Why Japanese Hate Working with Foreigners

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My wife is Japanese who worked in offices and retail for many years. After working in Australia for a year or two, she one day turned to me and said "There's no F'King way I could ever work for a Japanese company ever again". Yup, what she said

So basically the most important thing about your job it's to keep your coworkers happy, even if it means not giving quality time to your family or yourself. There are many things I admire about Japan, but work culture it's not one of them

If your deadlines cause you to work past your work hours regularly, it’s because someone else like a manager is failing to give out appropriate deadlines to clients. You can talk about not wanting to cause trouble, but it’s ignoring the systemic issues that system creates causing managers to consistently feel pressured to crunch people.

All the reasons lead back to “it’s not respectful towards your team” but the question is if the workers have self respect. The fight for workers right in Europe was not a matter of personal advantage, but it made the life of everyone better.

In Germany, the company is held liable if you do not take your paid vacation, so the company may actually force you to take it within a given time-frame.

Thanks for the information. My only issue with this is 1- Japanese people themselves complain about these work conditions (some to the level of suicide) 2- for a country complaining or fearful of the decreasing population, it’s counterproductive to think the birth rate will pickup when people hardly have time to build families or relationships due to their extreme work demands (hours)

I worked in Japan and Korea for a bit and both countries are somewhat similar about their work culture. While I understand where it's coming from, I believe that it creates an unproductive environment in a greater scale. There were so many days in both Japan and Korea in which I already finished my work hours ago and is just forced to sit there and appear busy so that I don't offend my co-workers or my boss by leaving "early", which was my actual time to clock out btw lmaoo. It's a waste of time. And when looking at the current issues plaguing both countries (high suicide rates, aging population, low birth rates...) you have to take in consideration that perhaps, this unnecessarily strict and heavy work load is taking a toll on your people and should be changed.

I've been to Japan 17 times, my first being about 15yrs ago. I realised VERY quickly that I LOVE Japan - BUT - I would NEVER live there nor work there. It's an amazing place to visit.

This seems like a total nightmare to me. If I had to do so much overtime in my country, people would either think I'm really inefficient or that we are severely understaffed. It's also insane that you are supposed to care more about your colleagues than your own family!!

No one on their death bed is going to wish they worked for more.

Yeah - my experience was... The people in Japan were in the office all the time... but actually didn't do very much work. Probably not a surprise - if you work 12 hours a day you're not going to be doing good work.

as a foreigner, i've worked in several japanese companies and have found that I have not been able to adjust to the working culture or would ignore the rules as long as i kept my work deadline. watching this confirmed that a japanese work environment is not necessarily for me. the best way to live in japan imo is to be your own boss, somehow. control your own work environment, what and how you do things and whatnot. other than the work culture, the infrastructure, delicious food, relaxing onsens and everything else is pretty great.

As a British person, I think what fascinates me the most is: in Japan, it's very shameful to want to go home rather than ensure the team meet the deadline. In the UK, it's shameful to stay behind after work and make the rest of your team look bad by trying to do more work than them. You are expected to think about your team's personal lives as well as what they have come together to achieve as a team. Again, relating to individualism vs collectivism.

If you want to avoid all the bad stuff while still learning the good (like cleanless and respect) and still work in Japan, look for a job in a company that is aiming to go global and that has lots of foreigners already employed, in particular in IT. I did this for about 3 years in Tokyo and had a blast working in Japan. Of course some of the work culture was still there, but it was mostly the good stuff, in a weird merge with western work culture. Had awesome work-life balance, dressed in jeans everyday, took all my vacations, but also learned tons from my japanese and foreign coworkers about team work and respect, or even cleaning my work cubicule constantly. I think all cultures do offer good sides of things, and our western work cultures also need to learn a lot of things from Japanese work, such as amazing team work.

I couldn't do it. I 100% agree with the respect and consideration of your co workers and working as a team towards a goal. Still a firm believer in the military training I received of "If you're early you're on time, and if you're on time, you're late." But, I refuse to put a company ahead of everything else. The whole idea of long hours for the sake of long hours just doesn't set right with me. I'd rather put quality ahead of quantity. When I'm at work, Ill gladly give 110% if the job needs it to get done and get done right, but I refuse to live at work, especially if it's staying "just because".

Great video, as always, Paolo. Having worked in Japan on and off since 1990, I can say that everything you say is correct. This should be required viewing for anybody who wants to work in Japan.

You missed the biggest reason: Racism

Being half Japanese and seeing all my cousins children not want to work for corporate companies, get married or have children are directly related to this work culture. Never seeing a parent, never being together for dinners, missing family events has made them not to want to have children go through what they did. This is Japans problem that they need to fix. Family matters. Women need careers but they need to feel that they can get married and have children. It’s a mans work ethic.

Japanese just seem very proud and are never lazy. Hats off to you all.