it was much more her explaining how the service works to me, and making sure to answer any question I might have. She talked about the fact that the contract is for a year, but can be cancelled earlier with a 2 month notice period. About the booking rules, and staying with family members. She said that most people won’t speak English, and once a foreign student ended up waiting a few hours in front of a house due to some miscommunication with the landlord of the place (and it was winter). This had the opposite effect on me: knowing that an other foreigner with limited Japanese could use the service, and the worst thing was a few hours wait is actually reassuring.

She also said that my original desired start date (August 8, next Saturday) won’t work, as there are too many people using the service right now, and they are looking into opening new locations soon. The earliest possible start date is September, and she asked me to write an email to info@address.love about when in September I’d like to start using the service. In Japanese. So after the call this is what I came up with putting the start date at the first Saturday of September:

ご担当者様

こんにちは。

本日は貴重なお時間をありがとうございました。

わたしの利用開始希望日は ９月５日 です。

お待ち申し上げております

Szabo-Simon Mark
サボーシモン マーク

My fears

This is going to be a big change and I naturally have some fears. I’m listing them here so that I can review them a few months later to see how far they were from reality

Not knowing enough Japanese

I started learning Japanese when we moved here, so a year ago. I am fine handling most everyday situations (refusing the bag at a shop, paying with card, ordering at a restaurant). I have also done things like ordering takeaway on the phone and registering my new bike, but overall a lot of things I figure out mostly based on the context without understanding most of the words, and I use just enough words to make the others figure out what I want. Fortunately Japanese service is all about doing everything for the customer, so it works out most of the time. Still ordering in a restaurant and messing up something vs. misunderstanding my next landlord and not having a place to stay has a very different risks.

Overall I’m looking forward to this as an opportunity to improve my Japanese, but still there is a chance this will cause me some inconveniences.

Too much

I like to travel, but I also like returning home. I don’t know if constantly being on the road is something I’ll take well. I hope, but I haven’t done anything similar, so it might be too much, and then I’ll have to figure out something. Overall I like to fail forward: instead of returning back to a “known good state”, try keeping the new stuff and solve the situation within those circumstances.

Not having enough place to book

There is no information on how many people use the service, or how many places are free at any time. If it turns out to be hard to find places, then I might end up staying in hotels more often than I would prefer to.

Work-life balance

Ever since I’ve been working from home I was trying to separate work and personal life, having a dedicated place to work from and only work from there, limiting the time I work etc. However all the physical separation will be gone by this change. On the other hand I’m mostly worried about working too much, and being in new locations, meeting new people will probably help me not fall into that.

On the other hand I also want to make sure this new lifestyle won’t have a massive negative effect on my productivity.

Giving up and having to buy everything again

I’m planning to give up my current apartment and sell / give away all of my furnitures, electric appliances and even some of my clothes. This is liberating, but also scary: what if this whole thing doesn’t work out for me, and I end up going back to renting an apartment, and end up having to buy everything again. It’s mostly not about the money, but the hassle and feeling bad for the environmental damage.

The reasons

Giving up my current apartment and living without a permanent home is a big decision, and I have weighted in a lot of factors.

Better use of money

Apartments in Tokyo are expensive, especially close to the city center and large ones. My apartment is in a pretty good location. I can get to the office in less than 30 minutes by train, and it’s between Ueno and Asakusa (both roughly 10 minutes walk). Moreover it is huge for Japan-standards. It’s a 2LDK (a living-dining-kitchen and 2 rooms) with an area of 51 m² (~550 sqft), and I believe usually a family of 3-4 would live in an apartment like this. Apart from it being comfortable spacious the couch in the living room can be used for guests staying with us, which was pre-COVID the plan: instead of going home often I was encouraging friends and family to come and visit us.

Unfortunately both of these benefits provide very little value in the current situation: I haven’t been to the office since March, and there is no chance of having any visitors in the near future (currently Japan only lets in Japanese citizens, not even permanent residents and foreign citizens with families here). This means that paying 230 000 yen ($2200) for rent makes less and less sense. This is especially true considering that I often stayed in hotels for less (per night) than my rent: e.g. the APA Hotel we stayed in Hiroshima during the Christmas break of 2019 was 7400 yen/night for 2 people, so would have been 222 000 yen for 30 days.

ADDress costs 44 000 yen/month (+22-44 000 yen for a dedicated place), which is significantly lower than my rent. Still I don’t look at it as a way to save money, as I’ll probably have a lot of new expenses, for example:

• Eating out more often and buying more convenience food ADDress locations do have kitchens, but without the easy way to store ingredients, I’ll probably spend more on food.
• Transportation Having to move almost every week combined with the rather expensive Japanese public transporation means that I’ll be spending a significant amount on transportation. Even my plan of traveling by bike will require more frequent maintenance of the bike.
• Staying in non-ADDress places This could be avoided, but since my goal is to discover Japan I might end up staying a few nights in regular hotels or Airbnbs, especially in cities without an ADDress location.
• Renting more stuff Being on the move means I’ll be drastically reducing the things I own and will be renting them instead (e.g. I’ll sell my skis and just rent them when I go skiing)

So overall I look at it as a better use of money and not as a saving opportunity.

Community

With COVID cases on the rise again in Tokyo, I think it would be very irresponsible to go out to bars to meet people. I am not worried about me, as I am a low-risk person (late 20s, no known health issue), but I’m afraid of being an asymptomatic carrier. But that means I have a very little chance to meet up with friends in person, and even less chance of making new friends. I hope that staying in ADDress places will provide the possibility to meet others and also improve my Japanese significantly.

See the country

Japan is so much more than Tokyo, and I always loved exploring the non-touristic spots. Places with no English signs, and being one of the very few Westerners, I love it. Also people on the countryside seem to be much more open and friendly than in big cities.

My plans

I plan on getting a dedicated place (専用ドミトリ) somewhere close to Tokyo, most probably in Chiba as that’s also close to Narita (where the airport is) and I’ve been cycling around Chiba lately and really like it. I plan on getting rid of all my furnitures, electrical appliances and even some clothes. I’ll store my winter clothes and some other stuff at the dedicated place, or rent a storage room and put them there (there is nearby storage for ~15 000 yen a month).

Moving between places I considered multiple options:

• By public transportation (take the train with a suite-case)
• Buying a car - turns out to be rather complicated and expensive
• By bicycle

I’m going to start with the third option: moving around by bike. I just got a new road bike and I can cover up to 200 km a day, so that gives me a good level of flexibility and I can also take my bike on a train if needed. Having my bike with me will also help discovering the neighborhood where I’m staying.

Going by bike on the other hand further reduces the amount of things I’ll be able to carry. Japanese postal services are top-notch, so I could also just keep shipping my stuff to the next address, but I plan on only using this when I need to cover very long distances. But I’ll see how this all goes, I might switch to trains for the winter.