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I’ve been working as a translator for a Japanese IT (information technology) company since June this year, even though I’m such a computer-illiterate person. lol Anyway, it just happened and my translation work doesn’t really require something technical so much, and even if it does, I can always ask around the engineers to get the exact image.

So my point here is that I’ve got a chance to see inside　of a Japanese IT industry.
I’ve worked at a few Japanese companies so far, but I’ve never ever seen that employees are working day and night almost without sleeping!! In fact, what’s happening in the company I work for now is that delivery deadline is close and employees are staying up (over-time work) till midnight or even till 3 or 4am next morning and then start working from 9am again next day (already the same day!) .

Some male workers are working overnight for 2 days and 2 nights. I’m so shocked to know that. I couldn’t believe what I heard and what’s more, it was even shocking to me that those who are compelled to work like that say it’s how it is and they don’t feel anything about that! I wonder how could such working condition be taken as granted and approved!? (FYI, the company I work for now is a large corporation that every Japanese person from children to the elderly definitely knows its name.) I wouldn’t be able to accept that if I were the worker who had to work like that. I mean, if it’s my own business and my own project and I want to do it overnight with excitement, based on my own will, that would be possible but being kind of forced by a boss and doing this every now and then as a matter or course is just no way to me!! (T___T)

I told this story to some people including my husband and again I was shocked how most of them said that it’d be normal in Japan. I still feel shocked today.

BTW, I found this graph from Expedia Japan how difficult it is for the Japanese to take paid holidays. The graph shows in gray how many paid holidays were given yearly (in 2012) and how many of them were actually taken in red. I remember a German girl told me before that it was normal in Germany to have 30 paid holidays besides some sick leaves. In Japan, we have to use paid holidays for sick leaves. I don’t know if sick leaves are given aside from paid holidays in all of the other countries in this graph. If so, that should be also mentioned to illustrate how our working situation is outstandingly miserable!!

As you can imagine, this company is not doing something illegal. The workers working extra hours get paid extra. This is how the Japanese workers defend the deadline to the death. There’s imbalance of employment in our society that such workers are working like a horse while many people are jobless. Work sharing has never worked out in Japan.

I wonder…would it be normal in your country as well to do over-time work till 3 or 4am and start working for the next day from 9am again and do such from time to time when deadline is close? I can’t believe most of Japanese workers think it’s normal, but what do you think about that?

It’s my rambling post. :p
I think I’ve been writing all day long in English because I’m working full-time at a Japanese company only for this month. Coming back home and now writing this blog is not easy but let me share with you what I found at work.

Many years I was working as a freelance and for the past few years I was mostly working from home. So it was kind of fresh to me to work at a company. Things looked quite surprising to me, who have been away from “office” for a long time.

Craving for color…
The interior, especially the color scheme of the office is monotonous. It’s gray, gray and gray. Maybe there are some blue, white and black but mostly things are in light to mid gray. Male workers are mostly wearing a gray suit, and they are the majority at the office, due to the characteristics of the industry. There are only a few women including me. It was surprising that I craved for color so badly after a few hours in full of gray. Luckily, the office is surrounded by several shopping malls, my eyes and soul were comforted during the lunch time at window shopping. ^ ^;;

What a surprise! This color scheme is not very unique in Japan. Most of the Japanese company offices have a boring color scheme. But I’ve never been driven to this state of mind before. I guess my eyes are totally used to seeing various colors at a time, while I keep working from home. The big difference will be lack of green and wood, I think. At home there are some plants, wooden desk, wooden table, and wooden flooring. Also chairs are upholstered with orange and yellow fabric, the lighting is in yellow, not bright white…and as you know Pi-chan is always around me. While I write this I noticed there’s almost NO GRAY at home! My keyboard is in light gray…I guess that’s all. ^ ^;;

It doesn’t mean that I dislike gray. I like to wear gray colored pants or sweat shirt especially when I want to relax at home. To me, somehow gray is the color to veg out. (lol) But I guess I don’t like to see the color in large area. Well, it’s not the end of the world but it was interesting that I missed seeing colors so badly! Do you have a similar experience? How is your working environment?

Over-time work for 100 hours monthly!?
It’s still the same some workers do over-time work for 100 hours per month and almost every month when they are busy! I happened to hear what some employees were chatting near me. I’ve posted about Japanese working environment and etc. before but the situation is still like that! It is normal in our culture to work over-time in order to catch up with the deadline, or to satisfy the customers. Thus, 24-hour operation or working on Saturdays and Sundays are not something extreme in Japan. Many workers do that to defend the deadline to the death. This is quite comfortable from customer’s side because everything is expected on time. Delivery service for example, never fails to delay. When it’s specified from 12pm to 2pm of a certain day, it is delivered during that period of the day that is specified. Behind that, the workers may be skipping meals, cancelling date, working extra hours, and etc. which is not always perceived by their customers. I will quietly show some respect to them and want to say “Otsukaresama desu!” to console their hard work.

I’ll go back to my work from home next month, until that time, I may blog about my daily life sometimes.