Stupid office rules in Japan

This week’s Silly Sunday is on silly rules and customs in the office, another ranking survey from goo Ranking. The fieldwork was conducted over the 24th and 25th of October 2007, but no demographic information was given, nor was there a breakdown by sex, sadly.

At my workplace, I wish they’d quit doing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12, 15, and 27.

For those of you who haven’t worked in Japan, perhaps a few of these options need to be explained. Number 6 and number 9 usually feature together (we actually have lunchtime meetings at my workplace); everyone gathers together, one person (rotated every day) reads the company precepts, then everyone repeats after him or her. Next, the person whose turn it is tells a story perhaps related to work, perhaps not. Other companies may also have pep talks from the boss. Actually, I do think that morning meetings are to some degree useful; ours are relatively painless, barring the company motto reading, of course, and the singing of the company song, which thankfully is not compulsory!

Number 12 is interesting – every Friday after lunch we have to vacuum the office and empty the rubbish bins. I did once ask why we did that but all I got in reply was a blank state wondering why I would question such a thing. Indeed, we even had a suggestion from someone as part of our company-wide stinginess initiative that we should also clean the corridors to save paying cleaners’ wages, an idea demonstrating blissful unawareness of the hourly rate of a cleaner versus that of an engineer.

Oh, and you don’t want to get me started on the complexity of my employer’s internal systems…

Ranking results

Q: Which customs or rules at work would you most like to see stopped?

Rank		Score
1	“Service Zangyo”, unpaid overtime	100
2	Compulsory attendance at end of year and new year parties	70.8
3	Required participation in employee group travel	61.2
4	St Valentine’s Day, White Day customs	51.0
5	The seniority system	43.3
6	Morning meetings	40.4
7	Not non-smoking offices	38.5
8	Submission of daily reports	35.3
9	Recital of the company precepts	34.6
10	Must be at work at least 30 minutes before start of business	33.0
11	Far too many steps before things can get paid for	33.0
12	Cleaning rota	31.7
13	Can’t go home before boss	30.4
14	Tea-serving rota	29.2
15	Internal request systems are complex	27.6
16	Heaters or coolers stop outside regulation hours	27.2
17	Frequently have to entertain the boss	26.3
18	Limited number of web sites allowed, other internet restrictions	25.3
19	Fussy dress restrictions (no boots, nail art, etc)	25.0
20	Morning exercises	24.4
21	Titles, department names are too long	23.1
22	Compulsory uniform	21.8
23	Cannot dress Cool Biz style	21.8
24	Merit-based salary system	18.9
25	Lots of specialised company language	18.9
26	Private email, free email address usage forbidden, other email restrictions	17.6
27	Lunch hour fixed	17.6
28	Hair style, hair colouring rules	17.0
29	Must answer phone within one ring	16.7
30	Get company memento on employees’ birthdays	14.1