After completing my second month at my job in Osaka, Japan, I’m back with more thoughts and observations about working in a Japanese company. I have to admit, I’m going through a bit of a “culture shock” phase right now, so this might be a little blunt—but I’m still figuring things out as a foreigner in Japan. With that said, let’s dive in!
When I last shared my experiences, I had just finished my first month of work and still had no idea what my job actually entailed. Over the past month, there have been plenty of ups and downs. I’ve learned a lot, and to top it off, the person who was training me left the company. On one hand, I feel more empowered now that I’m fully responsible for my tasks without someone constantly looking over my shoulder. But on the other hand, it’s tough because I have no insight into what was going on before I started in December.
Here are a couple of new things I’ve noticed:
1. Hanko (ハンコ) or Inkan (印鑑) is everything
In a Japanese company, your hanko (personal stamp) is basically your signature. You use it for everything—especially anything involving money or approvals. It’s not just for work either; you need one for banking and other official documents. At my company, most documents I send out require at least two or three stamps—one from my boss, one from the head boss, and sometimes even one from the accountant.
The idea behind this system is to double-check documents for errors before they’re sent out. In theory, that makes sense, but in practice, it doesn’t always work that way. The head boss, for example, isn’t involved in the daily workflow of each employee, so why does he need to stamp every document? It feels like a formality rather than an actual review process. Sometimes, papers sit on my desk for nearly a day just waiting for the head boss to stamp them—especially since he’s rarely in the office. I think this obsession with “checking” is a big part of Japanese work culture, and I’d love to explore it further in another post. But for now, let’s just say it slows things down a lot.
2. “Dame” (ダメ) and “Wakaru?” (分かる？) are everywhere
These two phrases are thrown around constantly. “Dame” means “No” or “Don’t,” and “Wakaru?” means “Understand?” It’s not just at my company—I heard it during my internship, and even random strangers on the street say it. Personally, I don’t love these phrases because they make me feel like a child. I know it’s a cultural difference, and they say it to other Japanese people too, but it seems especially common with foreigners like my coworker and me. Maybe because our first language isn’t Japanese, they assume we need extra guidance.
Before coming to Japan, I had this image of Japanese people being reserved and hesitant to speak up, but that’s definitely not always the case. People have no problem bluntly telling me “Dame!” for things like taking my phone into the bathroom or sitting down during a trade show. During my summer internship, they didn’t sugarcoat anything—they just kept saying “No, no, no” until I got it right. My current company is similar, but at least they take the time to explain things better than my internship did.
So, that’s it for now! I hope you found this interesting and maybe even learned something new. Just keep in mind that this is all based on my personal experience.
What do you think? Is this different from work culture in your country? Let me know in the comments!
*This post was edited in April 2025 to fix grammar and context
nihonchique 
I remember when I first took classes at Ritsumeikan, I was in the “everything is awesome!” stage until my Japanese professor (teaching a class in English to foreigners and students who had studied abroad) told us she felt so stuck in her position because she wasn’t allowed to do anything, not even plan a simple event, without getting a stamp of approval from most of the staff she worked with. She said she had so many ideas but none of them would ever come to fruition because of this tiring way of doing things, and that most of the time she couldn’t track down people, and if even one person refused to stamp the proposal, it would be rejected.
I felt so bad for her, and ever since then, I started to look more critically at the system. They want to make sure everyone is on board with every decision, and while as a concept it sounds admirable, in reality it hinders progress and necessary change, and becomes a nuisance that blocks people from doing things. Eventually, after someone gets rejected enough times, I’m sure they give up and stop trying to change things at all. At work, I first thought I was respected and was hired to change things and make improvements, but now I realize that they just want to keep up appearances by having a foreigner (and also, elem. schools would never get real English education were it not for foreign teachers since there is no requirement for elem. school teachers to be proficient in English).
Japan gets some things really right but in my current stage at my job I really get frustrated most days at how behind they are. Faxing instead of emailing, terribly old computers, outdated books and ways of teaching. New teachers are mentored by old ones and are not allowed to deviate, so the system repeats itself. I think teaching is a profession that needs a lot of innovation and constant updating, but Japan needs a rehaul to be able to compete in this world anymore. I really hope your job goes well and eventually you get to work in a much better environment! 頑張ろう！
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This is just sad. So very sad…
Japan’s greatest asset are her people, but bureaucracy is killing it.
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Wow, I didn’t thought that it would be so extreme with the stamps.
While I lived 1 year in Japan I saw my japanese boyfriend stamping his official documents for tax and so on with 2 different stamps. Even so I didn’t need them, I got the people from the bank and the postman troubled sometimes. ^^”
I think it could be useful to have one (when I start working in Germany I had to sign sooooo many documents, my hand hurted at the end) but needing to get everyone everyday at work to stamp your things… that’s so troublesome 😮
I hope you will let us know more about your worklife later on (^ω^)
It’s interesting.
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In America, there is a recent trend to push for more individuality and break down command and control. That the “best idea” should win and it shouldn’t matter where that idea comes from, be it from a Vice-President or from one of the workers on the line.
This is a philosophy pushed by business and management theorists like Patrick Lencioni and John Maxwell, and has been used by leaders like Steve Jobs.
Where do most Japanese companies stand on this?
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