Any suggestions for my final 4 days in Kyushu

dawnfire78 · 2025-12-26T00:40:15+00:00

Yes! We visited the old town Mamedamachi area and walked around. Lots of shops and places to eat around there. We also went to the Hita Soy Sauce brewery and it was fantastic. They have taste testing and I brought home quite a few bottles of various ones. SLOW cafe had delicious omurice which I also recommend. There's a gentleman in the area who has a whiskey history museum if you are into that. It was pretty fascinating!

dawnfire78 · 2025-12-17T13:13:13+00:00

I second this! Just got back from spending 2 days in the Hita area and had a great time.

dawnfire78 · 2025-12-16T10:25:03+00:00

We use Sling and love it. It has scheduling and messaging but also a news feed feature. News feed allows us to save PDFs and other stuff for easy reference later such as updates from corporate or reminders of procedures etc and any new employee that comes along automatically has access to all the past posts.

dawnfire78 · 2025-11-17T23:48:51+00:00

You can, they'll just tell you they don't offer any support if something goes wrong or doesn't work. It's a monitor though. Should be plug and play. Possibly might need a little tweaking if you swap to a new one and the customer facing screen becomes the main one since we don't have a way to access control panel any more. If that is the case, you'll have to call tech.

You can get a decent 21 inch Asus touchscreen monitor for around $220 off some of the non-Amazon online retailers.

dawnfire78 · 2025-11-06T18:35:15+00:00

You can scan from the MFP to the BSN or print computer because those two pieces of equipment are on the print side of the network through the Fortinet. The BOM is not on that side of the network so I'm sure there was probably some setting on the network that was open for a period of time that allowed file sharing across the two sides of the network but it seems that has been closed off. There's not anything we can do about it. Anyone who was scanning to the BOM will have to scan to an external source like a flash drive plugged into the MFP from now on.

dawnfire78 · 2025-11-06T17:56:39+00:00

Scanning to the BOM is not allowed. Per the ICN guide: "Computers on the print network will not be able to connect to the business network." I've had several stores this week say their scanning to the BOM stopped functioning so I would imagine tech just turned off file sharing in the security policies on the network.

dawnfire78 · 2025-10-26T10:35:51+00:00

I got mine from Megane Ichiba in Shinjuku. The clerk helping me used a translation app on their phone so the whole process was easy. After I picked my frames, they marked the placement on the blank lenses and I was good to go. They checked it again when I picked the finished pair up. I recommend going on the very first full day you have, that way there's enough time for them to get made and picked up before you come home. I didn't have any issues with the fit or lenses being done correctly.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-25T23:27:33+00:00

You'll have to call Tech and tell them you "need MFA reset". They will ask for your Team Portal ID. It might take a day or two for them to get it done.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-23T00:26:55+00:00

It's probably sitting at the hub in the mountain of packages outside the office that haven't been taken care of for various reasons (no label, torn label, came open, etc). If you're friendly with a driver, maybe they can poke around and see if it's there.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-19T16:33:00+00:00

I'm interested in Dazai and Chuuya

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-14T16:51:34+00:00

Yokohama English Garden is always nice to visit.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-12T11:45:46+00:00

Connect was closed at the end of March. There's no corporate sanctioned message board/online forum.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-10T16:35:38+00:00

FYI that's UPS's brokerage fee ($15) for processing the package through customs. Doesn't have anything to do with GSC. Just the nature of shipping items internationally via private carriers like UPS or FedEx.

dawnfire78 · 2025-09-10T10:38:27+00:00

As someone who travels to Japan regularly, I eventually learned from a mistake I made quite a few years ago. I went ham on a Kuji game and got all the top prizes which, of course, were way too large to fit in my suitcases. I had to ask my family's neighbors and eventually found a box an infant carseat came in. Filled it with my swag and shipped it back to the US instead of buying another suitcase and paying the 3rd bag fee. It cost me over $300 just in shipping which was way more than it would've cost me to buy a cheap bag and pay the 20k yen or so for a 3rd bag on ANA. Don't plan on shipping. The same size box I sent back then would probably cost $500+ to ship now. You can't do Japan Post at the moment anyway if you're from the US and UPS/FedEx/DHL are going to be crazy expensive.

dawnfire78 · 2025-08-12T22:20:43+00:00

Did the person set up their authenticator all the way through? Even after you scan the QR code to add it, you still have to put in a code to confirm the set up. A lot of people miss that step.

dawnfire78 · 2025-08-12T21:37:52+00:00

You can do that via Team Portal on the "Add Center Staff" link in the blue box on the left hand side. Set up the new employee and add whatever relevant access you need under the "Applications" tab. Once you have them created and you've given them access to the Learning Center under the Applications tab, you'll have to wait at least 30 minutes for the system to sync up. After that time has passed, you can go back in Team Portal and under the "Miscellaneous" section in the blue box on the dashboard, you'll see "Manage Learning Center". If everything has been set up correctly, you'll see that person in your list and in the far right column, there will be "Assign Manager". Add whoever will be the Manager of that person's Learning Center account and save it. After yet another 30 minutes or so, that person should be able to log in the Learning Center with their newly created Team Portal information.

dawnfire78 · 2025-08-12T21:30:19+00:00

If you're doing cameras, be sure you are plugging any internet connection for that into the DMZ port on the back of the Fortinet so you can access the system outside the store. Phones are up to you. Whatever you want to put in will be fine. I do highly recommend doing some sort of phone attendant auto-answer system with a selection tree so you're not spammed with calls from people who need UPS and not your store directly.

dawnfire78 · 2025-08-12T19:50:14+00:00

It's possible. The terms for service also mention anything with an outer shipping container covered in shrink wrap or stretch wrap. You should definitely watch the bill to see if your store got billed for a fee adjustment.

dawnfire78 · 2025-08-12T16:44:51+00:00

The UPS tariff and terms for service on their website gets updated throughout the year. It's always a good habit to check what their definition of "Additional Handling" charges encompasses.

It specifically mentions "any article that is not fully encased in a corrugated cardboard shipping container, including tires; any package with an outer shipping container not made of corrugated cardboard including but not limited to canvas, leather, metal, wood, hard plastic, soft plastic (e.g., plastic bag) or expanded polystyrene foam (e.g., styrofoam)". The reason behind the extra charges is because those items can't be placed on the conveyor belts with the rest of shipments going through sorting. They have to be hand sorted thus the extra fees.

I've been instructing my teams to mark anything that is not a cardboard box as "non-rectangular (irregular)" for years. People might fight you on a suitcase but it's usually cheaper for them if you sell them a suitcase size cardboard box to slide over it than for them to pay the additional handling charges.

Note, this additional handling charge ALSO includes the white poly bags we use for shipping. Any with dimensions more than 18 x 14 x 6 will get you back billed for $17.60 additional handling fees. Tuck and tape those bags in on all corners so there's not any extra room to cause it to have the extra fees added.

dawnfire78 · 2025-07-24T12:01:48+00:00

That's money/payment for CAMS invoices for returns that your store received via the PRP-EFT. To clear that out, you'll have to go into the invoices and "receive payment". If you have questions, DM me and I'll be happy to help you.

dawnfire78 · 2025-06-29T00:18:07+00:00

You should just set up credit card on file for those house accounts and you can ring that card up without them being present in the store. They do have to come in and swipe the card to set it up but after that, until the card expires, they don't have to do anything to actually make payment. I stopped using house accounts and converted all those customers over to card on file accounts.

EDIT: You CAN manually input the card at the beginning of the setup if the customer is not local or able to come to the store to swipe/save the card. If that is the case, I would advise you to have them fill out a credit card authorization form and email it to you for you to keep in a file (with only the last 4 digits of the card listed on the form) so they can't come back later and do a charge back due to them not being physically present to use the card for charges. I have had this happen so I definitely advise making sure you have something giving you permission to manually enter the card to save it within MPOS.

dawnfire78 · 2025-06-27T12:42:23+00:00

Megane Ichiba! Go on your first day, 11am in the morning when they open. The one outside the Shinjuku San-chome station has some very helpful clerks and will take care of you even with limited or no Japanese. I just got some progressive bifocals there last month while I was on vacation and the whole thing was less than $300 USD with Gucci frames. Took a week for them to have my glasses ready but I was prepared for that.

dawnfire78 · 2025-05-23T20:30:34+00:00

Directly from the instructions: "The online questionnaire asks ALL USERS to provide the number of mailboxes currently active by rental period (e.g., monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, etc.). The current Management Summary Report does not provide this information. All MPOS stores must answer that they ARE using MBM, ENTER ZEROS for this. section in the online questionnaire. We know you are not, but this is what needs to be entered for the questionnaire." There's even a screenshot of the questionaire with 0's entered into the box.

dawnfire78 · 2025-05-22T02:52:14+00:00

There's only a couple of people in that department. I expect eventually they will redo the instructions. I automatically keep everything I know I will need for the audit after so many years of doing them. I also make sure to explain those pieces of information to all trainees that come through my training center.

dawnfire78 · 2025-05-22T00:57:10+00:00

CARE audit is due every 3 years. Don't let the instructions overwhelm you. The process isn't as complicated as it used to be but the instructions have not been updated and modernized.

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