Japan, Feedback, Unspoken Feedback

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.

He Does Not Say It

In 2012, the catcher Tanishige Motonobu of the Chunichi Dragons told the sports journalist Ninomiya Seijun what he had learned from his former manager, Ochiai Hiromitsu. “There is something about him that makes us think on purpose. He does not say it aloud.”

Stealing the Skill

In Japanese kitchens and workshops, newcomers are told waza o nusume, steal the skill. The expert does not walk the newcomer through the know-how step by step. He keeps working where the newcomer can watch, and expects the newcomer to master the skill over a long time. Cooks, craftsmen and technicians are among the trades that train this way. Sushi chefs say meshitaki sannen, nigiri hachinen: three years cooking rice, eight years shaping sushi.

In 2023, a debate on social media asked whether the method is outdated. A worker in the shipping industry wrote that those who say it do not teach because they have no theory of teaching.