I would like to ask if there are any repercussions from not going to the said scheduled annual physical exam.
For the background, I am a nearly 30 year old male working as an assignee; expat but my company is still based from the Philippines. The mother company is here in Japan which provides my monthly allowance. They first scheduled me last November but I was “no show” and my alibi was “covid symptoms”. They then resched me to January 21 (yesterday), and the scheduled time was very early (9:40 a.m.) and I don’t feel like going with 5 hours of sleep.
I do not want to do a 1 hour+ commute (1 way) to Shinjuku on a weekend because it’s a waste of my f**king leisure time just to be able to go to their crappy physical exam that has privacy issues. I’m not sure if there are repercussions for not attending to this as an assignee.
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I’m pretty sure it’s mandatory sorry.
You should be able to organise for one closer to home though.
Yeah, what a hassle, potentially catching a health problem in the early, more treatable stages.
Most companies will schedule this during working hours.
But yes, this physical is required and you will continue to get asked to do it.
Are you under the administrative supervision of the Japan company? Ex, are you following Japan holidays or Philippine holidays?
If you are following the Japan company’s administrative rules, then they may have a say if you did miss your appointment (twice). Any repercussion is up to them.
You will need to follow Japan laws while in Japan, regardless of whether you are an employee or an assignee.
If you really do not want to do the PE, it might be better to be honest and tell your company that. So the clinic could allocate your timeslot to another person who do want (or need) to undergo PE.
Your company might get into trouble with the law if you don’t go.
Also, early test time is better, because your not allowed to eat and drink beforehand.
I fucking hate it as well because I think medical stuff is private information and should not be shared with your employer, but who am I to change a law like that.
Just go and don’t forget the poo sample
It’s a pain but preventive medicine, to include the annual physical is a sound practice. You work in Japan and receive benefits here, to include healthcare. It’s not optional and will simply create a lot of hassles for your company and yourself if you keep blowing it off.
It’s mandatory as an employee.
It should also be during work hours and work should provide the time off for this.
Maybe you can weasel out of it, but what is the harm to you vs the picture you paint and pain that you incur to your boss/manager here, as well as HR?
You go… it is annoying. It is done. Everything is good or you find something that needs attention that you didn’t know about before. Win win.
You don’t go. You find excuses. You push the “assignee” card. HR has to figure out if there are legal repercussions. HR pushes to your manager to ask you please do it. Your manager now has to deal with your shit and convince you to do it or find excuses for you not to.
They look at your past excuse to not go and feel you were lying then as well. This goes up to local manager that the foreigner is refusing…. But maybe it is ok because he is here temporarily…. Maybe they decide they need to pull your stipend to break all financial ties. Maybe they decide to send you back to PH. Maybe it all turns out ok.
Regardless, you are now and forever the pain in the ass employee that is taking away from their ability to meet business goals because you want to be special and/or are lazy. Guess who may not get as high a bonus on the team? Guess who would potentially be passed over for promotions or overseas assignments?
Right or wrong, you are now “that” guy and that will stick for the foreseeable future.
Unless you are working until early morning, 9.40AM isn’t very early, even with a one hour commute. That’s a pretty good time as you can do your fasted period while you sleep. But there should be plenty of places closer to you that you can use. The company just needs to issue you with a voucher or you submit the bill and are reimbursed. Some large companies will set up all series of stations at their offices for employees get everything done on-site, but even then a good number of people preferred to do their exams at a hospital or a clinic.
It’s a pretty good opportunity to add on additional tests such thyroid or sexual health (HPV, HIV, etc). Going to the same clinic each year is also good for establishing a relationship with a doctor who can be your GP, so a good reason to find somewhere closer to where you live.
On the privacy side, I’m not aware of any details being shared with the company except the overall grade (no problems, should see a doctor about something in 12/6/3 months).
The information is much more for the national health system. They can plan resources better when they know the population’s health and they are also see how effective different initiatives are over multiple years (20+ years). When the *anonymized* data is shared to certain groups like universities and pharmaceutical companies, it is used to guide research for interventions and/or drug development.
You seriously can’t handle doing something like this _one time_ per year? Grow up.