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- Jan 29, 2016
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I posted some of this in another thread and just thought someone might be interested in how this new job in a Japanese company goes for me. I'm working in the US at one of many offices for a large Japanese company.
My branch office has around 100 cubicles but on any given day there are never more than 30-40 people there. Many of the people have multiple desks at multiple offices in different states or in Japan, I guess. And there's a lot of (uncessary?) travel. It's about half and half American and Japanese. The few white females who work there are very attractive and under 30. White men too, actually (I could pass for 30!). Black women are all middle aged. No black men. There are 2-3 white 50-60 yo white lady secretaries. One older white male. As far as Japanese, there are good 30 men and 2 women. As far as I can guess, they prefer Japanese workers due to their willingness to work long hours (even if they are very unproductive).
The American workers tell me how they send us around to various places just to meet random people who I may or may not do business with in the future by means of phone and email. Meeting that office worker once face to face doesn't improve the prices my company gets because I'm also just an officer worker. Total waste of time. I guess if the managing directors met it would be a different thing but I and the people I'm meeting are no where near that level. I have to go meet some people from another office next week. Americans would be like, "Meet them at 10, they'll show you around a bit, then you'll go to lunch and back to your hotel at 5 or so." Japanese, however: "Drive there. Leave at 8 am." That's it. When I get there I guess I just hang out with the people there who don't know I'm coming or care. Some manager will probably invite me to dinner and drinking. And it's not one day, it's 3. I wonder what it will entail.
Japanese work hours are to me amazing. I used to think Japanese were more productive but that opinion has been continually modified. I learned that we work 40 in the States and they work 60 and barely get more money. And plus the Japanese business success in the 80s-90s was in a large part due to government and banking...scams, which is why the economy is still stuffering from that deflated bubble today. America pretty much followed suit in the 1999-2008 buildup and then crash. At least some people got rich. Not me, I was too busy in Japan chasing tail...
When I worked at Sharp in Japan and also in my current new job, I realized that there is very little efficiency going on in the workplace. At Sharp near Osaka, office workers were all day just sitting there doing nothing staring at their Windows XP screen savers. I have pictures of it. At my current job, the American and Japanese workers are "expected" to work over 40 hours although we are salaried (which is while I'll likely be fired because I'll be leaving at 5:30 like we agreed on in my interview). I've noticed so far everyone seems to work around 50 hours, but in a normal day they take a 2 hour lunch, disappear for 30 min at a time, and sit there talking all day. The amount of work they actually do in a day could be completed in about 3 hours.
For me personally, the job will work as long as my real life comes first (I run a business that isn't yet profitable enough for me to live on). I have no problem working 8 am to 7 pm, but my hour lunch will be at 1 pm, not noon--and if that were the case I would be doing a half day Wednesday; from home (my job is a long drive so I rent a room from someone weekdays). I need to NOT be there all week because I have to tend to my business here so I don't know how that's going to go. For now I'm going to do it for the money and see what happens. I need that money to get out of debt incurred from my own business (that is actually doing well again). In my department at work the manager just transfered to another area so we don't have a manager and the position would be promotion from within. No one wants the job except people who aren't qualified. I'm qualified on the Japanese and business experience side but I don't have management experience. They hired some American off the street for the assistant manager postion.
Well, I just posted this because half of it was already written in another thread and I thought it might help someone who is thinking to work in Japanese company. In the States I'm sure it's much better because of the laws and cleanliness vs similar offices in Japan (I've worked in both). No smoking here thank God! If anyone's interested I'll keep the updates coming!
My branch office has around 100 cubicles but on any given day there are never more than 30-40 people there. Many of the people have multiple desks at multiple offices in different states or in Japan, I guess. And there's a lot of (uncessary?) travel. It's about half and half American and Japanese. The few white females who work there are very attractive and under 30. White men too, actually (I could pass for 30!). Black women are all middle aged. No black men. There are 2-3 white 50-60 yo white lady secretaries. One older white male. As far as Japanese, there are good 30 men and 2 women. As far as I can guess, they prefer Japanese workers due to their willingness to work long hours (even if they are very unproductive).
The American workers tell me how they send us around to various places just to meet random people who I may or may not do business with in the future by means of phone and email. Meeting that office worker once face to face doesn't improve the prices my company gets because I'm also just an officer worker. Total waste of time. I guess if the managing directors met it would be a different thing but I and the people I'm meeting are no where near that level. I have to go meet some people from another office next week. Americans would be like, "Meet them at 10, they'll show you around a bit, then you'll go to lunch and back to your hotel at 5 or so." Japanese, however: "Drive there. Leave at 8 am." That's it. When I get there I guess I just hang out with the people there who don't know I'm coming or care. Some manager will probably invite me to dinner and drinking. And it's not one day, it's 3. I wonder what it will entail.
Japanese work hours are to me amazing. I used to think Japanese were more productive but that opinion has been continually modified. I learned that we work 40 in the States and they work 60 and barely get more money. And plus the Japanese business success in the 80s-90s was in a large part due to government and banking...scams, which is why the economy is still stuffering from that deflated bubble today. America pretty much followed suit in the 1999-2008 buildup and then crash. At least some people got rich. Not me, I was too busy in Japan chasing tail...
When I worked at Sharp in Japan and also in my current new job, I realized that there is very little efficiency going on in the workplace. At Sharp near Osaka, office workers were all day just sitting there doing nothing staring at their Windows XP screen savers. I have pictures of it. At my current job, the American and Japanese workers are "expected" to work over 40 hours although we are salaried (which is while I'll likely be fired because I'll be leaving at 5:30 like we agreed on in my interview). I've noticed so far everyone seems to work around 50 hours, but in a normal day they take a 2 hour lunch, disappear for 30 min at a time, and sit there talking all day. The amount of work they actually do in a day could be completed in about 3 hours.
For me personally, the job will work as long as my real life comes first (I run a business that isn't yet profitable enough for me to live on). I have no problem working 8 am to 7 pm, but my hour lunch will be at 1 pm, not noon--and if that were the case I would be doing a half day Wednesday; from home (my job is a long drive so I rent a room from someone weekdays). I need to NOT be there all week because I have to tend to my business here so I don't know how that's going to go. For now I'm going to do it for the money and see what happens. I need that money to get out of debt incurred from my own business (that is actually doing well again). In my department at work the manager just transfered to another area so we don't have a manager and the position would be promotion from within. No one wants the job except people who aren't qualified. I'm qualified on the Japanese and business experience side but I don't have management experience. They hired some American off the street for the assistant manager postion.
Well, I just posted this because half of it was already written in another thread and I thought it might help someone who is thinking to work in Japanese company. In the States I'm sure it's much better because of the laws and cleanliness vs similar offices in Japan (I've worked in both). No smoking here thank God! If anyone's interested I'll keep the updates coming!
