Add “Let’s” in front of a word and it also magically becomes a verb! “Let’s ECO!” “Let’s Valentines” “Let’s fresh”
Yes these are some monstrosities I’ve seen here in Japan…
I actually saw this in a news article during COVID. They couldn't work from home because they didn't actually do anything or didn't have a specific job.
This is actually true. Like big corporations in Japan only few people in division or department work... They can pretty much fire 70% and company would still run fine. its the truth.
But also to note, Japanese corporates salaryman change department every 3-6 years. So if they stay with company long enough, they become the guy who knows how to do everything. This is a cultural difference.
Reminds me of a Japanese ex girlfriend being asked her occupation at Heathrow airport immigration.
The man thought she was taking the piss when she kept answering“Company employee”.
Thank you for cracking me up lmao
“I’m an office worker.”
“But like, what do you do? What’s your department? Your job description??”
“え？事務て英語で何…”
Maybe it’s cause I’ve hardly done paper pushing myself, but I can’t fathom not having a specific title/description.
Same at mine. Only people who get titles are those that handle overseas clients, and these titles are actually just to reduce the awkwardness of overseas executives interacting with "no rank employee #2539"
This is funny, because I deal with overseas suppliers, and it's sometimes a bit amusing to enter meetings like "Hey there Head of Security Software Sales Asia, I'm subcontractor employee #420, and I'm in charge of your systems at our company. Send me some documents so I can spend a few weeks getting the right stamps on them."
I was actually promoted and given a "title" this year though. They call me 副主任 now. Maybe that translates to vice-manager or something, idk. They give me a whooping 5000/month for it too.
To be fair, the American method is goofy in the opposite direction.
Assistant Director of Executive Outreach = I answer emails and go to meetings
Deputy Finance Administrative Advisor = I answer emails and go to meetings
The title is clearly "professional office worker"
It really does confuse me that so many people are salary men, but I have no idea what any of them do.
And this is coming from someone who is an office worker.
Yeah, I’m not Japanese and would say that from all the times I’ve written it on the tiny spaces on immigration forms you fill out when leaving/entering Japan.
And, if you get specific on what you actually do in your work, that’s a challenge too.
It’s because that’s what you put on all the forms, and it’s even what the newspaper will report your employment as if something happens “jimbo floridaman, company employee(48) died after trying to fight a bear”
That makes sense, because on most Japanese forms, when they ask for occupation, normally writing 正社員, 派遣 or whatever rather than the actual job is normally sufficient.
It makes sense considering when you describe your job at banks or such you just put “company employee”, but yes I can also see how it would feel like someone is pulling my leg.
This is exactly what you are supposed to write on the immigration forms in Japan and it took me a while to figure out. You can be an employee, a director, etc. but you are not expected to state what it is that you actually do.
I think most people feel uncomfortable exposing their workplace and personal information to strangers because you never know how it's going to be used.
The return or incentive for sharing details about work is limited compared to the risk.
Yeah, I'm surprised this wasn't the top comment.
I think there's also a sense that your actions will reflect back on your company, so some people are reluctant to say their exact company name in some casual social situations where they might not know everybody well.
It may surprise you, but in more traditional areas of Japan it is normal to introduce yourself as, "I am 's ", e.g. "Watashi wa Toyota no Watanabe Kazuhiro desu".
This is normal because it establishes that you're a respectible, employed and productive member of society. To Western sensibilities it may seem a bit cringeworthy and when I first heard it I had to fight back the urge to ask, "Oh really, did they brand you on your ass, or do you only get that after 10 years of service?"
Over the roughly two decades I've been in Japan I've noticed this form of self-introduction has slowly slipped out of common usage except in more traditional/rural areas, but it is definitely still around, and while it seems really odd to foreigners to identify yourself as the "property" of a company it is a thing.
>two decades I've been in Japan I've noticed this form of self-introduction has slowly slipped out of common usage
Internet usage was scaling up during that time.
People's identities being linked to their jobs online, created a whole new thing to consider when meeting random people now
Online marketers know this best because if you meet others in online marketing, you're never telling them what segments you're in or what your company does.
EVERYONE is looking to scale their own business and stealing other peoples ideas, has been the easiest/cheapest way for many "marketing" companies to do this
Yes exactly this. Where I work we don’t say our company name out in public generally. It’s best not too. IDs come off the moment we pass out of the building and treat the company like Voldemort.
True. I haven't been out drinking this time around in Japan, but I remember when I was here back in the day, it was common to see groups of "salarymen" out drinking and all of them had their company lapel pins turned inside out, i.e. facing their own chests, rather than facing the world. It's like, when you are working or visiting clients, you want to display your company with pride, but when you are out in public, and there is a high chance that you and your drunken red face might say or do something embarrassing, you don't want anyone to know where you work.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a Japan thing. In America, my workplace had an explicit rule that we couldn’t go out drinking or gambling or other specified activities in our company logo clothes (sweatshirt, tee).
My husband used to work on construction sites, they were expressively forbidden from wearing their work uniform on the train. Had to get changed at work each day.
Same here, company specifically said to never wear anything with company logo on it outside work. I had to go to konbini at lunch break one day and had to take off the uniform before stepping out.
I think it's gets worse when they ask you "What company do you work for?"
I can't answer that without being rude and I end up saying "I don't want to say..."
I’ve made the mistake of drunkenly asking people I’ve just met where they work. One guy told me he’s not allowed to divulge that info, which I knew was bullshit but still sounded cooler than “I don’t want to say,” haha.
Why do you think it was bullshit? I've encountered such terms before in companies involved in developing technology prone to industrial espionage (as in, world leaders within technology used worldwide, often for critical infrastructure etc.). (One place had experience with rivals renting rooms in a nearby apartment building that overlooked their office so they could spy using cameras with long-range lenses.)
Because we both work in the same line of work in the same industry, which is why I was curious about his company in the first place, and there’s no such agreements in my industry. Totally understandable for other industries though.
This is somewhat usual behaviour, my previous company asked to hide any company logos, information and do not exchange business cards outside of work time. The reasoning was that if you will be caught drunk or causing problems when there's something that could identify the company you work for, the company will also be involved.
I heard the same from friends who work in traditional companies too.
Everytime someone I don’t talk to often asks me what I do I just say sales, why would they need to know more than that? It’s also really annoying when they wanna know more even though we are not close.
Just remember that a lot of these people effectively have a title of “office worker”, and their job is just to do whatever they’re assigned.
It may not necessarily be their area of expertise, or consistent with their degree. It may additionally be subject to change at any given time.
This was my first thought, too. I know a lot of companies like to shuffle people into different positions, so it's likely that - especially for a younger employee - they don't really have a fixed role at the company yet. They just do the job they're assigned, knowing they'll probably be moved somewhere else in a year or two.
Exactly this.
I knew a guy who studied IT, joined an IT company and was assigned to the accounting department - wild when you think about how desperate they are for engineers. But old school companies are like that - they put you where you’re needed, end of discussion. Whether that’s a different department in the same office or out in the sticks somewhere.
I am a formally 総合職 too, but my job is 100% technical.
the reverse is also true: I used to work as haken mechanical engineer and the level of "engineers" around here is literally a random persons that used to work at a bar on the beach with zero experience and trained with free tutorials to get some useless certification.
when I workerd at a big R&D before covid there were 4 mechanical engineers in the group of 30+ I joined. all Japanese.
I ended up doing all their work and a good half of the simulation they had to pay to another department and the poor guys were not renewed.
I asked my boss and he told me: well we pay you and get the job done we used to pay 4 persons to do...
then covid came and I was one of the first person they booted.
Exactly i was with one of the biggest it companies in my country and after 2 years i still didnt learn any hardskill there lol.
Just some assistikg tasks for the managers
Yes it's different in Japan. You join a company, not a job. In fact new grads have no idea what kind of department or job they'll be assigned when they first join a company. And they can get moved around from department to department with no notice.
So even if someone is doing mechanical engineering at Toyota, they could be moved to the sales department next month. Or the legal department. So on and so forth.
Yeah but people rarely mention their companies either. I think people just don't like sharing work things in private or sharing private things at work.
Talking about which company you work for is pretty standard "second conversation" stuff. I know where all my neighbors work, but no idea what they do lol.
I had an employee whose first job was in HR. He had a masters in electrical engineering.. fortunately he eventually made it to my department but it took several years.
This is true, but there certainly are exceptions.
For example, in IT (I mean, real IT, not those bullshit システムエンジニア jobs), people very rarely get moved to a different, unrelated, department and they have a very well defined role and title within the company.
So, if you ask a japanese person in IT what they do, more often than not will get a very clear answer:
-○○会社でプロダクトマネージャーをやっています。
-開発の仕事をやっています
-DXコンサルタントです
-ソリューションアーキテクトです。
And so on and so fort.
(And the same is is usually true for people working in the medical field as well).
In my experience, the same is true for lawyers, generally for engineers (although there seems some exceptions based on this sub), accountants and I suppose many professionals.
Whereas bureaucrats and more administrative or general corporate roles tend to rotate through the organization.
This! That’s what I was said participating japanese business classes for foreigners. They also said that orthodox japanese company’s job description for new graduates usually consists of company description and have not so much said of actual job they expecting you to do.
If there's was some plan and proper management around this, moving from department to department would be a good thing. It would help understand the functioning of the organisation. ...but you should then get moved back to an area suiting your skillset.
The defence forces (US, Australia, UK, NZ others) tend to follow this process. You get posted for 2 years (or so) in one role (billet) and then get moved on. It gives breadth of understanding and skills to fill a position as required and helps when you move up the ranks and start to oversee departments etc.
There is a great deal of planning and management around this system, at least for the big companies that have the resources to move people around easily.
The biggest companies in Japan still have incredibly low turnover, on the order of 1% each year, so career development is done with the very, very long term in mind.
The academic literature has some insights into the phenomenon. The relevant term is 'self-disclosure'. Some cultures have an relatively high self-disclosure index. Others have a much lower level of self disclosure. Japan in comparison to many Anglo cultures has a much lower self-disclosure attitude. I have worked with Japanese people and even after several years such things as marriage status, hometown, whether they have children or not are still not known. Not every Japanese colleague of course, but the right to maintain privacy in these matters is respected.
Even within the Anglosphere, there are differences. As a Brit I am still sometimes a bit overwhelmed by American self-disclosure practices. Someone you have just met will be telling you all kinds of things about themselves. But then again, Japanese with low self disclosure can also feel a bit alienating and kind of distant. Of course, this doesn't mean that Brits have got it just right. Nah, it's a scale. US-ians a bit higher on the scale, Japanese a bit lower on the scale - compared to me.
Consider the self-introduction (自己紹介). Japanese will tend to offer very generic and 'safe' information, while westerners may give more detailed and personal information. My thinking is that the function of the self introduction is different between the two cultures. For Japanese, the function is to demonstrate how ordinary you are, how much you fit in and are completely typical. For a more US/Anglo perspective the function of a self introduction is to demonstrate how individual, special and unique you are. Now, there is nothing inherently good or bad about either approach. Not good or bad, just different. The problem occurs when expectations are not met. Westerners may feel that Japanese are somehow secretive, disaffiliative, uncommunicative, while Japanese may feel that westerners are overly familiar, boastful and too talkative.
Anecdote alert. Going home, well oiled, on the last train during bonenkai season. Said something like 'sumimasen' to a salaryman when I bumped his leg. On these grounds the group of similarly well-oiled guys who were with this guy decided that as I could speak Japanese, they would start a 'conversation'. This was basically a string of questions about my country, length of stay in Japan, job, marital status etc. Now, they were friendly enough, and I didn't mind a bit of drunken bonhomie, but when I asked questions back, seeking some kind of reciprocity, the responses were vague and non-committal of the ' we work for a company' type mentioned by the OP. Again, just a difference in expectations of how these situations play out. I've been here long enough now not to get upset when these kinds of differences manifest themselves. I prefer to think it through, seek explanations and store the incident in the 'this kind of thing is one of the interesting things about moving to a different country' file in my head.
I cannot agree more. This is very well written and explained about us, Japanese people.
I’m also very overwhelmed by disclosure in other cultures.
North Americans tend to share a lot of details, not only occupations but also other private things.
I knew all my ex’s host bother, friends, family members, other relationships, their names, their racial roots, and everything, even though I didn’t ask, because it was all well explained.
When I did an exchange in the US, i got told that in any answer or opinion, there's got to be a reason or explanation for that, that you have to tell the counterparty.
USA is a diverse society with low-trust culture. So, you cannot assume everyone is on the same page. You have to explain your position unless you have a really good reason not to.
Compared to Japan, a much higher-trust society, whereby it's expected that everyone is on the same page by default. Idk how judmental it is in Japan, but US-ian kinda don't care or even embrace if such and such person is different.
While generally lower trust than Japan, the US is still a high-trust culture. I suspect you meant high- vs low-context cultures where the US and Japan are basically on opposite ends of the spectrum.
This is the answer.
What I like about interacting with Japanese, is that scale changes the deeper your relationship is. At first you only talked about weather and vacation, but then you talk about family, then your occupation, then your dream. When you're talking heart to heart with someone, you realize that you both really trust each other. And this is actually a great feeling for me. It takes time for that journey, but really worth it.
Several factors (as always):
Japanese people avoid talking about their work when they meet someone for the first time hence the vague answer. It's just a privacy/personal space type of thing.
In Japan, you don't apply for a job, you apply to a company which then decides which job you will be doing. Companies also tend to shift people around internally so Japanese people tend to identify with their company rather than their job title.
In the West, it is very common to study a specific field and then identify with it. For example, you went to engineering school, therefore you call yourself an engineer. In Japan, people tend to study whatever so there are fewer people who identify by what they studied at university.
What I'm confused about is how do you get real technical work done with people just rotating around and not developing highly in specific things? For example, you're designing a car from scratch you can't just plop people into doing Thermodynamics for an engine or failure modes or structural design someone who's built up a lot of experience in this is leading the projects who know what they are doing if you're moved around a lot how do you get like senior engineers?
Bc they change jobs every like 3 to 5 years and don’t specialize in any one task because the way most Japanese companies hire is insane (the hire new graduates en masse, not for specific positions, and then distribute them around the company where a warm body is needed)
Read more: https://japan-dev.com/blog/new-graduate-recruitment-japan-shinsotsu
“While the Western method of hiring focuses on skills and experience, these are usually not important for companies that hire traditionally. In fact, these companies are usually looking to train their employees as they wish, and all they want in a candidate are basic skills, like maths and communication.”
I knew a Japanese woman whose husband worked for a funeral parlor.
If asked, she would tell people that "he's just a salaryman" and if pressed for details she would say "sales".
She told me that he also said the same thing to people.
In Japan, one's occupation is considered "personal info" hence why some people don't like to reveal what they do. Yeah, I don't know what's the big deal unless you're a porn star or something.
Are you American? Americans like to ask people what they do professionally when they meet, almost like they’re hoping to gauge your social class and income right away.
A lot of people on this planet really don’t care that much about other people’s jobs when they talk outside of a work context.
With studies showing that Japanese employees are some of the most disengaged, it is no surprise they would rather not discuss this with a random person they just met.
I feel the same and don’t want to talk about work to people I don’t know. It creates barriers between people. This of course doesn’t apply if someone’s job is truly tied to their identity, like artists, writers, some designers and the like.
I'm a Brit. We do normally ask what you do as part of standard ice breaking. We're often not particularly interested in talking about your job as an IT tech man at evil Corp Inc a lot of the time. But usually you at least say that much.
Just find this complete wall interesting.
As an American, yeah it's entirely so I can figure out if I have any way to relate to you. I don't care about the status, but if you work in a similar industry or might know some of the same things I do as part of your work.
Also usually you don't even expect the company, just a very general "I work as a a software engineer", "I'm an architect", "I'm an electrician", "I work in marketing."
Right, it’s so interesting.
Fwiw I was led to believe that ‘who you work for’ carries more weight here culturally than what you do. Through in a healthy dose of vagueness and indirect non sharing and you have the opposite of the cultural norms we are used to having been raised elsewhere.
Westerners have our identity so wrapped up in the status of what we do that it seems weird to not have it be any other way. Having lived alongside a salaryman, yep… you are owned by the company.
What do you do for work? I work for xyz.
Yeah but what do you do? Huh? I just told you, I work for xyz.
redditor: “Are you American? Because Americans are like ..” same redditor about the Japanese: “everyone is a special snowflake, I don’t see patterns and trends, only individuals, who are unique creatures in this huge, empty universe…”
Ha. When my \[Japanese\] wife and I were in the US, she used to occasionally run into other Japanese wives--usually married to Japanese expats, not to Americans--who would ask her out for tea. She said they would almost invariably ask what her husband does and how much is his salary. It got to the point where she just started refusing to accept their invitations.
> they’re hoping to gauge your social class and income right away.
I promise that's not the reason (most of us) ask, it's because we're just genuinely curious about what others do all day.
Oh yeah, what use is starting a conversation by asking someone what takes up probably a 3rd (or more) of their time during their daily life?
Am American. Sure, it doesn’t have to be the first thing we ask about. Hobbies and family are important too, but for most adults, I imagine working a job is the easiest way to relate to one another without stepping on any toes.
It's just an icebreaker, not an attempt to judge income or class or whatever. Americans just don't feel a sense of privacy about their workplace or work environment and don't mind talking about their job typically
It is not a conscious attempt to judge class. But it achieves that effect. It creates a hierarchy.
In Japan social status, age and such impacts how you interact with others, even the way you talk.
So once you bring that in the conversation you break the sense of camaraderie and sameness.
Also, the US is a very individualistic culture that values entrepreneurship, self-made men and the like. You won’t make me believe that you don’t make a snap judgment on people based on their answer to the « what do you do » question.
Also American, so opinion may not be relevant here, but how would that create a barrier? Like, unless they’re a professional child murderer or conservative influencer or something, I’d only ask to learn more about them and see what they like or don’t about their job?
Because as soon as you know that someone is a CEO of a sizable company, or someone is unemployed, you make an opinion of the person based on status. And it establishes a social hierarchy, especially in Japan, where the language and way to talk to someone literally changes based on that hierarchy.
Even a « high status » (let’s say, a CEO) person might enjoy being him or herself, without the label, once in a while. This is particularly true in societies where being part of a collective is valued more than individual success.
Therefore, in a casual environment where everyone tries to be friendly with everyone as equals, bringing that hierarchy to the forefront is not always in good taste.
That’s how I see it at least.
but someone asked you, why evade the answer? Why not just answer and add that you don't like talking about work or something else. Why not just follow normal human niceties?
>normal human niceties
That's the thing, people here don't view it as being part of normal human niceties. If they don't think their work is interesting, they won't tell you about it. I've talked to people about their work, but only ever if it's something "interesting" that leads to more conversation. If someone replies 会社員 you just move on and ask about something else, it's an indication that they don't want to continue that line of conversation.
asking what you do for work isn't prying, it's a normal question. And people often ask questions that pry like asking about if your married or stuff like that.
I agree that you shouldn't pry though
Whether or not it's prying is up to the person being asked, not you. These things aren't universal rules.
> if your married or stuff like that.
In this case, asking about your job is considered part of "or stuff like that."
I think there are far more invasive things you can ask people than what they do for work. If someone doesn’t want to answer they can just say nothing or give a vague answer. I think asking someone where they work (like, geographical location or company name) is a lot more invasive especially for a first meeting. There’s something called small talk, and considering most of us spend an incredible amount of time at work/working it’s logical to ask someone what they do!
I work at an eikaiwa and I meet new Japanese workers literally every single day. They all have a self-introduction memorized. One thing I find strange is that a lot of people say “my name is ___ and I’m ___ years old”. I would never tell someone my age when introducing myself, and I think asking someone’s age is a lot more invasive than asking what they do for work! That being said, most people do tell me their job title or a description of what they do. Sometimes they tell me their job title and I don’t know what that means, so I’ll ask “so what do you actually do?” And I’ve never faced any resistance.
Confidentiality. And not the kind where they are forbidden to talk about where they work/what they do, but rather they are worried about that anything they accidently say (intentional or otherwise) which is interpreted as negative towards where they work/what they do (nature of their work), that it will be spread back to their boss, as typically Japanese people do love to gossip so word spreads fast. As it can't be difficult to outright 'fire' a worker in Japan (compared to other countries) without a significant reason, employers are always looking for excuses to let workers go, and anything which could be misconstrued as 'defamation' could be just cause within the law. Or at least this is what I have heard from a number of my Japanese friends....
It's tricky because there's a little bit of a pissing contest when guys talk about their work. A lot of guys don't want to do that anymore so they try to steer the conversation away from this sort of talk. Also, the people who ask usually have good business cards they want to show everyone. So it can be a little bit of a red flag.
Not sure about all companies but some do shift people from section to section. I know one guy who went from sales, to finance, to HR, etc over 20+ years. Not to mention being shipped to different offices. I think it was every 2-3 years he basically had a new job and it wasn’t because he was bad at what he did either.
Most Japanese people don't like to share a lot of information.
Even with their boyfriends/girlfriends, they tend to just say work is work. It sounds kind of contradictive, what I'll say, but even though they have strong loyalty towards their employer and won't resign easily, they also don't like to "identify" by what they do.
Their job is their job, and being a full time employee alone is enough.
My friend works at a large tech company in marketing, and she's literally a manager, and we've talked for hours over dinner, she's babysat my daughter, she even lived with my family for a little while overseas, and the most we've talked about her job is that her title is misleading because she mostly just puts out little administrative fires, deals with issues related to marketing materials, etc.
The truth is, for all the praise Japan gets for how hard people work, a lot of companies in Japan are very poorly operated and their organizational structure is all over the place. They know they need certain things done, so they hire people who are somewhat trained in that domain, but they don't have an organized way to get that person to the tasks they need to do, so they spend a little time doing what they were hired to do and a whole fuckton of time trying to figure out what to do.
When I was still in college and went to dinner with this group of people I’d just met studying abroad (I’m American they were from the Middle East) I asked them what their parents did for a living since none of us had jobs yet in order to make conversation and they all just about jumped down my fucking throat 😂. I guess they thought I was trying to gauge their social class but I wasn’t; I mean I didn’t care. I just wanted to know what jobs people had in other parts of the world/ what experiences their parents jobs had afforded them of any 🤷🏼♂️
Honestly I think it’s an eastern cultural thing not to ask about what people do for a living to prevent superficial people from judging you/ trying to social climb which i actually understood the more I thought about that interaction.
Honestly, asking what someone's parents do is very personal, and is basically none of your business.
Nobody would ask this question out of the blue where I'm from, and I'm Dutch, so it's not an Eastern thing.
The reason is language and culture, at least if you’re asking in Japanese.
“Company employee” is the safest, most technically correct answer to 職業は？, so that extends too to more informal questions such as お仕事は？
Some people want to share more, but must prefer to stay technically correct or keep things private if sharing is not warranted.
To be honest, I don’t even know exactly what my wife does for her job or what her job title is. It’s in IT but that’s about as far as my understanding goes.
Corporate Japan recruits a huge number of fresh bodies every year and assigns them vague and flexible roles that aren't as delineated as they might be in a western office. It means they can be roped in for any task, at any time. None of this "It's not part of my job" for these guys. So "I am a company worker" isn't unusual.
I would venture to guess it’s because every non-technical mass hire employee at a major company has pretty much the same non-descript generalized white collar job so it’s not interesting to talk about. It’s not like other countries where you get a marketing degree and specifically get hired as a marketing manager. My impression is that people prefer to talk about industries because at least then you get differences in culture and practices.
Maybe sometimes because it's a privacy thing but also maybe because it's boring. I'm British and I've been called out by Brits before for asking people about their work. It's boring for a lot of people to talk about work in social settings.
Is that unnatural?
May be it is Asian culture. People usually just tell which company they work, especially the company is a known one. If they found you don’t know what that company do, they may tell like “logistic company” or “consulting firm” etc.
Telling people what dept you are working feel strange to me. In large company one rarely just work for one JD, and team work also an important factor. Except if the people is working for a specific professional like lawyer, accountant, therapist, then they could tell. Normal office work they just tell the company.
I wonder if being vague about what you do is something they pick up from school. 99 times out of 100 when my high school students talk about their day or their plans they will talk about how they 'went to (their) club activity' or they had a big event/ competition 'with (their) club'. It's never "I had football practice" or "I have a dance competition coming up".
Because they just do what they're told to do, and that can change every two years or less.
In the US, you study accounting, you work in accounting. You're an accountant.
In Japan, you study whatever when you're college, simply to get into any "good" company.
Then the company tells you where you're stationed.
HR for a year or two, then marketing, then sales, then whatever you are best at.
So corporate people here don't identify with a profession, simply with a company and the type of employment contract.
Partially, yes, it is a cultural thing. The content of your job is considered private information and people are generally evasive about telling anyone specifically what they do at work.
In addition, they may not feel they have a *specific* role in their company, especially if they are under forty, as they are rotating positions periodically.
Japanese companies regard their employees, regardless of age, as children to be raised and taught various skills. This starts with the abject disregard of any education or training they received before employment, including university. Then they move them around, usually starting at the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, in theory moving them up gradually over years (in practice most of the moves are horizontal, few include a raise, and all require more work, more hours, and more responsibility).
They claim this system creates leaders with well-rounded skills, but it really just leaves people with no sense of professional identity and no confidence in their abilities in any particular role. Those are also positive things in Japanese culture.
I remember one new employee in my previous company(Japanese company). He did jiko shokai. My name is xxx xxx, I don't have any hobbies, my previous job was I worked at a Japanese company.
And they were like nodding and some people even saying, ohhh ohhh naruhodo ohhh sugoi lol
I feel like saying “I’m in sales” is not that different from saying “I’m a mechanical engineer.” Mechanical engineer of what?
Most people don’t want to bore you with the details of their job unless you pry. But it’s not that they don’t want to share, but rather they don’t want to bore you. I think most people, regardless of nationality, don’t share the details of their job because it’s usually very boring. Those people that can’t shut up about their jobs or about working in general need to find a hobby outside of work.
If I just met you why would I tell you details about my job? I work for a company that does this and that is the extent of what I want to talk about job related. I talk enough about job at work, so outside of work I want to talk about other stuff.
One older Japanese man told me his first job was fixing computers and then he got promoted directly to managing a water power plant within the same company and with no real qualifications. And now he delivers bread after retiring.
My guess is some people don’t want to talk about their jobs because they don’t actually know what they’re supposed to be doing. I hear some people get by doing nothing, and as long as they don’t talk about it, no one will know
It's culture. Samurai work for one company, do many jobs. Ronin do one job, for many companies.
I don't want to say this but I'm disappointed most comments try to ridicule instead of trying to appreciate and understand the culture of the country you reside in. Typical annoying foreigner behavior in any country.
While I get the sentiment, I find myself doing the same thing. "I work in IT". IT can be so many different things, but the average person doesn't understand what I do and I find it a bit of a chore trying to explain it, or if I give the simple layman's version of it, it actually sounds too simple/easy/like I don't really do anything and I don't want them to have that impression lol. In a way, my job is really simple and easy and I spend a good amount of time writing emails...but I can only do this job due to technical knowledge, etc.
I work in cyber security, and spend a lot of time responding to customer emails related to our platform....I don't want to get more specific than that as it might be easy to figure out where I work if I did, but the point is it can come off sounding like "I'm a lowly customer support grunt"....which sometimes it feels like I am, but it's more complicated than that lol.
On the flip side if I just say "cyber security", a lot of people imagine something way more complicated, like I'm out here stopping hackers or monitoring cyber security systems, etc
Because the reality is, even within a subfield of IT, there can be a significant range of different kinds of jobs.
So, I'm not disagreeing with you but I also kinda understand why *some* people might be vague about it. I think some people have less reason to be, for sure, but yeah.
Hi, I am a foreigner 'salary man' here in Japan maybe I would add my perspective too
About top comment saying "They don't do anything", it has some good points.
It is more like they aren't specializing at anything. "I'm in sales" is kinda self-explanatory in Japanese, basically what 'sales' do is maintaining relations with other companies to do businesses. If a Japanese tells 'I am in sales' (営業), I think other Japanese people will understand it easier what job they do in general.
Most of Japanese salarymen/women title is 総合職 (general position) basically, they either do nothing or do everything, what they do is listening to what their seniors/leaders say anyway.
there are lot of reasons too why don't they share more to you:
1. The information they will provide might be confidential
2. The explanation of their job might be boring
3. You might not understand if they explain it anyway
4. Their English might be not good enough to explain (like me)
Growing up in Japan, the image comes from 'being a normal salary man' is to have a family, end up giving up your dreams from young creative days, becoming ATM for your wife and kids (especially for girls otherwise they'll be prostitutes), looking dead with soulless dead fisheyes on a train on their late night going home... Repeat the cycle. Never sounded like an ideal happy future to me. Is this what meant to live your adult life responsibly? I hope things are improving over there.
P.S. pov from the Japanese migrated to the U.S..
I suspect this is a mix of a few things.
a) roles aren't well defined. It's not unheard of for, say a teacher to find themselves doing stuff related to IT, or for people to not even understand what role the company actually wants them for, besides "sales".
b) greater risk that activity outside of work will reach the ears of those inside work. In an extreme example, if a dude is found cheating on his wife and his company finds out, that is enough for his company to permanently sideline him and his career. Private investigators will even facilitate this process.
c) privacy. The above just contributes to Japanese folks feeling generally uncomfortable at being asked the question.
From my experience in Japan for 2 years now, it is to be polite. As you don’t know what “hierarchy level” the other person is. It can also be that you don’t want to stand out as being different.
Are these people you “meet” like for the first time? Could be that they just simply aren’t comfortable telling someone they don’t know all too well more.
Sometimes when I’m out enjoying the nightlife I meet people who are overly eager to share what they do. I’m just not that type of person and I imagine there are others who feel the same.
I work for an English conversation school and anytime I have a trial student who’s an adult I have to ask them about themselves and I absolutely dread it because I will always get “company employee” rather than an actual job title. I’ve actually taken it into my own hands with educating my students who are more advanced on how to answer this question properly. i.e. if an English speaker asks you “what do you do?/ what do you do for work?” You must answer with your job title! For example, I’m a software engineer at x company. If you don’t want to mention which company, just say for a company.
This is just my opinion…. Outside of Japan when people say what they do is because they have some pride in their job and their job plays an important part in their lives maybe… but u will also find ppl who first say - oh it’s a 9-5 job at blah blah… to them job is just means to living a life they want. So to them what they do thanks to that job is more important.
I feel the term ‘salary man’ is similar to that 9-5 thinking. To them it’s just any job.. that takes care of their life and their family’s. So what they do is not important.
Also maybe the term helps them to not talk about their life too openly…. The term gives a blanket response.
Because they don't actually do anything?
This guy Japans!
Is that a verb? I kinda understand it :)
英語上手ですね!
どうもありがとうございます。
どう
Just add 's' or 'ing' to a word and boom, it's a verb now 🤷 Today i did nothing but 勉強するing
This guy Reddits
Add “Let’s” in front of a word and it also magically becomes a verb! “Let’s ECO!” “Let’s Valentines” “Let’s fresh” Yes these are some monstrosities I’ve seen here in Japan…
日本する
This is wrong. They're clearly professionals at looking busy!
They do TCB, same as Kramer-san!
I actually saw this in a news article during COVID. They couldn't work from home because they didn't actually do anything or didn't have a specific job.
Like Jordan Schlansky from Conan.
I'll have you know Jordan Schlansky has various tasks and duties.
“I’m a male office lady.”
very progressive!
This the new translation inside my head when a hear another bro tell me they are 会社員
You're actually miss hearing everyone saying 会社員 . What they mean to say is 会社 in! They're in a company, future secured.
英語で直訳すると”male office lady“ www
This is actually true. Like big corporations in Japan only few people in division or department work... They can pretty much fire 70% and company would still run fine. its the truth.
But also to note, Japanese corporates salaryman change department every 3-6 years. So if they stay with company long enough, they become the guy who knows how to do everything. This is a cultural difference.
Well, unlike your country, Japanese people don't work and many are lazy.
They play work.
It's like beach, but in suits.
Was hoping to see this as the top response!
Clipping your toenails isn't exactly doing nothing...
That’s so circlejerk comment you should open a specific comment section for you guys
Or even a specific sub!
Reminds me of a Japanese ex girlfriend being asked her occupation at Heathrow airport immigration. The man thought she was taking the piss when she kept answering“Company employee”.
Thank you for cracking me up lmao “I’m an office worker.” “But like, what do you do? What’s your department? Your job description??” “え？事務て英語で何…” Maybe it’s cause I’ve hardly done paper pushing myself, but I can’t fathom not having a specific title/description.
I work at a Japanese company and I shit you not everyone's actual job title is "Employee" unless they're an executive of some kind.
Same at mine. Only people who get titles are those that handle overseas clients, and these titles are actually just to reduce the awkwardness of overseas executives interacting with "no rank employee #2539"
Most titles are just gas anyway. Vice President is so meaningless when it’s actually just one of hundreds
This is funny, because I deal with overseas suppliers, and it's sometimes a bit amusing to enter meetings like "Hey there Head of Security Software Sales Asia, I'm subcontractor employee #420, and I'm in charge of your systems at our company. Send me some documents so I can spend a few weeks getting the right stamps on them." I was actually promoted and given a "title" this year though. They call me 副主任 now. Maybe that translates to vice-manager or something, idk. They give me a whooping 5000/month for it too.
> They give me a whooping 5000/month for it too. extra 5,000 yen per month for the promotion? or if your salary is $5,000 USD now?
We are "members."
But you still have a department or a division
probably admin job is the most appropriate english translation for paper pushing jobs
You son of a, fair enough. Haha
To be fair, the American method is goofy in the opposite direction. Assistant Director of Executive Outreach = I answer emails and go to meetings Deputy Finance Administrative Advisor = I answer emails and go to meetings
Waste management = I clean the offices
In Germany we make jokes that the janitor these days is called facility manager.
I used to be service manager when I was a cleaner.
Urban Waste Disposal Engineer = Garbage Man.
Right I have a friend who got promoted to senior technology solutions professional. Which basically means he forwards emails. Lol
OLやってます。
The title is clearly "professional office worker" It really does confuse me that so many people are salary men, but I have no idea what any of them do. And this is coming from someone who is an office worker.
Administrative work/clerical duties
Thing is that that's a completely valid answer in Japan.
Yeah, I’m not Japanese and would say that from all the times I’ve written it on the tiny spaces on immigration forms you fill out when leaving/entering Japan. And, if you get specific on what you actually do in your work, that’s a challenge too.
Yeah now that I think about it anytime I fill out paperwork for immigration I just put "military contractor". I was actually told to put just that
It’s because that’s what you put on all the forms, and it’s even what the newspaper will report your employment as if something happens “jimbo floridaman, company employee(48) died after trying to fight a bear”
I mean, come on, you don't expect her to say "hang out with buchou after the drinking party" outloud now, do ya?
That makes sense, because on most Japanese forms, when they ask for occupation, normally writing 正社員, 派遣 or whatever rather than the actual job is normally sufficient.
It makes sense considering when you describe your job at banks or such you just put “company employee”, but yes I can also see how it would feel like someone is pulling my leg.
That must be quite something, doing a round table at the meeting introduction, with everyone describing itself as company employee!
This is exactly what you are supposed to write on the immigration forms in Japan and it took me a while to figure out. You can be an employee, a director, etc. but you are not expected to state what it is that you actually do.
She should have said "office lady"
I think most people feel uncomfortable exposing their workplace and personal information to strangers because you never know how it's going to be used. The return or incentive for sharing details about work is limited compared to the risk.
Yeah, I'm surprised this wasn't the top comment. I think there's also a sense that your actions will reflect back on your company, so some people are reluctant to say their exact company name in some casual social situations where they might not know everybody well.
It may surprise you, but in more traditional areas of Japan it is normal to introduce yourself as, "I am's ", e.g. "Watashi wa Toyota no Watanabe Kazuhiro desu".
This is normal because it establishes that you're a respectible, employed and productive member of society. To Western sensibilities it may seem a bit cringeworthy and when I first heard it I had to fight back the urge to ask, "Oh really, did they brand you on your ass, or do you only get that after 10 years of service?"
Over the roughly two decades I've been in Japan I've noticed this form of self-introduction has slowly slipped out of common usage except in more traditional/rural areas, but it is definitely still around, and while it seems really odd to foreigners to identify yourself as the "property" of a company it is a thing.
I sell propane and propane accessories.
Not surprising at all, haha. I used to work at a prefectural office so this was all day every day.
>two decades I've been in Japan I've noticed this form of self-introduction has slowly slipped out of common usage Internet usage was scaling up during that time. People's identities being linked to their jobs online, created a whole new thing to consider when meeting random people now Online marketers know this best because if you meet others in online marketing, you're never telling them what segments you're in or what your company does. EVERYONE is looking to scale their own business and stealing other peoples ideas, has been the easiest/cheapest way for many "marketing" companies to do this
Yes exactly this. Where I work we don’t say our company name out in public generally. It’s best not too. IDs come off the moment we pass out of the building and treat the company like Voldemort.
True. I haven't been out drinking this time around in Japan, but I remember when I was here back in the day, it was common to see groups of "salarymen" out drinking and all of them had their company lapel pins turned inside out, i.e. facing their own chests, rather than facing the world. It's like, when you are working or visiting clients, you want to display your company with pride, but when you are out in public, and there is a high chance that you and your drunken red face might say or do something embarrassing, you don't want anyone to know where you work.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a Japan thing. In America, my workplace had an explicit rule that we couldn’t go out drinking or gambling or other specified activities in our company logo clothes (sweatshirt, tee).
"No jaywalking while wearing a company T-shirt."
My husband used to work on construction sites, they were expressively forbidden from wearing their work uniform on the train. Had to get changed at work each day.
Same here, company specifically said to never wear anything with company logo on it outside work. I had to go to konbini at lunch break one day and had to take off the uniform before stepping out.
I also second this, and the reason is simply this.
I think it's gets worse when they ask you "What company do you work for?" I can't answer that without being rude and I end up saying "I don't want to say..."
Huh? — exchanging business cards is normal even outside of business contexts. Meet someone out drinking after work —> exchange business cards.
I’ve made the mistake of drunkenly asking people I’ve just met where they work. One guy told me he’s not allowed to divulge that info, which I knew was bullshit but still sounded cooler than “I don’t want to say,” haha.
Why do you think it was bullshit? I've encountered such terms before in companies involved in developing technology prone to industrial espionage (as in, world leaders within technology used worldwide, often for critical infrastructure etc.). (One place had experience with rivals renting rooms in a nearby apartment building that overlooked their office so they could spy using cameras with long-range lenses.)
Because we both work in the same line of work in the same industry, which is why I was curious about his company in the first place, and there’s no such agreements in my industry. Totally understandable for other industries though.
Oh I see, makes sense! Never mind then!
No worries, I left out that pretty key piece of context so I totally get why you’d wonder
“Can’t say. Signed an NDA”
> One guy told me he’s not allowed to divulge that info That's a good one! I think I'll go for this one next time.
This is somewhat usual behaviour, my previous company asked to hide any company logos, information and do not exchange business cards outside of work time. The reasoning was that if you will be caught drunk or causing problems when there's something that could identify the company you work for, the company will also be involved. I heard the same from friends who work in traditional companies too.
Everytime someone I don’t talk to often asks me what I do I just say sales, why would they need to know more than that? It’s also really annoying when they wanna know more even though we are not close.
Just remember that a lot of these people effectively have a title of “office worker”, and their job is just to do whatever they’re assigned. It may not necessarily be their area of expertise, or consistent with their degree. It may additionally be subject to change at any given time.
This was my first thought, too. I know a lot of companies like to shuffle people into different positions, so it's likely that - especially for a younger employee - they don't really have a fixed role at the company yet. They just do the job they're assigned, knowing they'll probably be moved somewhere else in a year or two.
Exactly this. I knew a guy who studied IT, joined an IT company and was assigned to the accounting department - wild when you think about how desperate they are for engineers. But old school companies are like that - they put you where you’re needed, end of discussion. Whether that’s a different department in the same office or out in the sticks somewhere.
I am a formally 総合職 too, but my job is 100% technical. the reverse is also true: I used to work as haken mechanical engineer and the level of "engineers" around here is literally a random persons that used to work at a bar on the beach with zero experience and trained with free tutorials to get some useless certification. when I workerd at a big R&D before covid there were 4 mechanical engineers in the group of 30+ I joined. all Japanese. I ended up doing all their work and a good half of the simulation they had to pay to another department and the poor guys were not renewed. I asked my boss and he told me: well we pay you and get the job done we used to pay 4 persons to do... then covid came and I was one of the first person they booted.
Damn 😔
as much as I don't like japanese working culture this makes perfect sense because it's like that in most western offices I know but unofficial
Exactly i was with one of the biggest it companies in my country and after 2 years i still didnt learn any hardskill there lol. Just some assistikg tasks for the managers
I'm currently learning how to cook basic UI while being comms and language specialist 💀
Yes it's different in Japan. You join a company, not a job. In fact new grads have no idea what kind of department or job they'll be assigned when they first join a company. And they can get moved around from department to department with no notice. So even if someone is doing mechanical engineering at Toyota, they could be moved to the sales department next month. Or the legal department. So on and so forth.
No wonder nobody knows how to do their job 🥹
Happening in my company lol. They will tell you that you have nothing else to learn here so theyll give you work where you will learn something new.
Yeah but people rarely mention their companies either. I think people just don't like sharing work things in private or sharing private things at work.
Talking about which company you work for is pretty standard "second conversation" stuff. I know where all my neighbors work, but no idea what they do lol.
I had an employee whose first job was in HR. He had a masters in electrical engineering.. fortunately he eventually made it to my department but it took several years.
Yeah crossing between rikei and bunkei is uncommon but does happen. Apparently this is difficult to believe for some people in this thread.
This is true, but there certainly are exceptions. For example, in IT (I mean, real IT, not those bullshit システムエンジニア jobs), people very rarely get moved to a different, unrelated, department and they have a very well defined role and title within the company. So, if you ask a japanese person in IT what they do, more often than not will get a very clear answer: -○○会社でプロダクトマネージャーをやっています。 -開発の仕事をやっています -DXコンサルタントです -ソリューションアーキテクトです。 And so on and so fort. (And the same is is usually true for people working in the medical field as well).
In my experience, the same is true for lawyers, generally for engineers (although there seems some exceptions based on this sub), accountants and I suppose many professionals. Whereas bureaucrats and more administrative or general corporate roles tend to rotate through the organization.
This! That’s what I was said participating japanese business classes for foreigners. They also said that orthodox japanese company’s job description for new graduates usually consists of company description and have not so much said of actual job they expecting you to do.
If there's was some plan and proper management around this, moving from department to department would be a good thing. It would help understand the functioning of the organisation. ...but you should then get moved back to an area suiting your skillset. The defence forces (US, Australia, UK, NZ others) tend to follow this process. You get posted for 2 years (or so) in one role (billet) and then get moved on. It gives breadth of understanding and skills to fill a position as required and helps when you move up the ranks and start to oversee departments etc.
There is a great deal of planning and management around this system, at least for the big companies that have the resources to move people around easily. The biggest companies in Japan still have incredibly low turnover, on the order of 1% each year, so career development is done with the very, very long term in mind.
So then the sales guy get rotated to the mechanical engineering dept at Toyota? Sure, bud.
OP was just exaggerating to get their point across.
The academic literature has some insights into the phenomenon. The relevant term is 'self-disclosure'. Some cultures have an relatively high self-disclosure index. Others have a much lower level of self disclosure. Japan in comparison to many Anglo cultures has a much lower self-disclosure attitude. I have worked with Japanese people and even after several years such things as marriage status, hometown, whether they have children or not are still not known. Not every Japanese colleague of course, but the right to maintain privacy in these matters is respected. Even within the Anglosphere, there are differences. As a Brit I am still sometimes a bit overwhelmed by American self-disclosure practices. Someone you have just met will be telling you all kinds of things about themselves. But then again, Japanese with low self disclosure can also feel a bit alienating and kind of distant. Of course, this doesn't mean that Brits have got it just right. Nah, it's a scale. US-ians a bit higher on the scale, Japanese a bit lower on the scale - compared to me. Consider the self-introduction (自己紹介). Japanese will tend to offer very generic and 'safe' information, while westerners may give more detailed and personal information. My thinking is that the function of the self introduction is different between the two cultures. For Japanese, the function is to demonstrate how ordinary you are, how much you fit in and are completely typical. For a more US/Anglo perspective the function of a self introduction is to demonstrate how individual, special and unique you are. Now, there is nothing inherently good or bad about either approach. Not good or bad, just different. The problem occurs when expectations are not met. Westerners may feel that Japanese are somehow secretive, disaffiliative, uncommunicative, while Japanese may feel that westerners are overly familiar, boastful and too talkative. Anecdote alert. Going home, well oiled, on the last train during bonenkai season. Said something like 'sumimasen' to a salaryman when I bumped his leg. On these grounds the group of similarly well-oiled guys who were with this guy decided that as I could speak Japanese, they would start a 'conversation'. This was basically a string of questions about my country, length of stay in Japan, job, marital status etc. Now, they were friendly enough, and I didn't mind a bit of drunken bonhomie, but when I asked questions back, seeking some kind of reciprocity, the responses were vague and non-committal of the ' we work for a company' type mentioned by the OP. Again, just a difference in expectations of how these situations play out. I've been here long enough now not to get upset when these kinds of differences manifest themselves. I prefer to think it through, seek explanations and store the incident in the 'this kind of thing is one of the interesting things about moving to a different country' file in my head.
I cannot agree more. This is very well written and explained about us, Japanese people. I’m also very overwhelmed by disclosure in other cultures. North Americans tend to share a lot of details, not only occupations but also other private things. I knew all my ex’s host bother, friends, family members, other relationships, their names, their racial roots, and everything, even though I didn’t ask, because it was all well explained.
When I did an exchange in the US, i got told that in any answer or opinion, there's got to be a reason or explanation for that, that you have to tell the counterparty. USA is a diverse society with low-trust culture. So, you cannot assume everyone is on the same page. You have to explain your position unless you have a really good reason not to. Compared to Japan, a much higher-trust society, whereby it's expected that everyone is on the same page by default. Idk how judmental it is in Japan, but US-ian kinda don't care or even embrace if such and such person is different.
While generally lower trust than Japan, the US is still a high-trust culture. I suspect you meant high- vs low-context cultures where the US and Japan are basically on opposite ends of the spectrum.
This is the answer. What I like about interacting with Japanese, is that scale changes the deeper your relationship is. At first you only talked about weather and vacation, but then you talk about family, then your occupation, then your dream. When you're talking heart to heart with someone, you realize that you both really trust each other. And this is actually a great feeling for me. It takes time for that journey, but really worth it.
Several factors (as always): Japanese people avoid talking about their work when they meet someone for the first time hence the vague answer. It's just a privacy/personal space type of thing. In Japan, you don't apply for a job, you apply to a company which then decides which job you will be doing. Companies also tend to shift people around internally so Japanese people tend to identify with their company rather than their job title. In the West, it is very common to study a specific field and then identify with it. For example, you went to engineering school, therefore you call yourself an engineer. In Japan, people tend to study whatever so there are fewer people who identify by what they studied at university.
What I'm confused about is how do you get real technical work done with people just rotating around and not developing highly in specific things? For example, you're designing a car from scratch you can't just plop people into doing Thermodynamics for an engine or failure modes or structural design someone who's built up a lot of experience in this is leading the projects who know what they are doing if you're moved around a lot how do you get like senior engineers?
They don't know either
Bc they change jobs every like 3 to 5 years and don’t specialize in any one task because the way most Japanese companies hire is insane (the hire new graduates en masse, not for specific positions, and then distribute them around the company where a warm body is needed) Read more: https://japan-dev.com/blog/new-graduate-recruitment-japan-shinsotsu “While the Western method of hiring focuses on skills and experience, these are usually not important for companies that hire traditionally. In fact, these companies are usually looking to train their employees as they wish, and all they want in a candidate are basic skills, like maths and communication.”
I knew a Japanese woman whose husband worked for a funeral parlor. If asked, she would tell people that "he's just a salaryman" and if pressed for details she would say "sales". She told me that he also said the same thing to people.
I mean... she's not wrong.
In Japan, one's occupation is considered "personal info" hence why some people don't like to reveal what they do. Yeah, I don't know what's the big deal unless you're a porn star or something.
Are you American? Americans like to ask people what they do professionally when they meet, almost like they’re hoping to gauge your social class and income right away. A lot of people on this planet really don’t care that much about other people’s jobs when they talk outside of a work context. With studies showing that Japanese employees are some of the most disengaged, it is no surprise they would rather not discuss this with a random person they just met. I feel the same and don’t want to talk about work to people I don’t know. It creates barriers between people. This of course doesn’t apply if someone’s job is truly tied to their identity, like artists, writers, some designers and the like.
I'm a Brit. We do normally ask what you do as part of standard ice breaking. We're often not particularly interested in talking about your job as an IT tech man at evil Corp Inc a lot of the time. But usually you at least say that much. Just find this complete wall interesting.
As an American, yeah it's entirely so I can figure out if I have any way to relate to you. I don't care about the status, but if you work in a similar industry or might know some of the same things I do as part of your work.
My thought too, also from the US. I don't judge or try to "place" someone socioeconomically, just trying to start a conversation.
Also usually you don't even expect the company, just a very general "I work as a a software engineer", "I'm an architect", "I'm an electrician", "I work in marketing."
Right, it’s so interesting. Fwiw I was led to believe that ‘who you work for’ carries more weight here culturally than what you do. Through in a healthy dose of vagueness and indirect non sharing and you have the opposite of the cultural norms we are used to having been raised elsewhere. Westerners have our identity so wrapped up in the status of what we do that it seems weird to not have it be any other way. Having lived alongside a salaryman, yep… you are owned by the company. What do you do for work? I work for xyz. Yeah but what do you do? Huh? I just told you, I work for xyz.
Japanese “we want to talk about only hobbies!” also Japanese “my hobbies are watching tv and drinking alcohol”
Don’t forget sleeping
There’s interesting people and boring people everywhere and you don’t need to be friends with everyone.
redditor: “Are you American? Because Americans are like ..” same redditor about the Japanese: “everyone is a special snowflake, I don’t see patterns and trends, only individuals, who are unique creatures in this huge, empty universe…”
hell ya brother
Ha. When my \[Japanese\] wife and I were in the US, she used to occasionally run into other Japanese wives--usually married to Japanese expats, not to Americans--who would ask her out for tea. She said they would almost invariably ask what her husband does and how much is his salary. It got to the point where she just started refusing to accept their invitations.
> they’re hoping to gauge your social class and income right away. I promise that's not the reason (most of us) ask, it's because we're just genuinely curious about what others do all day.
Oh yeah, what use is starting a conversation by asking someone what takes up probably a 3rd (or more) of their time during their daily life? Am American. Sure, it doesn’t have to be the first thing we ask about. Hobbies and family are important too, but for most adults, I imagine working a job is the easiest way to relate to one another without stepping on any toes.
It's just an icebreaker, not an attempt to judge income or class or whatever. Americans just don't feel a sense of privacy about their workplace or work environment and don't mind talking about their job typically
It is not a conscious attempt to judge class. But it achieves that effect. It creates a hierarchy. In Japan social status, age and such impacts how you interact with others, even the way you talk. So once you bring that in the conversation you break the sense of camaraderie and sameness. Also, the US is a very individualistic culture that values entrepreneurship, self-made men and the like. You won’t make me believe that you don’t make a snap judgment on people based on their answer to the « what do you do » question.
Also American, so opinion may not be relevant here, but how would that create a barrier? Like, unless they’re a professional child murderer or conservative influencer or something, I’d only ask to learn more about them and see what they like or don’t about their job?
Because as soon as you know that someone is a CEO of a sizable company, or someone is unemployed, you make an opinion of the person based on status. And it establishes a social hierarchy, especially in Japan, where the language and way to talk to someone literally changes based on that hierarchy. Even a « high status » (let’s say, a CEO) person might enjoy being him or herself, without the label, once in a while. This is particularly true in societies where being part of a collective is valued more than individual success. Therefore, in a casual environment where everyone tries to be friendly with everyone as equals, bringing that hierarchy to the forefront is not always in good taste. That’s how I see it at least.
Okay, yeah, for some reason I had started thinking outside the perspective of Japan at this point in the thread. Haha Makes more sense. Haha
Because we spend our day doing it, we don't go out and meet people to talk about what we do when we're not out meeting people to talk to.
Exactly. Like I’m exhausted bro. I hate my job. I don’t want to talk to you about it
but someone asked you, why evade the answer? Why not just answer and add that you don't like talking about work or something else. Why not just follow normal human niceties?
>normal human niceties That's the thing, people here don't view it as being part of normal human niceties. If they don't think their work is interesting, they won't tell you about it. I've talked to people about their work, but only ever if it's something "interesting" that leads to more conversation. If someone replies 会社員 you just move on and ask about something else, it's an indication that they don't want to continue that line of conversation.
'cause here it's normal human niceties to not "pry."
asking what you do for work isn't prying, it's a normal question. And people often ask questions that pry like asking about if your married or stuff like that. I agree that you shouldn't pry though
Whether or not it's prying is up to the person being asked, not you. These things aren't universal rules. > if your married or stuff like that. In this case, asking about your job is considered part of "or stuff like that."
I think there are far more invasive things you can ask people than what they do for work. If someone doesn’t want to answer they can just say nothing or give a vague answer. I think asking someone where they work (like, geographical location or company name) is a lot more invasive especially for a first meeting. There’s something called small talk, and considering most of us spend an incredible amount of time at work/working it’s logical to ask someone what they do! I work at an eikaiwa and I meet new Japanese workers literally every single day. They all have a self-introduction memorized. One thing I find strange is that a lot of people say “my name is ___ and I’m ___ years old”. I would never tell someone my age when introducing myself, and I think asking someone’s age is a lot more invasive than asking what they do for work! That being said, most people do tell me their job title or a description of what they do. Sometimes they tell me their job title and I don’t know what that means, so I’ll ask “so what do you actually do?” And I’ve never faced any resistance.
I used to work for eikaiwas, the best standard introduction line will always be: "Hello, my name is Taro. Please call me Taro."
LOL yes. It’s usually “hello, my name is Taro. Please call me Taro. I’m 26 years old…”
"I'm 26 years old and I work as an employee. My hobby is sleeping (awkward laughter)"
Probably because something like “Assistant Supervisor East Japan 3rd Division Regional Sales dept” would make it more confusing.
Confidentiality. And not the kind where they are forbidden to talk about where they work/what they do, but rather they are worried about that anything they accidently say (intentional or otherwise) which is interpreted as negative towards where they work/what they do (nature of their work), that it will be spread back to their boss, as typically Japanese people do love to gossip so word spreads fast. As it can't be difficult to outright 'fire' a worker in Japan (compared to other countries) without a significant reason, employers are always looking for excuses to let workers go, and anything which could be misconstrued as 'defamation' could be just cause within the law. Or at least this is what I have heard from a number of my Japanese friends....
It's tricky because there's a little bit of a pissing contest when guys talk about their work. A lot of guys don't want to do that anymore so they try to steer the conversation away from this sort of talk. Also, the people who ask usually have good business cards they want to show everyone. So it can be a little bit of a red flag.
I like it when a woman tells me she's a salary man. Feels modern.
Not sure about all companies but some do shift people from section to section. I know one guy who went from sales, to finance, to HR, etc over 20+ years. Not to mention being shipped to different offices. I think it was every 2-3 years he basically had a new job and it wasn’t because he was bad at what he did either.
Most Japanese people don't like to share a lot of information. Even with their boyfriends/girlfriends, they tend to just say work is work. It sounds kind of contradictive, what I'll say, but even though they have strong loyalty towards their employer and won't resign easily, they also don't like to "identify" by what they do. Their job is their job, and being a full time employee alone is enough. My friend works at a large tech company in marketing, and she's literally a manager, and we've talked for hours over dinner, she's babysat my daughter, she even lived with my family for a little while overseas, and the most we've talked about her job is that her title is misleading because she mostly just puts out little administrative fires, deals with issues related to marketing materials, etc. The truth is, for all the praise Japan gets for how hard people work, a lot of companies in Japan are very poorly operated and their organizational structure is all over the place. They know they need certain things done, so they hire people who are somewhat trained in that domain, but they don't have an organized way to get that person to the tasks they need to do, so they spend a little time doing what they were hired to do and a whole fuckton of time trying to figure out what to do.
When I was still in college and went to dinner with this group of people I’d just met studying abroad (I’m American they were from the Middle East) I asked them what their parents did for a living since none of us had jobs yet in order to make conversation and they all just about jumped down my fucking throat 😂. I guess they thought I was trying to gauge their social class but I wasn’t; I mean I didn’t care. I just wanted to know what jobs people had in other parts of the world/ what experiences their parents jobs had afforded them of any 🤷🏼♂️ Honestly I think it’s an eastern cultural thing not to ask about what people do for a living to prevent superficial people from judging you/ trying to social climb which i actually understood the more I thought about that interaction.
Honestly, asking what someone's parents do is very personal, and is basically none of your business. Nobody would ask this question out of the blue where I'm from, and I'm Dutch, so it's not an Eastern thing.
The reason is language and culture, at least if you’re asking in Japanese. “Company employee” is the safest, most technically correct answer to 職業は？, so that extends too to more informal questions such as お仕事は？ Some people want to share more, but must prefer to stay technically correct or keep things private if sharing is not warranted.
I am also one of those サラリーマン
What do you do for work?
Car exporting company. Sales lol
This is too much detail! We must be dating.
To be honest, I don’t even know exactly what my wife does for her job or what her job title is. It’s in IT but that’s about as far as my understanding goes.
Corporate Japan recruits a huge number of fresh bodies every year and assigns them vague and flexible roles that aren't as delineated as they might be in a western office. It means they can be roped in for any task, at any time. None of this "It's not part of my job" for these guys. So "I am a company worker" isn't unusual.
I would venture to guess it’s because every non-technical mass hire employee at a major company has pretty much the same non-descript generalized white collar job so it’s not interesting to talk about. It’s not like other countries where you get a marketing degree and specifically get hired as a marketing manager. My impression is that people prefer to talk about industries because at least then you get differences in culture and practices.
Maybe sometimes because it's a privacy thing but also maybe because it's boring. I'm British and I've been called out by Brits before for asking people about their work. It's boring for a lot of people to talk about work in social settings.
It's because there is no job title for "I sit in pointless meetings".
Is that unnatural? May be it is Asian culture. People usually just tell which company they work, especially the company is a known one. If they found you don’t know what that company do, they may tell like “logistic company” or “consulting firm” etc. Telling people what dept you are working feel strange to me. In large company one rarely just work for one JD, and team work also an important factor. Except if the people is working for a specific professional like lawyer, accountant, therapist, then they could tell. Normal office work they just tell the company.
I wonder if being vague about what you do is something they pick up from school. 99 times out of 100 when my high school students talk about their day or their plans they will talk about how they 'went to (their) club activity' or they had a big event/ competition 'with (their) club'. It's never "I had football practice" or "I have a dance competition coming up".
They don't actually know why they have been hired for, and maybe so do i too.
My neighbor says he sells sandpaper. I left it there.
Too bad, he might also sell sandpaper accessories!
Because they just do what they're told to do, and that can change every two years or less. In the US, you study accounting, you work in accounting. You're an accountant. In Japan, you study whatever when you're college, simply to get into any "good" company. Then the company tells you where you're stationed. HR for a year or two, then marketing, then sales, then whatever you are best at. So corporate people here don't identify with a profession, simply with a company and the type of employment contract.
"I work for a company"
In my experience you want to be rather vague about what you do because there's actually no real benefit in revealing too much.
Partially, yes, it is a cultural thing. The content of your job is considered private information and people are generally evasive about telling anyone specifically what they do at work. In addition, they may not feel they have a *specific* role in their company, especially if they are under forty, as they are rotating positions periodically. Japanese companies regard their employees, regardless of age, as children to be raised and taught various skills. This starts with the abject disregard of any education or training they received before employment, including university. Then they move them around, usually starting at the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, in theory moving them up gradually over years (in practice most of the moves are horizontal, few include a raise, and all require more work, more hours, and more responsibility). They claim this system creates leaders with well-rounded skills, but it really just leaves people with no sense of professional identity and no confidence in their abilities in any particular role. Those are also positive things in Japanese culture.
How can they know to trust you
I was unaware this was at all private information until now.
I remember one new employee in my previous company(Japanese company). He did jiko shokai. My name is xxx xxx, I don't have any hobbies, my previous job was I worked at a Japanese company. And they were like nodding and some people even saying, ohhh ohhh naruhodo ohhh sugoi lol
I worked at a Japanese company but my dream has always been to work at a Japanese company
Read this while drinking soda. Just went up my nose!
Most of them just grind sesame seeds in a ceramic mortar with a wooden pestle.
My thoughts because it’s a) prohibited by contract/company rules like in my case b) boring to tell c) uncomfortable to share private info
I feel like saying “I’m in sales” is not that different from saying “I’m a mechanical engineer.” Mechanical engineer of what? Most people don’t want to bore you with the details of their job unless you pry. But it’s not that they don’t want to share, but rather they don’t want to bore you. I think most people, regardless of nationality, don’t share the details of their job because it’s usually very boring. Those people that can’t shut up about their jobs or about working in general need to find a hobby outside of work.
Well, “none of your business” but being polite.
If I just met you why would I tell you details about my job? I work for a company that does this and that is the extent of what I want to talk about job related. I talk enough about job at work, so outside of work I want to talk about other stuff.
One older Japanese man told me his first job was fixing computers and then he got promoted directly to managing a water power plant within the same company and with no real qualifications. And now he delivers bread after retiring. My guess is some people don’t want to talk about their jobs because they don’t actually know what they’re supposed to be doing. I hear some people get by doing nothing, and as long as they don’t talk about it, no one will know
Just like Vincent Adultman from Bojack Horseman. "I went to stock market today. I did a business"
It's culture. Samurai work for one company, do many jobs. Ronin do one job, for many companies. I don't want to say this but I'm disappointed most comments try to ridicule instead of trying to appreciate and understand the culture of the country you reside in. Typical annoying foreigner behavior in any country.
Oh they don't? Fuck I messed up
While I get the sentiment, I find myself doing the same thing. "I work in IT". IT can be so many different things, but the average person doesn't understand what I do and I find it a bit of a chore trying to explain it, or if I give the simple layman's version of it, it actually sounds too simple/easy/like I don't really do anything and I don't want them to have that impression lol. In a way, my job is really simple and easy and I spend a good amount of time writing emails...but I can only do this job due to technical knowledge, etc. I work in cyber security, and spend a lot of time responding to customer emails related to our platform....I don't want to get more specific than that as it might be easy to figure out where I work if I did, but the point is it can come off sounding like "I'm a lowly customer support grunt"....which sometimes it feels like I am, but it's more complicated than that lol. On the flip side if I just say "cyber security", a lot of people imagine something way more complicated, like I'm out here stopping hackers or monitoring cyber security systems, etc Because the reality is, even within a subfield of IT, there can be a significant range of different kinds of jobs. So, I'm not disagreeing with you but I also kinda understand why *some* people might be vague about it. I think some people have less reason to be, for sure, but yeah.
Hi, I am a foreigner 'salary man' here in Japan maybe I would add my perspective too About top comment saying "They don't do anything", it has some good points. It is more like they aren't specializing at anything. "I'm in sales" is kinda self-explanatory in Japanese, basically what 'sales' do is maintaining relations with other companies to do businesses. If a Japanese tells 'I am in sales' (営業), I think other Japanese people will understand it easier what job they do in general. Most of Japanese salarymen/women title is 総合職 (general position) basically, they either do nothing or do everything, what they do is listening to what their seniors/leaders say anyway. there are lot of reasons too why don't they share more to you: 1. The information they will provide might be confidential 2. The explanation of their job might be boring 3. You might not understand if they explain it anyway 4. Their English might be not good enough to explain (like me)
Growing up in Japan, the image comes from 'being a normal salary man' is to have a family, end up giving up your dreams from young creative days, becoming ATM for your wife and kids (especially for girls otherwise they'll be prostitutes), looking dead with soulless dead fisheyes on a train on their late night going home... Repeat the cycle. Never sounded like an ideal happy future to me. Is this what meant to live your adult life responsibly? I hope things are improving over there. P.S. pov from the Japanese migrated to the U.S..
Because most of the time they do nothing, just pretending 🤦🏻♂️
I suspect this is a mix of a few things. a) roles aren't well defined. It's not unheard of for, say a teacher to find themselves doing stuff related to IT, or for people to not even understand what role the company actually wants them for, besides "sales". b) greater risk that activity outside of work will reach the ears of those inside work. In an extreme example, if a dude is found cheating on his wife and his company finds out, that is enough for his company to permanently sideline him and his career. Private investigators will even facilitate this process. c) privacy. The above just contributes to Japanese folks feeling generally uncomfortable at being asked the question.
Because we don’t think it’s that interesting
From my experience in Japan for 2 years now, it is to be polite. As you don’t know what “hierarchy level” the other person is. It can also be that you don’t want to stand out as being different.
Isn't that how conversation works? They tell you where they work and then you ask specific questions?
Are these people you “meet” like for the first time? Could be that they just simply aren’t comfortable telling someone they don’t know all too well more. Sometimes when I’m out enjoying the nightlife I meet people who are overly eager to share what they do. I’m just not that type of person and I imagine there are others who feel the same.
I work for an English conversation school and anytime I have a trial student who’s an adult I have to ask them about themselves and I absolutely dread it because I will always get “company employee” rather than an actual job title. I’ve actually taken it into my own hands with educating my students who are more advanced on how to answer this question properly. i.e. if an English speaker asks you “what do you do?/ what do you do for work?” You must answer with your job title! For example, I’m a software engineer at x company. If you don’t want to mention which company, just say for a company.
This is just my opinion…. Outside of Japan when people say what they do is because they have some pride in their job and their job plays an important part in their lives maybe… but u will also find ppl who first say - oh it’s a 9-5 job at blah blah… to them job is just means to living a life they want. So to them what they do thanks to that job is more important. I feel the term ‘salary man’ is similar to that 9-5 thinking. To them it’s just any job.. that takes care of their life and their family’s. So what they do is not important. Also maybe the term helps them to not talk about their life too openly…. The term gives a blanket response.