4 ms·

The article mentions _two_ instance of people hiring somebody to quit a job on their own behalf - what? I know there are some Japanophiles here on HN - can som

by Mizza 6y ago

The article mentions _two_ instance of people hiring somebody to quit a job on their own behalf - what? I know there are some Japanophiles here on HN - can somebody explain what that's all about?

cnasc 6y ago
Here in the US you can hire a broker to negotiate with a car dealer for you. This is because car negotiations are tedious, uncomfortable, and full of pitfalls and the broker is an expert who can handle it the best possible way (for a fee). This is probably the same sort of thing, an expert quitter can turn in your resignation and wont won’t be enticed/coerced to take it back
- grayclhn 6y ago
  OT, but maybe useful for some people here: AAA has (had? It’s been a while.) an under-publicized car-purchasing program where they negotiate a small fixed markup for members. It was great when I used it, least stressful purchase of my life.
rapsey 6y ago
I guess for those who do not want to put themselves through that situation it is easier to pay someone to do it for you.
quelltext 6y ago
Breaking up with your partner is not pleasant. They may cry, throw things at you, threaten to hurt themselves etc. Quitting a job is similar. I think even outside Japan it can be awkward leaving a job if you feel in some way indebted to your company. Now imagine your boss shouting at you, or maybe worse, appealing to your obligations not to leave the company, convincing you how doing so would make you unworthy of being considered a decent person, or even threatening to give you bad references, etc. Sometimes it's actually that the other party isn't even malicious and doesn't have to be as ugly as described above. They may truly believe it's in your best interest not to abandon something. Many people give in when faced with back pressure in those situations or at least struggle with going through such a stressful situation, i.e. many people know they may not be strong enough to go through with it when facing confrontation, so is it a surprise that a service that acts on your behalf is something people would use? Now add to that that in Japan people generally try to avoid confrontation (esp. those likely to suffer at the workplace / school) and then imagine maybe being in a company that bullied you for years and you've seen others struggle with mustering up the courage to leave. Also, as far as I know, job hopping is still not seen as good. Many people still hope to stay at the first company they got into for a long time, with parents and partners hoping the same (and often pushing back against job changes).
purple_ferret 6y ago
There was a truly surreal article about this practice in The Atlantic several years back[0]. The practice of hiring someone to pretend to be someone else seems acceptable if not common. The man interviewed is hired to pretend to be some girl's father. >Yuichi: In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I’m deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. Occasionally, I dream about that. >Morin: How does that work when you’re hired to do that in real life? >Yuichi: Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my client is there standing off to the side—the one who actually made the mistake—and I’m prostrate on the floor writhing around, and the boss is there red-faced as he hurls down abuse from above. Sometimes, I wonder to myself, “Am I actually doing this?” [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-fo...
- sjg007 6y ago
  This is fascinating. Someone needs to make a movie about this.
  - enneff 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Romance,_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Romance,_LLC
wodenokoto 6y ago
I live in Europe. My union offers to negotiate employment contract termination on my behalf as part of their services to members.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Now resignation negotiation as a service is getting popular in Japan.
bigmattystyles 6y ago
If the movie ‘up in the air’ depicts real situations, and I’m pretty sure it does, we have the opposite in the US, where a team is brought in to fire you. I guess it’s because it’s awkward but also because they fear your reaction. That or from what I’ve read, they just get security to escort you out.
jacoblambda 6y ago
Other people have covered this at length already but I figured I could toss in my 2p. The term black company is thrown around with varying levels of severity but "actual" black companies like the one being described here aren't just shitty companies to work for, they are straight up abusive. With these types of companies you'll be expected to be at work before your boss arrives and leave work after your boss leaves. This applies for everyone including leadership all the way up to the top which results in ground level employees being forced to arrive very early and work until long after the end of the day all the while receiving no overtime. In the cases where you do get off early, it's normally because of "mandatory fun" aka going to an izakaya (basically a bar with isolated or semi isolated rooms), pouring drinks for everyone senior to you, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol late into the night. Of course not drinking at pace with your seniors is varying levels of "disrespectful". On top of this, the less senior you are, the more toxic BS you have to put up with. Leadership (including more senior members who aren't actually your boss) can just push off work onto you and it's your fault if it doesn't get done. The least senior woman will often be expected to act like a waitress and pour drinks at meetings largely regardless of their status. On the worse end of things, these companies if you consider leaving have no qualms threatening to badmouth you/make you unhireable to the other companies in the industry in the area. Alternatively or even at the same time they often attempt to guilt you and turn your coworkers/friends against you with some variation of "you leaving is going to make your coworkers suffer" or "you are trying to destroy the company and you'll be responsible when your friends are unemployed". Of course this is varying levels of successful at preventing you from getting a job however it's near textbook abusive behaviour to keep you from leaving. TLDR: Black company is used with varying levels of accuracy but true black companies are closer to a corporate personification of an abusive spouse than just being a shitty company to work for. They'll try to cut off lifelines (aka connections outside your work) and replace your identity with a dependency on your work by consuming all your time and forcing you to spend your little "free time" with your bosses and coworkers. From here any attempt to leave is met with standard abusive rhetoric. Because of just how abusive these companies are, it's preferable to pay someone to resign for you so that they can't bully you into staying or even intimidate you into backing out from resigning before you actually enter the building. Once you hire them it's done and you can mentally mark the action as "complete" and prevent yourself from backing out.

by Mizza 6y ago

The article mentions _two_ instance of people hiring somebody to quit a job on their own behalf - what? I know there are some Japanophiles here on HN - can somebody explain what that's all about?

cnasc 6y ago

Here in the US you can hire a broker to negotiate with a car dealer for you. This is because car negotiations are tedious, uncomfortable, and full of pitfalls and the broker is an expert who can handle it the best possible way (for a fee). This is probably the same sort of thing, an expert quitter can turn in your resignation and wont won’t be enticed/coerced to take it back

grayclhn 6y ago
OT, but maybe useful for some people here: AAA has (had? It’s been a while.) an under-publicized car-purchasing program where they negotiate a small fixed markup for members. It was great when I used it, least stressful purchase of my life.

rapsey 6y ago

I guess for those who do not want to put themselves through that situation it is easier to pay someone to do it for you.

quelltext 6y ago

Breaking up with your partner is not pleasant. They may cry, throw things at you, threaten to hurt themselves etc. Quitting a job is similar. I think even outside Japan it can be awkward leaving a job if you feel in some way indebted to your company. Now imagine your boss shouting at you, or maybe worse, appealing to your obligations not to leave the company, convincing you how doing so would make you unworthy of being considered a decent person, or even threatening to give you bad references, etc. Sometimes it's actually that the other party isn't even malicious and doesn't have to be as ugly as described above. They may truly believe it's in your best interest not to abandon something. Many people give in when faced with back pressure in those situations or at least struggle with going through such a stressful situation, i.e. many people know they may not be strong enough to go through with it when facing confrontation, so is it a surprise that a service that acts on your behalf is something people would use? Now add to that that in Japan people generally try to avoid confrontation (esp. those likely to suffer at the workplace / school) and then imagine maybe being in a company that bullied you for years and you've seen others struggle with mustering up the courage to leave. Also, as far as I know, job hopping is still not seen as good. Many people still hope to stay at the first company they got into for a long time, with parents and partners hoping the same (and often pushing back against job changes).

purple_ferret 6y ago

There was a truly surreal article about this practice in The Atlantic several years back[0]. The practice of hiring someone to pretend to be someone else seems acceptable if not common. The man interviewed is hired to pretend to be some girl's father. >Yuichi: In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I’m deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. Occasionally, I dream about that. >Morin: How does that work when you’re hired to do that in real life? >Yuichi: Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my client is there standing off to the side—the one who actually made the mistake—and I’m prostrate on the floor writhing around, and the boss is there red-faced as he hurls down abuse from above. Sometimes, I wonder to myself, “Am I actually doing this?” [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-fo...

sjg007 6y ago
This is fascinating. Someone needs to make a movie about this.
- enneff 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Romance,_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Romance,_LLC

wodenokoto 6y ago

I live in Europe. My union offers to negotiate employment contract termination on my behalf as part of their services to members.

fomine3 6y ago
Now resignation negotiation as a service is getting popular in Japan.

bigmattystyles 6y ago

If the movie ‘up in the air’ depicts real situations, and I’m pretty sure it does, we have the opposite in the US, where a team is brought in to fire you. I guess it’s because it’s awkward but also because they fear your reaction. That or from what I’ve read, they just get security to escort you out.

jacoblambda 6y ago

Other people have covered this at length already but I figured I could toss in my 2p. The term black company is thrown around with varying levels of severity but "actual" black companies like the one being described here aren't just shitty companies to work for, they are straight up abusive. With these types of companies you'll be expected to be at work before your boss arrives and leave work after your boss leaves. This applies for everyone including leadership all the way up to the top which results in ground level employees being forced to arrive very early and work until long after the end of the day all the while receiving no overtime. In the cases where you do get off early, it's normally because of "mandatory fun" aka going to an izakaya (basically a bar with isolated or semi isolated rooms), pouring drinks for everyone senior to you, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol late into the night. Of course not drinking at pace with your seniors is varying levels of "disrespectful". On top of this, the less senior you are, the more toxic BS you have to put up with. Leadership (including more senior members who aren't actually your boss) can just push off work onto you and it's your fault if it doesn't get done. The least senior woman will often be expected to act like a waitress and pour drinks at meetings largely regardless of their status. On the worse end of things, these companies if you consider leaving have no qualms threatening to badmouth you/make you unhireable to the other companies in the industry in the area. Alternatively or even at the same time they often attempt to guilt you and turn your coworkers/friends against you with some variation of "you leaving is going to make your coworkers suffer" or "you are trying to destroy the company and you'll be responsible when your friends are unemployed". Of course this is varying levels of successful at preventing you from getting a job however it's near textbook abusive behaviour to keep you from leaving. TLDR: Black company is used with varying levels of accuracy but true black companies are closer to a corporate personification of an abusive spouse than just being a shitty company to work for. They'll try to cut off lifelines (aka connections outside your work) and replace your identity with a dependency on your work by consuming all your time and forcing you to spend your little "free time" with your bosses and coworkers. From here any attempt to leave is met with standard abusive rhetoric. Because of just how abusive these companies are, it's preferable to pay someone to resign for you so that they can't bully you into staying or even intimidate you into backing out from resigning before you actually enter the building. Once you hire them it's done and you can mentally mark the action as "complete" and prevent yourself from backing out.