Otsukare sama deshita - Leaving your company
People usually only talk about the bad parts of working in a Japanese company. The hours, the hierarchy, and the intrusiveness of being part of a group. Ptyx was working in a design firm and he had his last day on Wednesday. His coworkers threw him a wakarekai, a “good bye” party:
Unless you’ve worked in a japanese company you have no idea how much this is a big deal. Japanese people put the emphasis on being part of a group and a work group in today’s society is as important as a family can be.
Read more on his blog.
UPDATE: Taro reminds anybody leaving their Japanese job to collect the all-important “Permission to Leave the Company” certificate before walking out the door (see the comments below).
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September 23rd, 2006 at 11:04 pm
IMPORTANT WARNING–REMEMBER: You must obtain a “Permission to Leave the Company” certificate to quit a company. By law you must have present it to get your next job and by law for ex-employeer must issue it.
HOWEVER, a many times a Japanese boss thinks failing to issue this certificate is a fun way to screw over a gaijin. It really sucks to have to grovel to ask for this certificate weeks after you quit or got fired. Even though your -ex-boss is required to issue it, many times they don’t automatically offer it to foreigners as they do to all Japanese.
November 21st, 2006 at 10:25 am
After reading your very clean web site, despite all the hard work that will be ahead of me, I still want to live and work in Japan. Thanks for the links they are already helping me. being an IT/Software Dev guy at a major Telco I do not want to teach English..
Thanks again,