Lack of manual instruction melt-down

Every corporate company in Japan comes with a manual of detailed instruction on how to act in given situations. Problems occur when the lack of authoritative direction requires the use of something which often goes amiss in Japan: common sense, together with the confidence to speak/act for yourself. This, coupled with the fear of making a mistake, leads to all kinds of silliness.

Take the following situation: you walk into a convenience store with your own (clearly visible) plastic bag and present the clerk with two beers. Faster than a hyena stripping a thigh bone, the index finger had already been moistened in the sponge and is rabidly detaching another plastic bag for your transportation pleasure.

You announce "I've already got a bag" as mild panic passes over the face of Super Clerk as he/she, (but men are more prone in my experience), desperately tries to remember any directives dealing specifically with foreigners carrying plastic bags. Unable to recall situation 10,046-b with any clarity SC simply ignores you and snatching up the bag, proceeds to bring it level with goods. Knowing that you have approximately 0.25 seconds before goods are packed, handles twisted together and another wasteful bag is about to be guiltily dragged home, mild panic enters your voice as you say "I don't need a bag!"

This announcement merely causes SC to complete the act in a record 0.15 seconds and triggers annoyance in your voice as you say "I don't need another bag! I have one here!" (Whilst thinking "Do you think I just happened to enter the store with a large empty plastic bag for my own amusement? Perhaps you think I collect them? Well, as a matter of fact I do, as you keep bloody well giving them to me!")

SC then rapidly (not rabidly this time) takes the beer out of the bag it has just been deposited in, adds a sticker (to prove that you paid for the item as the bag the beer has been put in is not from that store) and repacks and twists the handles and
you are on your way.

You are not yet on your way, however, if you have purchased salad, a drink or a tub of ice-cream: "I don't need disposable chopsticks, a straw and a plastic spoon....I live 50 metres away!" Too slow. You then get home to discover that you have also been given a plastic fork as directive 808,456-d mentions that foreigners often have difficulty using chopsticks.