7 posts tagged “japanese companies”

Actually a sub-headline in a page one article in today's WaPo:  For U.S. Autoworkers, Future Hinges on Adaptability.

Amen, Hosanna, right on etc. to that!

Yes management has made some colossal blunders, primarily not recognizing until very late in the game the nature of Japanese- now Asian, competition.  But their union partners have their fair share of blame too.

I've been a union member, Retail Clerks way back in the day while working through college.  First thing that struck me then as now is the 'us vs. them' mentally.  Perhaps way, way back in the day, that may have been valid, but  management & labor are symbiotically joined at the waist and have been for decades I would argue,  and thus  are co-dependent on one another.  While a union member, from what I saw of the union's promotion of this mindset was more self-aggrandizement than rooted in reality.  Second the inflexibility.  Then as I am assuming now, job categories were fixed in stone, which creates much inefficiency.   Unions have hard job categories, to protect jobs, but this has in fact cost their members jobs.

Last in the very nature of assembly line work, and I speak from personal experience too. At large international automobile producer #1, all new hires, including Moi, spend time on the final assembly line actually slapping cars together.  It was called 工場自習( I think that is the correct kanji) , but we joked it was closer to boot camp.

It was one of the hardest experiences during my time there, but also one of the most educational too.  One take away from my own experience is that while yes, its painfully boring,  repetitious and not something I would want to spend my professional life doing,  it is not skilled labor.  The work does not justify  the per hour rate union workers get for their time on the line. And in this day and age, I would even go so far to say that if there is a final assembly task still done by humans, its because a production engineer has not yet figured out a way to automate it or perhaps there is, but the technology is prohibitively expensive now to use it. 

Insensitive one can say, but the UAW should have seen this coming long, long time ago.

In short some foreign workers are being paid to leave Japan on the condition they never ever return to Japan to seek work.

Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face!  As part of a business trip back to Japan, I was taken for a meeting with reps from a seat belt company in 滋賀県 and later was given a tour of the factory.  Saw much and learned much from the tour, but what really impressed me was that the only Japanese I saw on the production floor were the班長's.  Everyone else were foreign workers. 

So if these guys go home, there will be Japanese willing to step up and perform the 3K (汚い、きつい、危険) jobs?

Farming, according to this article, may be the salvation for those unfortunate souls left behind by corporate Japan, who had in an unspoken social contract,  promised to be with them in good times and bad'

Farming is as the article says, hard, hard work. But there is sometimes a sense of satisfaction of seeing  some tangible results from your own labor.

Also reminded me of my own experience, living in the northern most reaches of Toyota-shi, in a村  with its own rules.    As we were in a  村  we were considered, after deliberation, exempt, which was both good and bad.  Nothing was expected of us so when it came time for all to assemble and do communal weeding, we weren't expected to join in.  But on the other hand,  we were sort of tolerated but not fully accepted.

Also living in Central Japan, while looked down upon by east ( 東京) and west (関西 ) of us,  had its advantages in that if you needed to get out to some uncluttered greenery,  you need only drive perhaps 50 minutes or so towards the mountains, and you would find yourself in countryside.

In an article yesterday on developments at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, there was mention of  the use of  くんas an honorific.  Now this puzzled me as it been my understanding that as a general rule  くん is used by a person addressing another person who is deemed socially 'inferior' (yes, I also realize it's used by parents to a young boy, or between close friends as a term of endearment). Thus as opposed to さん,様, or  殿 it does not elevate the person addressed but rather 'puts them in their place'.

I asked the in-house cultural expert and got a tirade of 'How long did you live in Japan/have you spoken Japanese?!, which was not helpful, but 'くん is an honorific, dummy'.  Technically I guess it is, but I can't get past the cultural, social connotations either (If the truth be known though, when I was a  係長 at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, it was a secret wish to call my  部下asくん . ;-)  )

And there's the humorous aspect too.  At Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1, there was a   課長who we foreigners dubbed ばかもん M., Not because he was stupid, but because he had a very, very short fuse and we knew this fuse was lit when he would shout, ばかもん ! at the unfortunate soul standing before him.  The thought of me going up to him and saying     あの、Ｍ君、相談がありますが。  and visualizing the look on his face is enough for a whole day of inner grins.

For me it was a bit of a distant mirror.  My  own 'addiction' could be traced to my job in Japan with Large Multinational Automobile manufacturer #1.  The 'normal' working day was 09:00 to 17:30, but as one Japanese man put it,  定時 for a man was 19:00.   I would arrive early, usually at around 07:3-0, partly to beat the traffic and to snag a decent parking space, and also to be able to call the overseas office if I needed to, while the staff was still there.  And I would work late, usually to about 20:00 but at times arrived early and left as late as 23:00. 

Back home and working for Large Multinational Automobile Manufacturer # 2,  I carried this 'addiction' with me.  I arrived at the office early, again partly out of the need to beat traffic and snatch one of the better parking spots, but also as this had been a great leap of faith for me, the was the psychological need to prove my worth, as failure would have left me with few options.  I would leave work perhaps 18:00 or 18:30 and after a few brief hours of unwinding at home, start the cycle as I did in Japan, over again the next morning.

Why on earth?  There is no one general reason. In Japan, some who I would term 残業泥棒, used overtime to greatly beef up the monthly salary check, and thus would glide along during the daytime hours and then when 17:30 rolled around, pour on the gas.  The employer  also fostered this to a certain extent.  for one thing, at 19:00 there was a 30 minute rest period during which the cafeteria opened up again to serve udon, soba, etc., just enough nourishment to get you over the hump.  Had no dinner been served, I think most employees would have gone home much earlier. 

Demands on one's time, particularly for the engineers was another factor. I had heard more than once  from the Japanese engineers I knew that most of their time was spent in meetings and it was only after 17:30 that they could devote their attention full-time to their 'to do' list. 

Last and perhaps a biggest factor, one that has been written about over and over, is the corporate culture of 'being in this together', which fosters a sense of 'I must be there'.  This is very effective in getting work done and 'moving the ball forward', it allows one to feel validated and responsible in some part for the success the company enjoys.  But it comes, as the article states, at a price. The price for this is that it leaves the person with very little else to fall back on when work stops, either out of restructuring, downsizing or retirement.

And thus we read about in Japan, about the　ぬれ落葉  husbands who, checked out of family life long ago and when work stops, are like wet leaves are simply in the way. Or here too, when what has been the center focus of 'life' for some, disappears and one is left with a 'WTF do I do now?' feeling.

I do miss the cooperate camaraderie and the sense of accomplishment ( sure as hell don't miss the commute!),  but during by unwilling absence for the workforce, I see now that there's is more than just heart and soul devotion to one's employer. To paraphrase a song written by the late George Harrison of the Beatles, 'Life goes on within you and without you.'

A western guy who  has now nearly 20 years at Large Multinational Automobile Manufacturer #1 in Japan. wanted to set up within a professional networking site, a group, composed of OBs from same said employer, which I guess  I'm going to be managing.

Anyway,  I asked, as I occasionally do, 'What's up?' over there and in the course of his reply, he mentioned a word  now in vogue, 'Hakken giri'. Now he typed in romanji and because of that I guess, the meaning puzzled me.  I was fixated on the word 'giri' as in 義理, but no,  it's not that.  The word's  true meaning is, as I was told, to cut part-time workers, so I guess the word is written as , 派遣切り

Things  must be tough all over

Even after all these years, I still get occasional tidbits of news about people I knew at Large International Automobile Manufacturer #1. 

There was much to observe and learn while working  there (Japan) and very once in a while someone (Japanese) would fall off the radar screen, being sent to what we the foreign employees would euphemistically call 'The Yamato Eraser Company, Ltd.', i.e., corporate Siberia.

Well, I got news about a  同期,not the same age as I, but we and a bunch of other guys entered the same department at the same time. Of the other guys in our 'class' he has risen above the others,  which did not surprise me, being sent twice on overseas assignments, returning, being made head of the dept., a man for whom preferment awaited.

 From what I have learned, this 同期 has now been relegated to writing  reports, has no staff reporting to him and he reports now to a マドギワズmanager. 

Now I realize I have no other information other than what I've just written, but it seems so odd that he was turned on so unexpectedly. Some people who reported to him, did have difficulty with him.  For me I had no problems, but then I did not ever report to him either. Perhaps he did as they say, 'blot his copybook'. Perhaps he has reached an age at which if he cannot move further upwards, he moves laterally. I just don't know.  But on the surface over the years it seemed to me that an employee who you had thought were doing their jobs suddenly were turned on by 人事 (HR) and sent down a road of no return, while others, who seems to screw up and whose only function was to ingratiate themselves to those who pulled the levers, managed to flourish.

Is this a particularly Japanese corporate thing?  Can't say as  believe it or not, I have yet to work for a purely western employer.  One observation I think I can make is that in a Japanese company, 人事 (HR) has far greater power than an HR department here, acting almost like a modern-day Praetorian Guard, answerable only to themselves.