Fujiko Suda: Worklife

Sociological and psychological aspects of working independently in Japan

Aug 30, 2004 01:29 am / Add a comment

I just wasn’t con­sid­er­ing the con­se­quences much when I quit a cushy com­pany employee life and became an inde­pen­dent con­trac­tor in Japan last April. It was like that when I came back to Japan 14 years ago. I knew what I dis­liked about US. I wasn’t think­ing of what I might dis­like in Japan.

Soci­o­log­i­cal aspect of work­ing inde­pen­dently in Japan is that accep­tance is much harder. I have at least worked with respectable major for­eign com­pa­nies in Japan for the past 14 years, and most of the peo­ple accepts me eas­ily. But if I have never worked for a major com­pany, major­ity of peo­ple would have treated me with­out much respect to begin with. Rent­ing homes, get­ting credit cards, what­ever is so much eas­ier if one belonged to a company.

I am sur­prised by the psy­cho­log­i­cal effect becom­ing inde­pen­dent had. Peo­ple always treated me dif­fer­ently, say­ing I’m really an Amer­i­can and actu­ally, I started to believe them. But after work­ing for com­pany in Japan for 14-years, some­thing had to rubb off on me. I actu­ally miss being a part of a large group in work, so that I have an auto­matic place to go, auto­matic things to do, auto­matic peo­ple to talk to, to have lunch with. Maybe this isn’t any­thing new, and this might even be called “becom­ing lazy” over the years. But the sense of com­mu­nity, fam­ily envi­ron­ment become meshed in my life. I was more of fam­ily with my com­pany rela­tions rather than my real family.

At first, I brushed it off. But fac­ing it squarely would be the fastest way to get over this sit­u­a­tion. I know well enough from past expe­ri­ence, espe­cially when I moved back to Tokyo 14 years ago.

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