Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
Someone downvoted you... All I know is that Konami is practically dead after Kojima left. The rumors of power harassment were legendary at that company, and he'd had enough. Eight years ago, I quit my teaching job and worked at a Japanese company. I quit after 8 months or so as I wasn't gonna take crap from the lousy business manager anymore. Not for the lower pay they were giving me. He was a narcissist and I was one of many who all quit around the same time because we couldn't stand the prick. Power harassment is pretty bad in Japan. There's a notorious case in which a company was having an "enkai" drink/dinner at some restaurant and a power-mad manager shoved a subordinate's face into the boiling nabe plate and boiled the poor guy's face. Imagine taking the unhappiest, loneliest, most loathsome and sexually-frustrated person and put him in charge of others.
Konami management was apparently big into public shaming. Japan really needs an overhaul on its concept of work because in theory it should be fun to work at a gaming company like that. They shouldn't be made to dread their own lives. I have no idea what Konami does anymore these days. We'll never have another Gradius game at this point.
They make video poker and other games that are even more addictive and draining.
Video poker? BORING. I want Axelay 2.
Pays the bills. But still a 10 out of 10 on the jerkoff management scale. So I hear.
Did they arrest the power-mad manager?
I heard they kept turning off the power to Kojima’s department, so his team had to rely on portable generators to work on the game.
Ya i agree, I personally prefer to visit as a tourist than to actually live there.
I'm sure u/stevethefish76 can elaborate on that better than I can since he's literally there in Japan, but work ethics is pretty much like that in Japan.
They will have you work and work for hours and sleep there at the corporate office and take a shower or wash yourself at the sink in the employee restrooms.
You have to literally kiss their feet and asses to get at least one rung above on the ladder if you want to succeed. If you badmouth or underperform, they will shame you for eternity.
They can't really fire you unless you commit a heinous crime like murder or embezzlement so basically you're chained up to the company unless you commit seppuku or jump out of the window.
I believe if you quit, they will make it hard for you to find another job elsewhere. That's why we see a lot of NEETs (No Education, Employment or Training) living at home, playing video games and watching anime cuz they don't even want to work for a company that treats you like shit.
Yes. I quit the company I worked at for only 8 months and went back to teaching where I had far less stress, better pay, and every time I walk into a classroom, the kids rejoice. Far better than the grumpy dickbrain who pretended to not understand my Japanese. At that company, The workday was from 8am to 5:30pm, but could I leave at 5:30? Oh no no no, I had to stay until at LEAST 6, pretending to be busy, just for optics. It is such bullshit but it was a traditional company after all. That company made everyone sign an agreement that if they were to quit, they couldn't work at another company in that industry for one year. I know others complained to the business ethics department in that city... I forget how to call it. The labor board or whatever.
The "bosshole" as I call him had a knack of hiring people who did not care about what the company did. Imagine working at a nerd-related company yet not be interested in the subject matter. He did have a penchant for hiring pretty young girls. One guy he'd hired for the team made an inappropriate comment to one of the women and the bosshole humiliated him, forced him to apologize publicly to EVERYONE, removed him from the business group, and made him work the warehouse until his initial 3-month contract expired. Then he was replaced by another young, attractive woman. I saw that cretin try to flirt with one young woman with a feather duster, pretending to tickle her. Holy shit, it made me wanna puke. She was sleeping with the guy who worked at the company's boxing plant though, which made it even funnier. He drove like a total asshole too. When I quit, the president wanted to ask me why I was quitting. I told him that if he doesn't fix the business manager, more will quit because everyone hates him. He didn't listen to me, so more quit. They'd both gone to the same high school together, one for low-level students with bad grades. Eventually the bosshole finally did get shitcanned. One of the R&D project manager guys who quit moved to Tokyo and after a year began working for another company in that industry. I sometimes do translation work for him.
Many of the people at that company were pretty based. Obama came to Japan that August to boo-hoo whine and grovel about how evil America is because we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki that month in 1945. The guys there were like, "We don't care to hear Obama's apologies for something he had nothing to do with. We don't need to hear that crap." Going back to education though, the people aren't quite as interesting, and they believe whatever the TV news says. The vaccination rate is extremely high among teachers here, it seems. That friend of mine who moved to Tokyo, as well as my former team lead did not get vaccinated because they could tell it was BS.
Anyhow, they need to overhaul Japanese labor laws. No more of that crap about new employees feeling obligated to work longer hours to somehow "prove" themselves, no more crap about how the managers can dress comfortably but their subordinates cannot, no more valuing looking busy over actual results, etc. I did my share of mandatory overtime when I worked at American countries, but they also had crunches before deadlines and such. At the company I worked at, they didn't even pay you for overtime until it surpassed 10 hours per week. And when there was a holiday, we were expected to work the next Saturday and if we didn't want to, we'd have to use a day of PTO. Such BS.
u/QToad
Damn, yeah exactly what I've heard about work ethics in Japan. Harsh and unforgiving.
I'm imagining they had pompadours, dressed like gangsters wielding a bat or chains, rode motorcycles and had ganguro girlfriends. They probably even smoked in the bathroom and bullied the cowardly teachers.
lol
Haha! That’s a good one.
I’ve heard about that too, workplace-politics.
At my work, we got a new big boss, the new big boss sent away all of the managers who they didn’t like to other buildings.
That makes sense, “Education/Academics” is basically learning/memorizing information that is approved by the gubment. ‘If it’s not in the books; it can’t be right.’
…I saw this Australian guy who lives in japan with a Japanese wife. “TheJapanChannelDotCom”.
He showed a wheel-barrel that nobody was using.
He said, “Nobody is using the wheel-barrel because they don’t want to look lazy, even if it would be more efficient to use it, so they just leave it on the ground.”
He also showed a guy painting a very long/tall outdoor hallway by hand with a brush, saying that the guy is painting it by hand so that everyone can see he’s working extra hard, versus using a roller, spray paint, etc.
That’s good to hear that they are based despite having Fake News too (NHK).
However I did also recently see a guy on the street showing Japanese youth the Swatstika, most of them didn’t know what it was. Weird since they know about the atomic bombs but Germany was their ally too.
I just looked up the story. Apparently it was the company president, who was a crappy 25 year old kid. He was not arrested. The guy who had his face burned had to sue the company. Wow. I'd seen the video before on TV, but I assumed it was some department manager not some snot-nosed young punk who became company president. Probably because he inherited the company through family.
https://stomp.straitstimes.com/singapore-seen/japanese-worker-sues-company-president-for-shoving-his-face-into-boiling-hotpot-as-a
lol what is this the feudal era?
Yeah, it happens a lot in Asia. The company I worked at was family-run. The saying goes that the first generation builds a company, the second generation grows a company, and the third generation ruins it. At the company I worked for, the grandfather really gave his heart into everything the company did, appearing in TV commercials, etc. His son who inherited the company maintained it, but had no real interest in the company's subject matter. He retired when I began, and his son was the same age as I was. The guy couldn't care less about what the company made. He'd grown up with it all and didn't care. He had some stupid ideas too and showed his ignorance for something many people have a passion for.