I know, I know… “Welcome to Japan”, “What were you expecting?”.
Well, I expected quite intensive pace from time to time working as an architect in Japan, but I did not expect such madness. I started my new job at a major construction company last year and recently calculated that I racked up 530 overtime hours in one year, with sometimes 60/65 per month.
13-hour days are common (9 am to 10 pm, 8 am to 11 pm with commuting) and I am obviously completely exhausted. The main reason for this is completely ineffective and toxic management, blatant understaffing, excessive expectations either for tight deadlines and the level of requirement, and competition between employees especially in the world of architecture where you cannot find any solidarity between workers for a reason that I still don’t really get (ego? individualistic culture? the dream of becoming the boss one day?).
Of course, I can’t go into too many details, but a good part of my team never seem to overtly complain and don’t seem to have any issues working fifteen hours a day, even with children or even babies at home, often to accomplish tasks in 20 or 30 hours that could perfectly be accomplished in 3 hours or even zero given their uselessness.
“Change company! ” The worst? It may be one of the least worst companies in the industry in Japan. Some “starchitects” hire for ZERO yen for six months before perhaps hiring for a pittance (180,000 yen even with a few years of experience), for “12+ hours a day, 6/7 days, bring your own computer and software licenses). My overtime is paid and the premises are ok, but I just need to rest and leave at 7 max.
“Leave at 6 p.m., whatever! “I am keiyakushain, my current contract ends in a few months and I have no plan B yet. Impossible. Work from home is possible even if unfortunately like many companies, it will soon be (very) reduced.
My Japanese is improving (N2-ish) but remains insufficient to really consider easy and quick employment elsewhere.
I am terrified to continue like this for I don’t know how many years, especially consdering my wish to have children in the years to come. I feel completely stuck as an architect in this country, I’m afraid of having to give up my vocation and throw away years of study if I want to work in decent conditions in this country.
Becoming a freelancer seems like a really daredevil task to me as a stranger to this industry.
仕方がないですね\~\~\~
36 comments
Do you have some insights how it is working for a smaller office ?
I am currently doing an exchange year, studying architecture in Japan, interested in doing an internship when I am finished studying.
Only you can decide what you want to do in the future.
But there is a saying that when people have to choose what they would like most in life, it is good health.
Gotta keep looking. Prioritize long term health.
Is this another ChatGPT post?
Architect? Yeah Japan is bad but it’s pretty much the norm everywhere, especially if you are not licensed. It’s pathetically culty and it started the day you entered architecture school – you know this already.
I do know that many architects fed up with this work-life style enter the UI/UX field with various degrees of success, so you might want to look into it.
It’s you’re life man. You only get one shot at this. This is the only year you’ll be this age.
That’s all I got…(was enough to motivate me to switch it up)
My husband was a graduate from a local technical institute majoring in architecture, worked at a real estate firm or something for half a year before he quit from getting *pawāhara*-ed by his superior(s). He switched to a couple of low-paying, completely unrelated to his educational background, dead-end jobs before he finally settled as a technician at a company in fire and disaster prevention field with electrician licenses he got back in his technical high school. Every time I ask if he has any desire to work at an architecture company again, he always says he loves his life now he doesn’t want to basically sell it to the toxic environment in that industry anymore.
It’s not only Architecture. A few years back, I was working in a very big semiconductor manufacturing company as a IT guy and “programmer”, and I always did 40h/month overtime. And I had to, because base salary was too low without. I was even the guy who always left the office first, and some coworkers complained about me leaving early. I was miserable, and quit after 1.5 years.
Long story short, I do *freelance* web development now. I went through one of the many freelance agent companies, and am subcontracted to a small company for more than 2 years now. My salary is better than before even though I only do 4 days @ 8 hours a week (128h work a month), with 0 overtime (but also no holidays of course, thus is the curse of being freelance, no work = no money), 100% home office. I would even like to stay with the company as a full employee, but as always with these agents, my contract has a clause not to work for the client company for 3 years after dissolving the contract. And I get it, it makes sense for the agent companies to include these clauses, because that’s how they make money. The company is Japanese btw. They are out there.
I think I could do even better salary-wise, but it’s the first time I’m happy at work.
My coworker used to work at a construction company. He said he only had 4 days off a month and worked late basically everyday. In return he earned free accommodation and 15 or 17man per month. He said he didn’t mind because he really liked the work…
Good guy, but addicted to work. Even nowadays. Late hours even when no one is watching, paying or praising.
Honestly sounds like a your company thing. My ex was an architect here (for homes) and he was usually home by 6-7pm. His salary wasn’t great but I was only with him for his first couple years out of college so that’s kinda expected in any industry here. He personally hated it because there was no freedom and most homes are super cookie cutter and use the same boring cheap materials so he didn’t have much freedom.
I taught English to another guy who was an architect here (particularity for hotels and the like) and he loves his job and didn’t work that much overtime or anything (he often had time for his hobbies and for the English lessons anyway) and he gets to travel internationally/domestically a lot which he likes (although covid messed that up for a while)
Isn’t there a whole thing with architects priding themselves on working crazy hours. I used to live by SCIARC in LA and had friends go there for school they were pulling 16 hours days all the time.
Read ‘The Fountainhead’ and then go freelance as soon as you have enough experience and contacts.
You basically have two options: continue to endure it where you are or make a change, either to another company or do your own thing. Maybe find a few other burned out architects and start a new firm.
Heyy sounds exactly like my japanese company! I fucking hate it and by extension growing to hate Japan. What a backwards and antiquated society.
Architecture in Japan has always been a tough business. Long hours are expected, and the pace is grueling (as you have discovered). Your Japanese teammates walked into this with open eyes and total acceptance. (My husband is Japanese, with a masters in architecture, and has experienced this firsthand.)
I would not recommend quitting and trying to become an architectural freelancer. In order to work at any company, you will most likely have to go through a placement agency, and generally, there is a certain expectation of Japanese. The hours will be the same, but that pay will be less due to the cut that the agent takes.
If you want to explore your options, Hello Work has recently had some architect firm jobs posted where English was a requirement. Good luck!
Been in green energy, electrical engineering and now IT industries here – all pretry much like you described.
I think the generally contractors and even the スーバーゼネコン are tough places to work. Why don’t you consider joining one of the largest architectural design offices like Nikken or Nihon Sekkei? The workplace culture is better I think.
As you said, without having the 一級建築士 or 二級建築士 certifications, it is very difficult to go freelance in Japan. Japanese building law is generally not very foreigner friendly unless you have great Japanese.
I’m not in architecture and it’s not quite as bad for me, but I feel you on the blatant understaffing and excessive expectations. I got my first “real job” in Japan and I haven’t changed it yet, so I don’t know how it is elsewhere. But it always seems absurd to me how much work they expect a single person to do, and how stingy they are with adding even one member to a team. And you can’t really talk with them about it, because you’re always just met with retorts like “well, your contract technically contains this amount of fixed overtime”, “just be more productive” (great advice) or something like that.
After a few months of doing this I’m close to my limit. I’m not under the illusion that I’ll find something perfect, but there have to be better companies out there.
Also working as an architectural designer here.
Having managed to land staff positions in ‘starchitect’ or ‘atelier’ style practices of various sizes I can tell you from what I’ve seen it doesn’t get better and frankly the architectural culture here drives the value of our time into the ground so you will likely never experience anything different outside of a select few larger companies/developers that operate more like tradional companies. If you’re lucky.
You have to either love it or find something else but it’s not going to change 🙁
I’ve also never actually heard of somewhere that pays overtime so I think you’re probably in a good spot
My first reaction is “how could someone capitalise on this”. It would be an interesting exercise to analyse the estimated cost of running the firm, an average project cost, and the revenue from that project. The whole thing sounds ludicrous and unsustainable, there must be a smarter way of approaching product delivery than just burning out employees.
There must be enough expats here wanting architectural design for residential to sustain at least one sane business…
That’s really a shame to hear. I know a lot of Japanese architecture gets criticized by immigrants here as samey, but I periodically see really interesting experiments, and even though architecture is way outside my wheelhouse, I wanted to believe the field could have good worl-life balance.
And YES, the understaffing! For a country so obsessed with tracking ever datapoint possible, it never ceases to amaze me how little attention managers pay to the number of hours staff actually needed to get the job done!
It sounds like your going to have to adapt to it the best you can while investing an a exit plan which is going to be rough but worth it. Dig deep and start preparing for finding a company or alternative way to live here! I wish you the best of luck and know its going to be hard, but worth it no matter which way you move toward!
I’d say you’d better stop it asap.
I had 4 years of more than 530 hours a year of overtime work back in my home country. I ended this with panic disease and depression both appeared in my 30 and being with me till now.
Japan is bad across most industries I think – but you know those videos where ther rebuild an entire highway in less than 1/4 of the time it would take back home?
There is a reason for it – they’re all probably on 12+ hour shifts to get it done for nothing more than a few hundred extra yen a day in pocket 😆 (most of which will go straight into Japans well developed capitalist system (alchohol to relive stress, eat at restaurant or conbini as you have no time to cook, overpriced one day weekend escape, pachinko in spare time to escape your reality)
I started out as an architect post 専門学校 here in Japan and I lasted one year. I worked 300+ hours a month, and it was murder.
Not only the feeling of being exhausted all the time, but seeing everyone around me being completely cool with it made me realize that I would because the same unless I changed.
I said, “Thanks, it’s been fun” and fucked off back home.
I changed 80 hours a week to 37.5 and I salvaged my sanity in the process.
I work in HR now, so whatever sanity I managed to save is very much gone now though…
Where are you from? What’s keeping you in Japan?
Low pay and shit hours are widespread in Japan and really unless you’re young doing a whatever job to enjoy life in Japan or married with kids you shouldn’t plan to stay here long term.
… is this really a Japan issue and not an “architecture” issue?
My friends that are architects seem to work pretty similar hours in Switzerland and the UK.
Seriously, the only people that work more are doctors in my experience.
Bare in mind that architects the world over pride themselves on working stupid hours for a pittance. No idea why. Starts in university and never ends. Add that to Japanese working practices and it’s a recipe for disaster.
But if you’re involved with big general contractors in any design/engineering/construction role, it’s going to be black as pitch. It’ll never get better, ever. 60 hours overtime every month for on-site staff won’t even raise eyebrows.
If you want better work-life balance consider customer side roles. Being the architect for manufacturing companies modifying or building facilities isn’t sexy, but pays well with better conditions.
I will hate to be you. Being an architect can be crazy, but add to it the language and cultural barriers, it’s mental. Hope your sitch gets better. Just complain and something will probably happen
People work like this in all types of office jobs here
Architectural training is a good base for a number of different careers – anything which requires understanding and investigating a problem and work to find solutions. I’m a licensed architect but only a few years out of the decades I’ve worked were as an architect.
In most countries, working hours for architects are excessive and are typically deadline driven. Add to this the fact that architects are always wanting to improve their current design and want to keep working on it, and you have a recipe for an all-consuming work life.
Given wages in Japan, and those hours, seriously consider making a change.
Depends how old you are.
I worked absolutely insane hours in my 20s but found by my 30s that shit needed to stop. And it did. Closer to 40 now and well…I definitely prioritize work/life balance above everything else which might be why I work at a tech startup (for the super flex hours and telework of course)
The employment rate in Japan is even less than 5%. You’d have no difficulties finding a job anywhere else. It’s always the same problem with people who complain about black companies in Japan. If you are there working for them when there is work literally everywhere else, you are the problem.
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I remember 20 years ago finding an old “Here’s Why Japan Is Ruling the World” management book from the 80s in my apartment, from my predecessor. Now, for the youngsters out there, Japan was absolutely dominating the 80s and Japanese companies were literally buy swathes of foreign companies and real estate. The management techniques of Japanese companies and CEOs were studied religiously as methods to be aped. Throw into the mix a hearty dose of ridiculous defences to samurai spirit, Bushido, and ritual suicide and you get the idea.
Even in 2003 it was hopelessly out of date and read like satire, knowing what I knew of Japanese companies. A significant number of places still haven’t changed. I don’t think it’s any real shock that most places still operate like post war factories, but without the efficiency now that things have moved.to the office.
My husband was an architect. Left due to the insane hours, low pay, poor work life balance etc.
Now he’s in real estate development. Not perfect but way better pay and hours. Says it’s a little boring but worth having his private life back.