What it means for a Japanese to recommend you

(Story Lead: I recently got a referral to work at one of the most famous Japanese discount stores in Osaka. However, after two weeks, I felt that the working environment to be too stressful, unhealthy and unchallenging. Just when I raised my concern to my Japanese friend that I wanted to quit the job, she explained the cultural differences between Taiwan and Japan, which gave me a really good reason not to quit the job.)

Since I landed in Osaka, Japan, I kept pushing myself to go out of the comfort zone and look for a part-time job, as I wanted to practice my Japanese skills and pay off my own rent and living expenses. Nevertheless, for the first 3 weeks, I struggled to get any interview opportunities due to my lack of Japanese speaking fluency. Not until when one of my friends introduced me to Hana, a Japanese manager who worked at the most famous discount store--Don Quijote (a.k.a. DONKI) at a family dinner. Hana kindly offered an interview opportunity for me to work at DONKI, and voluntarily to be my guarantor for the job. At the time, I did not realize what getting a Japanese guarantor means at work and how grateful I should be for her.

Two weeks after, I went for a job interview conducted by Kim, a Chinese manager at DONKI. Though the position I interviewed was for the tax-free department, the interview was conducted in Japanese. Kim immediately found out my lack of fluency in Japanese during a case test. Yet, he started speaking in Chinese, “Here are two case scenarios that might happen at work, how would you respond? You may explain your thoughts in Chinese.” Astonished that he was willing to offer me Chinese help in solving the cases, I was able to give thoughtful feedback to each case. At the end of the job interview, Kim mentioned that I passed the interview and that I could propose the timing for my working availability. Shocked and amazed, I expressed my sincere gratitude to Hana as soon as I got home and told her I passed the job interview.

During the first week of work, I discovered that this job was not as challenging as I thought it would be. For instance, all I needed to do at work was to stand at the tax-free counter for 20 hours a week, pack purchased items to different bags, wrap gifts, retrieve carts from a 4-floor parking lot, and inventory replenishment. Each time I got home from work, I kept contemplating what I learned from that day. However, the answer stayed always the same—I did not learn much. My inner self kept persuading me that I should quit the job for two reasons. First of all, my body got injured before, so my legs struggled to stand for more than 20 hours a week. Furthermore, I could not get enough chance to speak in Japanese at all, as most of the tax-free customers are foreigners.

A month after, as I started feeling that my legs losing senses after work and my Japanese skills stayed put, I reached out to a friend, Andy, for suggestions with my concerns quitting the job. Andy was extremely helpful introducing me to his Japanese friends and supported me to accustom the Japanese culture when I first got to Osaka. Yet, after listening to me, Andy strongly recommended me not to quit my job. He explained, “In Japan, if a Japanese is willing to be a guarantor for you at work, that means he or she is taking the full credibility and responsibility for you to succeed in this job. If you do not take the same serious attitude toward the job, you will not only damage the reputation on both of you and your friend, but also lose this friendship permanently.” I was exceptionally startled by the fact that quitting this job may result in the end of the friendship between Hana and me. Since I got my first part-time job while 18 years old in Taiwan, I have done several other part-time and full-time positions while studying abroad in the U.S. and the Middle East. Some job interviews were also through my American, Arab, or Taiwanese friends’ connections and recommendations. Nonetheless, I never encountered any problem after quitting the job when I felt the working environment to be unhealthy or unchallenging. Even after I quitted the job, I kept a tight relationship with each of those who introduced me to the job, as none of my friends felt offended.

Therefore, after taking Andy’s advice, I determined that I would at least work for at least 6 months. My first step was to change my work schedule to 3 to 4 hours per day, so that I would not exhaust my legs. Additionally, I took the initiative to ask Kim for allowing me to wear the same microphone used among senior employees for communication at work, so that I could practice my listening skills. Gladly, Kim approved my request.

Now, after three months of working at DONKI (as of March 2020), I feel tremendously grateful that I chose not to leave this job. Throughout these three months, I gained a bigger picture of how working at a Japanese company would be like and how Japanese people at managerial positions made decisions in response to the recent financial crisis from Coronavirus.