In October 2024, the consulting firm Scholar Consult surveyed 5,161 employees of companies with 100 or more staff. In one-on-one meetings with their boss, 55.6 percent of general employees and 70 percent of managers said they could speak candidly. In the everyday workplace, 53.2 percent of general staff and 62.6 percent of managers said they could speak candidly to their boss.
The Spirit Injection Stick
In the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, senior soldiers punished recruits privately. The encyclopedia Imidas writes that the military authorities officially did not allow such private punishment but in practice tolerated it.
“If the navy had the stick, the army had the binta,” a hard slap across the face with an open hand. The navy’s stick carried slogans such as gunjin seishin chūnyū bō, the stick for injecting military spirit.
The President’s Fishing Master
In Tsuribaka Nisshi (Diary of a Fishing Fool), a manga that began in 1979 and became a film series from 1988, Hamasaki Densuke, called Hama-chan, is an ordinary employee of Suzuki Construction. The company’s president, Suzuki Ichinosuke, called Sū-san, is his fishing companion.
A TV Tokyo drama version sums up their relationship: “At the company, new employee and president. At fishing, master and apprentice.”
A Warm Back and a Strict Hand
A profile of Honda Sōichirō, the founder of Honda, on the site nippon.com describes him at work: he allowed no compromise, and he would strike people. It sums him up as a warm back and a strict hand.
Chasing-Out Rooms
Oidashi-beya (追い出し部屋): the chasing-out room. The common name for a department where a company gathers employees targeted for cuts who have not accepted early retirement, which is said to push them to resign of their own accord. The term spread after an Asahi Shimbun feature dated December 31, 2012.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare first examined five companies, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, NEC and Asahi Mutual Life. In its report of January 29, 2013, it found no case that was clearly an illegal forced resignation. It warned all companies that pressing employees persistently to resign can be a tort under the Civil Code.
The Chalk Circle
As a plant manager, Ohno Taiichi, the architect of the Toyota Production System, was known for always carrying chalk in his pocket. When a machine did not perform as expected, he drew a circle on the floor and gave one order: Soko ni tatte mite ore. Stand there and watch.
Three Times the Same Story
In rakugo, a master often teaches a story by sanben geiko, three-time lessons. The master performs the same story three times in front of the apprentice, and then the apprentice performs it.
The storyteller Gokaidō Kumosuke, named a Living National Treasure in 2023, received such a lesson from Kokontei Shinshō V. Shinshō performed the story differently all three times.
The Plane Shaving
The temple carpenter Ogawa Mitsuo trained under the master carpenter Nishioka Tsunekazu. The one order he received was: Kore to onaji kannakuzu ga dekiru yō ni ha o toge. Sharpen the blade until it makes a shaving like this one. Outside working hours, Ogawa stuck the single shaving he had been handed on a window and kept sharpening.
Looking back, he found that he had been taught almost nothing concrete. “Master Nishioka never once taught me step by step. But we were always together.”
Silent Prayer
Sairento oinori (サイレントお祈り): silent prayer. Job-hunting slang for a company that sends no notice of rejection at all. The usual rejection email is called oinori mēru, a prayer email, because it closes by wishing the applicant success elsewhere.
Practice in Parts
In the tea ceremony, the first stage of training is warigeiko, practice in parts. It covers the basic procedures for thin and thick tea, almost everything that people picture when they think of the tea ceremony.
A paper in the repository of Aichi University says that warigeiko is basically taught not by the master but by the master’s senior pupils. It calls this stage of learning a stage of watching.