Cultural differences: Japanese (another look)
Once on Habré a new series of posts "their morals", also connect. Habrayuzer king2 began, I will continue. A look at the Japanese after almost 3 years of life and work in Tokyo. I work (programmer) in a large IT company producing office equipment, with a total number of employees of 108,000 people worldwide. I live in Tokyo, with my family (wife and daughter).
Hiring, changing jobs, and so on are specific. Although the Japanese are trying to get rid of life-long employment, I have to watch it everywhere. A typical cycle in our company: before April, several hundred university graduates are recruited (graduated 3 months ago), then, within six months, young people study in the company, and try different types of work (they visit assembly lines, try to sell, etc.). It may turn out that you came to the company to write in Java, and you will sell if you see talent in you. Or maybe the other way around, with a familiar girl's diploma “International Business, such as that,” and now she is writing in Java. Toward autumn Shinjiki (Shinjin - newbie) come to the groups and get a test project for six months. In the spring they protect projects and from the new April they start working on current projects. And before retirement they work in a company, with the exception of transfers within the company. 100% of LinkedIn profiles on my colleagues look like this: University; Company. The end of the profile. For 3 years, he only once observed the dismissal, his father died at the Japanese, and after 17 years of work in the company, he (the Japanese) returned to his native village to continue his father’s farming business.
There are no unions, and the Japanese do not like to discuss working conditions (wages, schedule, etc.). The unspoken slogan: "I will try my best, but the company will not offend me." I have a Japanese friend who graduated from a university in the United States, returned to Japan and worked at IBM in a technical position. After 7 years, he decided to change the company and profile (sell). I was on an interview with us and at Canon. There he was told “buddy, if you did not graduate yesterday, then forget about our career. Career ladder is painted for life ahead, and you have already lost 7 years. ”Something like that in general. And he went to us, apparently he was told something else :) By the way, I heard a similar story in the USA, about the American office of Canon.
IMHO, one of the biggest problems (for foreigners) - overwork (overtime). There are, roughly speaking, two types: paid and limited on top (good view) and unpaid, when salary rises by a fixed amount and working time ceases to be taken into account. The second option is to forget about the family, the Japanese are ready to live in the office and expect this from their foreign colleagues. Real examples:
1) a dialogue between a foreigner (family, two children) and Japanese classmates, after the first year of work: “Do you really go home at 10 pm (so early)? “Yes. Are you a fool?” Moreover, if a family can be the reason for a foreigner to go home before others, this is not always the case for the Japanese.
2) employees voluntarily refuse lunch break. Reason: The company decides that someone should answer calls at lunchtime. Everyone wants to be this “someone” - the problem is unsolvable - the result: everyone stays in the office. According to statistics, 90% of foreigners can not stand 3 years of work in a Japanese company. There are, of course, exceptions, and companies are trying to learn from the Western experience, but I was not there.
')
Once on Twitter, I came across a quote: “while the American company releases the beta version, the Japanese solve non-existent problems of the client (a very free retelling)”. Yes, something like this has to be observed, people are really ready to search for solutions, to gather meetings for such problems as: “how to make the program continue to work with the computer turned off”. The option "do not turn off" - not satisfied. Moreover, “this is not the level of a Japanese company is added, we cannot offer a service of such low quality”. A real example: before launching iPhone sales, Apple tried to cooperate with NTT Docomo (the largest operator). Answer: “we can’t sell a phone withoutour branded shit services that our customers are used to. Give us a couple of years, we adapt everything for the iPhone, and then welcome. ” But SoftBank was able to launch a naked iPhone for sale, and now the iPhone / iPad holds an impressive market share.
This is what it is worth putting up with the first part of the story. The scope of service is just on top. If in Russia it was necessary to go to the housing office or hospital to spoil your mood, in Japan it should be done to lift the mood. Any Japanese is extremely polite and will break into a cake to help. My spouse did not want to be discharged from the maternity ward, she really liked it there. In the barber shop, the master will take your bag to the street, only there he will give it to you and stand on the street until you turn the corner, and the whole salon will wave your hand and shout “Hurray! Thank!". The reverse side - the Japanese expect the same return from you when you are at work. Similarly, when a client comes to our office, after completing the meeting we stick out with happy faces (well, I’m not a hypocrite, I’m really glad that he finally left :) on the porch until the client disappears from sight.
The negative point - the price for the service. The Japanese are spending on him just a lot of money. An example is moving. Yes, I understand that the transport company wraps corridors, elevators, walls, floor with special soft sheets, they pack / unpack everything themselves, but as a result you can easily give up the monthly salary. And the Japanese still call the service to move to the next house. We once moved from Yokohama to Tokyo having removed a minibus for a day and together with a friend successfully coped with each other, having pre-packaged everything. I have not yet met the repetitions of this “feat”; under their own power they are not moving here.
Japan is a very safe and comfortable country, for which it is worth living here, a real dialogue in a Japanese school:
Sensei: Japan is a very dangerous country!
We (Russia / USA): Come on!
Sensei: Yeah, on TV again they said that someone had grabbed a handbag!
We: Ha-ha-ha, there is not enough airtime in our countries to broadcast information about all incidents and accidents.
Sensei: o_O "
On the issue of the Kuriles. The Japanese in their mass (youth, middle age) are apolitical, and they hardly guess that their country is “fatally offended” by Russia. All damn, to be honest. I can not imagine that at work someone from the Japanese asked about it. Although the Chinese asked about how the sauce served this question in the news in Russia and what the Russians think about it. Japan is no stranger to squabble with its neighbors for every shred of rocks, Japan (without) successfully butts with China and Korea for the corresponding scraps. Moreover, China is upsetting Japan much sharper than Russia. To myself, as a Russian, I have not met any negative, for the Japanese, all the Gaijins are the same person, when they find out that we are also Russians, they do this: O_O.
And yes, in cinemas the Japanese do not rise from their seats until the end of the last credits (they do not include light, the letters crawl on a black background, darkness is pitch-black). And in the McDonalds for a clean and wipe the table
Part one, work
Hiring, changing jobs, and so on are specific. Although the Japanese are trying to get rid of life-long employment, I have to watch it everywhere. A typical cycle in our company: before April, several hundred university graduates are recruited (graduated 3 months ago), then, within six months, young people study in the company, and try different types of work (they visit assembly lines, try to sell, etc.). It may turn out that you came to the company to write in Java, and you will sell if you see talent in you. Or maybe the other way around, with a familiar girl's diploma “International Business, such as that,” and now she is writing in Java. Toward autumn Shinjiki (Shinjin - newbie) come to the groups and get a test project for six months. In the spring they protect projects and from the new April they start working on current projects. And before retirement they work in a company, with the exception of transfers within the company. 100% of LinkedIn profiles on my colleagues look like this: University; Company. The end of the profile. For 3 years, he only once observed the dismissal, his father died at the Japanese, and after 17 years of work in the company, he (the Japanese) returned to his native village to continue his father’s farming business.
There are no unions, and the Japanese do not like to discuss working conditions (wages, schedule, etc.). The unspoken slogan: "I will try my best, but the company will not offend me." I have a Japanese friend who graduated from a university in the United States, returned to Japan and worked at IBM in a technical position. After 7 years, he decided to change the company and profile (sell). I was on an interview with us and at Canon. There he was told “buddy, if you did not graduate yesterday, then forget about our career. Career ladder is painted for life ahead, and you have already lost 7 years. ”Something like that in general. And he went to us, apparently he was told something else :) By the way, I heard a similar story in the USA, about the American office of Canon.
IMHO, one of the biggest problems (for foreigners) - overwork (overtime). There are, roughly speaking, two types: paid and limited on top (good view) and unpaid, when salary rises by a fixed amount and working time ceases to be taken into account. The second option is to forget about the family, the Japanese are ready to live in the office and expect this from their foreign colleagues. Real examples:
1) a dialogue between a foreigner (family, two children) and Japanese classmates, after the first year of work: “Do you really go home at 10 pm (so early)? “Yes. Are you a fool?” Moreover, if a family can be the reason for a foreigner to go home before others, this is not always the case for the Japanese.
2) employees voluntarily refuse lunch break. Reason: The company decides that someone should answer calls at lunchtime. Everyone wants to be this “someone” - the problem is unsolvable - the result: everyone stays in the office. According to statistics, 90% of foreigners can not stand 3 years of work in a Japanese company. There are, of course, exceptions, and companies are trying to learn from the Western experience, but I was not there.
')
Once on Twitter, I came across a quote: “while the American company releases the beta version, the Japanese solve non-existent problems of the client (a very free retelling)”. Yes, something like this has to be observed, people are really ready to search for solutions, to gather meetings for such problems as: “how to make the program continue to work with the computer turned off”. The option "do not turn off" - not satisfied. Moreover, “this is not the level of a Japanese company is added, we cannot offer a service of such low quality”. A real example: before launching iPhone sales, Apple tried to cooperate with NTT Docomo (the largest operator). Answer: “we can’t sell a phone without
Part Two, Out of Office
This is what it is worth putting up with the first part of the story. The scope of service is just on top. If in Russia it was necessary to go to the housing office or hospital to spoil your mood, in Japan it should be done to lift the mood. Any Japanese is extremely polite and will break into a cake to help. My spouse did not want to be discharged from the maternity ward, she really liked it there. In the barber shop, the master will take your bag to the street, only there he will give it to you and stand on the street until you turn the corner, and the whole salon will wave your hand and shout “Hurray! Thank!". The reverse side - the Japanese expect the same return from you when you are at work. Similarly, when a client comes to our office, after completing the meeting we stick out with happy faces (well, I’m not a hypocrite, I’m really glad that he finally left :) on the porch until the client disappears from sight.
The negative point - the price for the service. The Japanese are spending on him just a lot of money. An example is moving. Yes, I understand that the transport company wraps corridors, elevators, walls, floor with special soft sheets, they pack / unpack everything themselves, but as a result you can easily give up the monthly salary. And the Japanese still call the service to move to the next house. We once moved from Yokohama to Tokyo having removed a minibus for a day and together with a friend successfully coped with each other, having pre-packaged everything. I have not yet met the repetitions of this “feat”; under their own power they are not moving here.
Japan is a very safe and comfortable country, for which it is worth living here, a real dialogue in a Japanese school:
Sensei: Japan is a very dangerous country!
We (Russia / USA): Come on!
Sensei: Yeah, on TV again they said that someone had grabbed a handbag!
We: Ha-ha-ha, there is not enough airtime in our countries to broadcast information about all incidents and accidents.
Sensei: o_O "
On the issue of the Kuriles. The Japanese in their mass (youth, middle age) are apolitical, and they hardly guess that their country is “fatally offended” by Russia. All damn, to be honest. I can not imagine that at work someone from the Japanese asked about it. Although the Chinese asked about how the sauce served this question in the news in Russia and what the Russians think about it. Japan is no stranger to squabble with its neighbors for every shred of rocks, Japan (without) successfully butts with China and Korea for the corresponding scraps. Moreover, China is upsetting Japan much sharper than Russia. To myself, as a Russian, I have not met any negative, for the Japanese, all the Gaijins are the same person, when they find out that we are also Russians, they do this: O_O.
And yes, in cinemas the Japanese do not rise from their seats until the end of the last credits (they do not include light, the letters crawl on a black background, darkness is pitch-black). And in the McDonalds for a clean and wipe the table
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/114181/
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