Survey suggests about half of Japanese companies has an “old guy who does nothing”

31 comments

1. If you want an old German guy doing nothing as well I’m open for offers.

2. I want that job.

3. I’m sure they’re in every big corp. Dead weight.

4. Just one old guy in half the companies? Around here we’ve got lots of old men and women in all the companies who do nothing. Sometimes they fill their time between meetings by manually transferring numbers between Excel spreadsheets, or photocopying photocopies.

5. I think he’s usually in charge

6. It’s not as fun as you think.

7. Only half? Japan really is an advanced country after all.

8. My wife and I were at the Japanese consulate today to apply for my visa entry. We sat there while we watched the workers in the back talking and doing nothing. After 10 minutes I went to the receptionist and said “Do they know we’re here?” There was another woman ahead of us who had been waiting for a while as well. He pressed the button again that called them, then all the sudden they all showed up to help us haha. It was bizarre.

9. Only half? I’d say it’s most Japanese companies.

10. There was a plot like that in Aggretsuko.

11. [deleted]

12. One more reason for me to move to Japan.

13. Sounds like the US

14. Given the shortage of labor force in Japan, it’s even weirder.

    Many of those guys would fill some spots here and there, but companies prefer to hold them doing nothing. Japanese work culture is bordeline bizarre IMO…

15. Who are you calling old?

16. But do they have “employees who do something”?

17. “Some are calling to reinstate the dark prince Belphegor as supervisor, to seek out the slothful and reap their souls”

18. I’m fully willing to break the stereotype by being the young guy who does nothing.

19. Half ? too low.

    “An” old guy ? Also too low, I have 3 supervisors of different ages older than me “supervising” me now. It’s great, oldest guy want Z, middle age guy want L, youngest guy want C. Everyday is about choosing who do you want to get pissed at you.

20. That’s how everybody sees the one guy who has a healthy work-life balance

21. Better than laying them off and having them do nothing at home at the government’s (people’s) expense I say.

22. Only one? More like one or two departments.

23. Surely that’s true in any large company. It’s frustrating, but maybe it’s humane. An old guy is only a few years from retirement, but he’s way past his “best before” date. He could be let go, and lose his full pension. But some organizations will just try to sideline him somewhere where he can’t do much damage, and try to just run the clock out.

24. I aspire to one day be that guy, and am already well on my way. Godspeed!

25. I thought every company had a CEO

26. I’m sure someone has beat me to it but most companies anywhere in the world have an “old guy who does nothing”

    I’m the sole director of a company that employs me and I am sitting in the bath doing nothing right at this very moment.

27. The part they don’t understand is that this guy usually knows EVERYTHING about the company and has decades of enterprise knowledge.

28. The other half has two old guys who do nothing.

29. I am trying to become this guy.

30. In America, we leave that to the President.

31. Almost every company has folks like this in every country. Both men and women. You can see them everywhere, shuffling papers and playing solitaire on their work computer. I think they’re often referred to as a “manager”