"I didn't come to a foreign-owned company to attend morning assemblies": The career anxiety shaken by a mismatch in meaningless work styles

It was one of those days at the office where a casual chat turned into a career consultation before I knew it.



The person who called out to me was a young female manager in her early 30s from another team.

We had only passed each other by chance, but her "aura of wanting to talk" was so strong that I couldn't help but stop.

The moment I asked, "How are you?", she began to speak in bits and pieces.

Her worry was that she "couldn't enjoy work the way she thought she would."



"I'm always rushing around, and I end up just finishing the work right in front of me. It's not about deepening my career at all..."

I get it. There's this feeling that your career is being "consumed."

And the thing she is most troubled by is her direct supervisor.

This supervisor is what you'd call a "self-made Japanese elite." He worked for nearly 30 years at a major Japanese bank and only transferred to a foreign-owned company after turning 50.

Perhaps he entered the second round of his life after reaching the mandatory retirement age for his position.



He is incredibly serious and never misses his morning jog or muscle training. I'd like to call him a working marathon runner. But that's not the problem...



That "meticulousness" of his seems to be applied to his work at full throttle as well...

Every morning at 9:30, he gathers the entire team in the office for a morning assembly meeting. And he does this every single morning. Even though it's a company with hybrid work, it's an unsettlingly strange feeling.


Morning activity? No, no, it must be self-satisfaction. Habits are a scary thing.

As for me, if I have meetings with the US, I often come in at noon, and in such a flexible workplace environment, "everyone must come to the office at 9:30 every day" has become a ritual, turning into a modern-day "morning gathering."



Moreover, that supervisor calls his subordinates to his desk to check their progress in detail and offer his opinions.

He is fully unleashing a "Show-era" management style in a foreign-owned office, making me want to mutter "This is a foreign company, right?" 100 times in my heart.

The surrounding teams have also noticed how strange it is, and I have heard her apologize to other teams many times, saying, "I'm sorry, our team is just a bit bizarre..."

"He's a serious perfectionist, and I think that's amazing. It's not that I dislike my boss, but it's clearly misaligned with my own vision of deepening my expertise and 'building a career at a foreign-owned company.'"



When I heard those words, I could tell that something inside her had reached its limit.

She doesn't usually engage in small talk, so the fact that she went out of her way to stop and talk to me meant that she must have had a lot of frustration bottled up inside.

"I'm sorry, I have to go to my next meeting... I'm in a storm of meetings every day now."

As I watched her walk away at a trot, I sipped my coffee and exchanged information frankly with my colleagues in Europe.

I don't know... I sighed.

She is still in her 30s. I sincerely hope that she will find an environment where she can work more freely.

After all, there must be a place where you can work in a way that suits you.

Come to think of it, I remembered something my dentist said the other day during a break in my treatment.

"Being a salaryman is really tough, isn't it? I don't have a boss, so I think about it. For salarymen, your whole life can change just because of one boss, right? I always think that's really tough."



Those words really hit home. You understand, Doctor!

The fact that the direction of your career can change drastically depending on your boss is all too common and not even funny.



Moreover, it is too sad to have the benefits of a company you chose of your own volition completely crushed by your boss.



Of course, that boss might also be a "miserable person" in a sense.

Even when thrown into a foreign company, they can only use the methods they've been steeped in for 30 years. Relying only on their own sense of justice and beliefs, they persist with Japanese-style management.

He, too, is unable to escape his own way of doing things.


But that is precisely why—.



I believe you must protect your own career style and expertise yourself.

Have the courage to keep asking, "Who is this way of working for?" and "Is this morning assembly really necessary?"

This is even more important in a world like a foreign company where the different culture of Japan intersects.



Honestly, I don't know what is right. But there is surely no need to "conform" to the point of numbing your own senses.



While surrounded by contradictions, you must defend your own core yourself—I think that is the survival technique for business people living in the modern age.

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