Welcome to the fifth and final part of my discussion on Japanese business culture based on my personal experience working in Japan. I hope to continue drawing on this experience for the rest of this blog, but after this post I will put the topic to rest to return to justajae: a racial project's original purpose.
chapter five
残業・過労死
zangyō ・karōshi
Now, this part is a little more sensitive than a lot of us give it credit for -- zangyō and karōshi, or overtime and death from overworking. For those of you who are familiar with the case, in 2015 an employee at the advertising agency Dentsu committed suicide due to overworking. In 2013, an employee at NHK passed away from heart failure due to overworking. The deaths marked a nation-wide awareness campaign called 働き方改革 hatarakikata-kaikaku, or "improving the workplace" instigated by the government. Employees were encouraged through a series of implementations to go home on time, take vacation days, and improve the work environment.
When I heard about these cases in Japan, I labeled them as outliers. I subconsciously and unfairly attributed their professions to their deaths, and told myself that if I chose carefully about the place that I worked, I would be safe.
Yeah.... no.
Before I tell you my experience prior to leaving Japan, please note that I worked at a company considered a ホワイト企業 or "white company," which contrasts with the term ブラック企業 "black company" (a term that does not refer to race or ethnicity). "Black company" denotes a horrible workplace with power harassment, sexual harassment, severe overworking, and the like.
The company I chose is highly popular among females in Japan, and is considered to be one of the best workplaces in the nation. And within most of the company, I suppose it is. Mine, unfortunately, wasn't in terms of environment.
I worked overtime every day, from 8AM to 8PM, sometimes going until 10PM. My job was high-risk, high-stress, and extremely time-consuming, so I spent the entire time working.
I felt too busy to eat lunch, so I didn't for a while. Of course, due to the overtime, my dinner was often the M&Ms I had stored in my desk drawer to keep me awake. After work, I would drag myself home and eat a microwave meal. You would think that when I got home I would fall asleep, but my brain was in hyperactive mode until hours past midnight. After a few hours of sleep, I would wake up and do it all over again.
I lost weight. I burst into fever, at one point over twice a week. I became severely ill, and had to stay home from work for three days. I developed back pain so severe that I couldn't get out of bed for an entire day. I would often come home and spend hours just sobbing, and the next day feel so numb that I considered hopping on a plane back to the states and never coming back. My friends became so concerned that they started forcing me out of my chair to eat something, anything. I am not ashamed to say I started going to company counseling immediately after I realized my situation.
Now, sitting here and writing these words, all of this sounds bad. I mean, REALLY AWFUL. But at the time, it seemed normal. When I told people around me, they shrugged and told stories of how they went through things 30xs worse, and they were. All of the implementations from the national campaign were worthless, because they could easily be circumvented.
If this doesn't shorten your lifespan, I don't know what will.
This is a real story. Not a word of this is made-up, or even exaggerated. There are also tons of other real stories out there of thriving in the Japanese workplace. I encourage everyone to go out and find them, and comment below.
Thank you for reading my work in Japan series! This is my final post on the topic of my experience, but please stay tuned to check out my future plans in Japan, along with some more Asian American-oriented posts.
Best,
justajae