Aug 30, 2017
What do you really hate about working in Japan?
A request came through on my Small Girl Big Japan Facebook travel page to cover the working life in Japan. I have already done some work on this and I plan to release it on Facebook. I intend to take it beyond my opinion though. I'm starting with the negative first. I will write an article for my page and release a video too. What was your first bad experience of working in Japan? How did you feel and what did you do? What do you really hate about working here? What things don't you understand about working here? What do you think about taking holiday as sick leave, etc? What is the worst perk? What do you make of not being allowed to confront the hierarchy? What is the best advice you can give someone who wants to work here with no experience of the country?
A twenty year old something, who came to experience working life and travel in Japan. What will she experience? What will she see? What will she do? Find out in this amazing travel blog and Jvlog!
That was the ORIGINAL tag line. Now I have left, but will continue updating.
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on Aug 30
I haven't actually worked here - my husband is the one who has been in that role! But I have to say that for me as a spouse, having him in situations where he couldn't leave work events until the boss left (and that often being when the sun came up the next day) used to drive me crazy. I couldn't fathom the idea that you couldn't just say "okay, it's getting late so I better head home now!" Same goes for the idea that he could never leave work on his finishing time either, because of those reasons. Where I'm from, a finish time is a finish time, really - unless there's some critical project that requires an absolute "do or die" stay at work mentality - but here it seems that no one wants to buck that trend.
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on Aug 31
I have trouble with understanding when people are genuine versus when they are just being polite. This also leads to trouble in the west but people go so much more overboard in the polite area here that I am never sure if I can trust them to tell me the truth about anything. Gives me a bit of social anxiety. My absolute worst work experience came at the hands of an aggressive 3 year old and her 5 year old sister in their house where an eikaiwa sent me as a bonus for the kids' CEO father signing up for some major company lessons. It was hell. I almost quit the company the next day. They found someone else to take that class, but I still left at the end of my contract a few months later. They were looking for a babysitter in English, and I am not actually good at that. My best advice is thoroughly review your intended job before taking it. Talk to other people who have done it or something similar. Also, listen to the people who give you advice. I had a guy ask for advice on eikaiwa jobs then completely ignore me and wind up in a really bad situation.
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on Aug 31
What was your first bad experience of working in Japan? How did you feel and what did you do? I wasn't allowed to use the internet or printer at the school that I workedand the reasoning was because I wasn't a full time teacher. Yet,I was required to do everything that a full time teacher did, including plan the full lessons and make a curriculum. This happened often where teachers and co workers would use the excuse " not a real teacher" to make their lives easier. What do you really hate about working here? Personal life is Gossiped about and holds actual sway in decisions the higher up will make. Also that it's culturally accepted for people to white lie to cover themselves or to get out of having to do more work. My supervisor often led that others didn't take time off work so that he wouldn't have to talk to the schools about it. He also lied about my apartments policy on pets, then told my school about it so that my school nurse would lecture me about not having a pet in my apartment (my neighbor had a dog) What do you think about taking holiday as sick leave, etc? It's dangerous, because in my confusion about not using my sick leave and only using my paid leave, I didn't get proper care when I had pneumonia and whooping cough because I feared I would use up all of my paid leave. What do you make of not being allowed to confront the hierarchy? It's absolutely frustrating. Nothing gets improved in the end. There is serious communication break down and everyone shrugs it off because teachers change it every year, so they just wait for the change and hope things get better What is the best advice you can give someone who wants to work here with no experience of the country? Don't take everything to heart. You aren't doing as badly as you will feel like you are. But, if you really aren't adjusting to your situation then get out of it. A different environment could completely change how you view this country.
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on Sep 6
My first job here I had to wear a gaudy uniform. It was awful. Navy and green check skirt and waist coat with a green pouffy blouse and a navy scarf as a tie like thingy. I wasn't even customer facing. I worked in the HQ, in the HR and Marketing departments, of a large conglomerate! The morning exercises freaked me out too. I was waiting for someone to pop out and say "candid camera". It took me weeks to stop laughing everytime we did it.
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on Nov 25
Now having worked in Japan myself, my biggest gripe here is that feedback isn't always direct. Working in a creative style role, I often complete tasks which I think are good/what the client would want, but then when it's presented to them they have a thousand and one changes. I think that lack of directness in the first place with wants/expectations can mean you end up having to re-do things to meet those expectations. So yeah. Communication (or lack thereof!) is my biggest gripe.
5 Answers