Slashdot Mirror
Some Workers in Japan Who Want To Leave Their Jobs Are Paying a Startup To Tell Their Bosses That They Won't Be Back (japantimes.co.jp)
Stressed out, overworked, or just over it: Workers in Japan who want to leave their jobs -- but don't want to face the stress of quitting in person -- are paying a startup called Exit to tell their bosses that they won't be back. Local media reports: "Quitting jobs can be a soul-crushing hassle. We're here to provide a sense of relief by taking on that burden," said Toshiyuki Niino, co-founder of Senshi S, a startup he and childhood friend Yuichiro Okazaki launched last year. The company operates Exit, a service that relays an employee's intention to resign for a fee: $450 for full-time employees and $360 for part-time workers. Repeat clients get a $90 discount. Whether or not people consider that expensive depends on how desperate they are. But if business is any indication, many regard it as a worthy investment for some much-needed peace of mind. In the one year since Niino and Okazaki set up shop, they have mediated the resignations of roughly 700 to 800 clients from across the nation as the number of requests surge. Amid a tight job market and an improving economy, more workers are changing jobs, lured by higher salaries and fewer hours.
I clearly don't identify with japanese workers because the couple times I've quit I was in no way scared. Probably more secretly gleeful.
Japanese culture is fucked. I mean, lotta good shit, like making kids clean up in school, which is probably why they cleaned up the stadium after losing. But, man, as far as their social interaction goes, shit seems sooooo fucked.
Might as well hire someone to break up with your significant other too. Or... how about grow up, schedule a meeting with your boss, and explain to them in a respectful way that you've decided to move on and you're hereby providing your 2 weeks notice. Explain that you'll work to make the transition as easy as possible by transferring knowledge to other workers, and provide a personal email contact they can use in case you forgot to tell them where something is before you leave. Tell them you're thankful for the opportunity you had to work there. When they ask why you're leaving, don't complain about the current employer, just make up some acceptable excuse like "opportunities" or "location" etc. It's a small world, don't burn bridges!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I agree. Quitting a crap job or an abusive boss can be a deeply cathartic experience. If you're suffering from stress or burn-out, it is a great first step on the road to recovery. Don't miss out on such a deeply satisfying experience.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Get with the 21st century! Surely the proper way to leave a crappy job is to ghost and just stop coming in.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's because of so call "black companies". The take advantage of employees and flout the relatively weak labour laws. Japan has relied on social convention rather than the force of law, so black companies abuse that to their advantage.
When people try to quit they pile on the pressure. Guilt, threats to pass on costs, lies about contracts. So using a service to help quit is a bit like hiring a lawyer, only cheaper.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Can I pay someone to tell my girlfriend I'm breaking up with her? 'Cause I tend to date psychopaths...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Not enough guns.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Well, taking a healthy dump on the boss' desk right before you tell him to kiss your ass does bring catharsis and relief at the same time, but...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
AWS mail server will eat through that no problem
I've heard that Japanese employers are almost paternal when it comes to keeping employees around for an entire career. I guess in an environment like that, where you graduate school and are employed with one firm for your entire life it would be hard to quit. It also explains why Japanese employees put up with whatever their bosses demand...apparently getting hired anywhere else after being let go is impossible.
I hate the US attitude that all employees are disposable, but having a culture like this isn't a good solution either. I also read this article that basically says all large companies come around only _once_ to recruit new graduates, then never accept any new hires. What do people do if, for whatever reason, they mess up the last year of university and don't get picked? Are they out of a job forever?
I admit that I'm not one who easily rage-quits jobs and have never had a position for less than 5 years. I know that's a minority position in the tech industry...especially with the Second Dotcom Bubble I'm starting to see more instances of employees throwing a tantrum and just walking into another job the second things don't go exactly their way. But paying someone to quit on your behalf? That's definitely something built into the culture.
I think the opposite could be a business here in the West. Open a start-up where customers can purchase the opportunity to tell someone else's boss that the person has quit their job. The start-up (call it Peaz, or iQuit?) could get a percentage of the transaction. (Ads: Wanna tell someone's boss to take a hike, she ain't coming back? Visit our website!)
I really can't imagine the degree of cowardice necessary to actually pay someone to inform an employer that you're quitting.
The Japanese probably would see your method as barbaric and deeply impolite.
Different cultures. Let's respect them as long as they aren't imposed onto us.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The Japanese devote a great deal of attention and concern to abiding conventions for social interaction. I believe it a weak claim (how would you ever test such a thing experimentally?) but there is a theory that the historical necessity for large-scale coordinated communal rice planting and harvesting exerted selective pressure for personality traits of conformism, cooperation and agreeableness. With more certainty, Japan is a substantially racially uniform culture, and there is loads of psychological and sociological evidence that racial diversity promotes social disharmony. About 98.5% of residents of Japan are ethnic Japanese. As the Japanese Government states: "...there are no issues of race relations among Japanese citizens as they are all of the same race". It's a little fishy because they include small domestic minorities such as the Ainu, but still those would not be substantial minorities if categorized out and to some degree they remain geographically isolated within Japan.
Regardless of the causes for it, Japanese society is extraordinarily and wonderfully polite, civil and organized. However, that has the trade-off that social norms become so suffocating that Japanese seek escape from social obligations and comfort in relationships in what seems to westerners, bizarre commercial services. Following the rules means that sometimes the best way to get what you want while staying in bounds is to purchase it.
Japan's Rent-a-Family Industry
How to Hire Fake Friends and Family
Rental family service
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I really can't imagine...
Hello, there's your problem right there.
You can't imagine that there might be other cultures that have different ways of dealing with each other.
You should get out into the world more. It might open your eyes.
There were companies like that in the UK. There was one company who hired city lawyers to threaten employees that they would be held personally responsible for the financial loss of a defence contract if the project wasn't completed on time. All resignations would be refused. So employees started taking out life insurance policies and dying in mysterious circumstances like walking over a cliff or driving into a lamp-post.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Japanese culture is about "duty". Duty to family, duty to workplace, duty to society. It's the key aspect of culture.
It occupies the same cultural primacy slot that is occupied by "individual responsibility" in Western cultures. It's why in Japan, bosses often killed themselves when they had to fire workers. Because bosses had the same duty to those workers as workers had to the company, and by firing them, they failed at the primary cultural tenet. It is the deepest failure one can have. It's one from which you don't come back from. The loss of face due to this is effectively permanent, and in East Asian cultures, face is everything. Even real life performance is less valuable than face.
Same road goes the other way. To quit is a severe cultural infraction, because workers carry the same responsibility of "duty", and to quit the company is to be in dereliction of said duty. It's a loss of face that is permanently on your record, one you don't come back from. Hence the stressfulness of situation where you have to tell your boss you're quitting.
This is slowly changing in Japan, mainly driven by the catastrophic birth rate, which means that capable workers are no longer utterly crippled by quitting their first "real job after the university" for the rest of their career. But just because you remain employable, unlike before, doesn't mean that it's any more culturally acceptable of a situation.
Empathy is a huge part. That is why they wear a mask. To protect others.
The US culture has a lot of lack of empathy.
On the empathy scale, they are on complete different sides.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Damn man, you have been so fucked over you don't know what is going on. This is Japan the non-disposable work force. Companies are loyal to workers, workers at a company are loyal to each other, sense of honour, of commitment to the company, other staff members and customers, has real import, real personal value. When you quit, you abandon the loyalty the company has shown you, the loyalty of fellow employees and the loyalty of your customers.
That is why the stress when leaving ie disposable workers == disposable companies == disposable customers (straight up psychopathic business practices), Japan, valued workers == valued company == valued customers. Why should I give a fuck about the company or it's customers when they do not give a fuck about me.
The US, as long as you can legally get away with it, fuck over everyone just as hard as you can (lie, cheat, steal and kill, as long as the penalties are lesser than the profits or of course you can get away with it via corruption), you are not a human being, you are some fucking weird pathetic simile of a Ferengi, who as it turns out are based upon, guess who, Yankee Traders, Americans == Ferengi, excluding the ears of course, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... , lessons in how to be an American business person.
A company executives should feel bad with they betray the loyalty of an employee. Employee should feel bad when the betray the loyalty of a company. Both company and employee should feel bad when they betray customers and customers should feel bad when they cheat companies. Anything else is insane psychopathy or in the US case, taught sociopathy as a result of the routine abuse of psychopaths. You no longer understand inhumane behaviour for you it has become sociopathically normal and is no longer considered anti-social behaviour, when it most emphatically is.
This story is a prime example of why I would much prefer to live in Japan over the US, from an Australian perspective. I am not a rabid dog, that eats other rabid dogs.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
We're talking about Japan here. At least make it a Haiku (a polite one of course):
Sorry, so sorry.
Working here was delightful.
A new job calls me.
Empathy is a huge part. That is why they wear a mask. To protect others.
They wear masks for a lot of reasons and protecting others from illness is not foremost among them for many Japanese. In many cases it is to protect themselves from illness or from allergens.
The US culture has a lot of lack of empathy.
That's simply not true as a broad brush statement. Americans are by and large very empathetic people. Hell we greet each other with salutations like "how are you" which people from many other countries find rather intrusive. You seem to be confusing our taste for independence and autonomy with our empathy for others. Sometimes those things are at odds which explains some of our bi-polar policy behavior. And like any big country we have segments of the population (and certain leaders) that have more empathy than others. But any claim that Americans as a general proposition are not an empathetic people is simply not consistent with the facts.
On the empathy scale, they are on complete different sides.
Simply not true. The difference is in how it is expressed, not how much of it there is.