Learning about the unwritten office rules
AdvertisementToday’s sideways look at Japanese society is courtesy of goo Ranking as usual, where they investigated what, outside of directly work-related issues, new starts in the office would ask their seniors, for both men and women.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 2nd of February 2009 1,076 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 7.2% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
The use of “senior” is one of these difficult words to translate from Japanese. The usual translation of 先輩, sempai, is just “senior”, but in this one small word there are elements of respect and a big brother-little brother relationship. “Mentor” would be too formal and narrow a role, and it’s a much more long-term relationship than “the guy who showed me around when I started.”
Ranking result
Q: Outside of directly work-related issues, as a new start in an office, what would you ask your senior? (Sample size=550, male)
Rank Score 1 Who is the key person who gets things done 100 2 Which managers to avoid 95.1 3 How busy things are 66.7 4 Overtime hours 65.4 5 Tips for preparing presentations 61.7 6 Strict bosses 58.0 7 How easy it is to take holiday 56.8 8 Atmosphere with the customers 54.3 9 Welfare benefits that can be used 51.9 10 Gentle bosses 46.9 11= Allowable shirt, tie colours 39.5 11= Nice restaurants for lunch 39.5 13= Atmosphere at drinking parties 33.3 13= Frequency of drinking parties 33.3 15 Where to have a break 30.9 16 How to write email 28.4 17 The veteran female employee 28.4 18 Senior’s salary 28.4 19 Nice restaurants on the way home 25.9 20 How to succeed 21.0 Q: Outside of directly work-related issues, as a new start in an office, what would you ask your senior? (Sample size=526, female)
Rank Score 1 Who is the key person who gets things done 100 2 Which managers to avoid 97.3 3 Atmosphere with the customers 84.0 4 Strict bosses 82.7 5 How busy things are 81.3 6 The veteran female employee 76.0 7 How easy it is to take holiday 68.0 8 Welfare benefits that can be used 65.3 9 Tips for preparing presentations 61.3 10= Rules regarding uniforms, casual style 60.0 10= Overtime hours 60.0 12 Allowable shirt, tie colours 52.0 13= How to write email 49.3 13= Nice restaurants for lunch 49.3 15 Gentle bosses 48.0 16 Where to have a break 45.3 17 Make-up regulations 42.7 18 Atmosphere at drinking parties 30.7 19 Nice restaurants on the way home 24.0 20 Tips for wearing suits 22.7
Subscribe to feed
What do they mean by “the veteran female employee”?
It’s the oldest woman in the pool of OLs (Office Ladies), the most senior female employee, who – well, I don’t really know what she does, but the term used, O-tsubone-sama, is the title for the most senior lady in a samurai/daimyo’s concubine, the top dog. I suppose you have to treat her right so that the rest of the female staff will cooperate with you?
Agreed with the difficult translation of the word 先輩 (sempai). For any benefit of others, your sempai is anyone who is your senior, but the use of the word implies
you are in a situation of being assisted by them, or expected to be assisted by them. Similarly, you being the 後輩 (kouhai), the “junior”, puts you in the role
of being expected to be helped by others who know more than you in your surroundings situation, and invites assistance.
It’s more than just help, it’s also involved in sharing responsibility- blame for something wrong can be shifted around if you were not properly informed of something
by your sempai, and similarly, you can avoid total blame in some cases for being the unknowledgable kouhai. It’s supposed to be a give/take system, and sometimes
it works really well.