The Japanese Working Culture

[mrnicekid]

Hi everyone!

I'm very new here, in fact this is my very first post!

Anyways, now I'm in my final year in my studies and I've accepted a job offer to work with a Japanese company based in Tokyo, as an engineer starting from May of 2009.

Whenever I told my non-japanese friends that I'm going to work in a Japanese company in Japan, a lot of them gave a lot of bad impression about the working culture in a Japanese company; like how stressfull and hard it is.

The problem is, they have never worked in a Japanese company before! but they still made these comments. I knew Japan is famous with 過労死 (Karoshi - death from over-work) but I think this is not the norm.

I just want to know whether there are anyone who is working in a technology-based Japanese company, preferably as an engineer? I want to know the 'real' stories about how does it feel to be working in a Japanese company.

The Japanese company that I am going to join is going to be the first company that I am going to work for after graduation, so I really have zero idea on how a normal society's working habits are.

よろしくお願いします　（- - ）

[MMM]

http://www.japanforum.com/forum/gene...rs-rights.html

Nyororin is the expert. She lives in Japan and has a family there.

AlphaDuck is not. He doesn't speak Japanese and has never been to Japan.

This should help.

[mrnicekid]

wow thanks for the fast response!

I'll try to absorb those information slowly...

do you work in Japan?

[MMM]

Originally Posted by mrnicekid

wow thanks for the fast response!

I'll try to absorb those information slowly...

do you work in Japan?

I used to, but I try and visit every year...

[samokan]

ive work for the past 8.5 years in a Japanese company as a software design engineer.. what do you want to know specifically ? 4 years of which is in Japan..

first what kind of an engineer are you?

[mrnicekid]

Originally Posted by samokan

ive work for the past 8.5 years in a Japanese company as a software design engineer.. what do you want to know specifically ? 4 years of which is in Japan..

first what kind of an engineer are you?

waah senpai !

i'm doing mechanical engineering right now and when i enter the company next year, probably they are going to send me to PRODUCTION (生産) or perhaps DESIGN (設計). that depends of my training.

what i want to know specifically is the working culture as an engineer in a japanese company located in japan. please do spend the time to share your experiences!

additional note: i spend 1 year in tokyo to learn japanese, then another 3 years in nagano for my diploma (mechanical engineering) and now i'm in my final year of my 2-years program bachelor's degree (also in mechanical engineering) in akita.

training will be in tokyo for a year and i requested to be transferred to one of their plants in nagoya after training.

right now i'm focusing on finishing my thesis on time so that i could graduate without any problems

[Nyororin]

I wouldn`t really say I`m an expert by any stretch. It`s not as if I`ve actually worked as an engineer in a Japanese company.

My husband, however, is a head SE so I do have a fairly good idea of the atmosphere. (Plus, when he can`t find anybody in house to do the work he brings stuff home and makes me do 入力 :P )

If you`ll be working in Nagoya, paths may cross as he`s sent all over the place.

[jasonbvr]

You will be fine. Gaijin in skilled trades get special treatment.

If you are a US citizen and intending to work for more than one year in Japan, I highly recommend Form 8802 in order to exempt yourself from Japanese taxes. Here is the link, Foreign Certification Requests - Form 6166

[mrnicekid]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I wouldn`t really say I`m an expert by any stretch. It`s not as if I`ve actually worked as an engineer in a Japanese company.

My husband, however, is a head SE so I do have a fairly good idea of the atmosphere. (Plus, when he can`t find anybody in house to do the work he brings stuff home and makes me do 入力 :P )

If you`ll be working in Nagoya, paths may cross as he`s sent all over the place.

does he come home late every night? i do hear a system of compulsory overtime, but that can't be too hard... i hope...

nagoya is just perfect for me. still a big city but not too crowded for me

Originally Posted by jasonbvr

You will be fine. Gaijin in skilled trades get special treatment.

If you are a US citizen and intending to work for more than one year in Japan, I highly recommend Form 8802 in order to exempt yourself from Japanese taxes. Here is the link, Foreign Certification Requests - Form 6166

well i guess i'll be fine, as long as i don't expect for special treatment

wow us citizens got tax exemption? how fortunate!

i'm malaysian by the way and i don't think my government is strong enough to have such policy implemented.

[StangGuy]

I haven't worked in a Japanese company, but for 6 months last year I worked with a Japanese company and their engineers. I'm a mechanical enginer and my company builds tooling and automation equipment. I worked with their mechanical and manufacturing engineers.

In general their work habits aren't any different than US engineers. If you have something that you need to do you work as long as you have to. If you don't you go home at 5 or 6.

During an early design review we were a little behind in the agenda but we left at 6 because there was enough time the next day to cover everything. We actually finished that next day a little early.

At several later design/schedule meetings and during the install process they were generally at work until 8pm or later. In this regard I didn't see any difference between US and Japanese engineers.

The largest difference I saw was in the very regimented seniority and the way it was expressed. Their head engineer would occasionally ask one of us for some information. When we gathered that information we couldn't go back to him, we had to talk one of the younger engineers and they would relay the information. Additionally, senior engineers would often ask younger engineers to deal with menial or secretarial tasks.

And because this is the first company you will work for, it doesn't matter what their culture is, you will consider it normal. It is that way for me where I work.