When your direct manager whom you report to and your teammates almost completely stop talking to you about work-related matters, stop sharing the updates, the status, never share the files or the links to the folders anymore (from the past 6 months), does it mean they want to kick me out in Japanese business culture? Does it fall into any sort of harassment? (I heard it is from a friend working in Japan).
**Background**
I’ve been working at this company for over a year. Despite a good start, my small team of four, including our manager, has become increasingly distant over the past six months. The team, all Japanese, stopped communicating and sharing tasks with me. Even though I’m knowledgeable about certain topics, they don’t involve me, and they ask for feedback in a way that suggests they don’t want it. By reading the air, I feel that they want to tell me ‘’Hey, I’m asking you passively and aggressively to give me feedback, but in reality, we have discussed behind your back and we don’t want to hear anything. We will do our own way and end the discussion, thank you’’.
My daily interactions with the team, including my manager, have dropped to about five minutes, and in our 1-on-1 meetings, I’m not given much room to speak. It feels pointless being at the office when I’m not getting updates or tasks. When I had the chance to give presentations to executives, my performance suffered from not having spoken for three months, unlike my previous job where daily presentations were the norm.
Coming from a culture of direct communication, I’ve found it challenging to navigate the workplace dynamics here. Despite proposing solutions, like automating processes that benefited other teams (20+ people reduced their weekly tasks by 2 hours and I reduced mine by 21-22 hours), my manager took credit without acknowledging my input.
Being a non-native Japanese speaker is now a significant hurdle, especially with external clients requiring native proficiency. This is perplexing since the job description emphasized an “advanced level” of Japanese, not even fluent level. Despite the language barrier, I communicate with my teammates in English. The entire situation has left me frustrated and isolated within the team, and I’m considering internal opportunities before I look for opportunities elsewhere.
I’ve asked for feedback every month, I’ve asked where I can improve and if there is anything I can contribute. They are always bullshit.