Pros
None. Really none at all.
Cons
Where do I even begin! Extremely shocking. I have worked for a number of Japanese cultured companies before and this is the worst by far. When I first joined, I was told that talking to your colleagues was not allowed even if it is about work. We are advised to use MS Teams to communicate, which is totally BS. Lunch time is strictly 30min with two 10min breaks. We are not allowed to order food in/head out for lunch as “Employees leaving workplace before time without authorization” will be given warnings. Food at the canteen here is pathetic although cheap. Bland and tasteless, worse than being in the army. There’s no teamwork in the entire office and department. People do their own things and there is barely any interaction, it feels like a concentration camp. Even when bumping into each other along the hallway, your colleagues will pretend not to know you. Whats the use of organising team bonding activities twice a year if the daily lives of the employees is like that? Employees are ONLY allowed to have 3 items on their desk, mainly personal items (waterbottle/bags included), electronics (laptop) and paper products. You are only allowed to choose 3 so please choose wisely LOL. Superiors are biased towards those who worked in the company for a longer period of time. You can see the amount of bootlicking the manager does to the employees but towards the newcomers, its the exact opposite. Manager is narrow-minded and likes to play little tricks behind your back while portraying a nice front. Beware if you’re a staff resigning. If you insist on leaving, don’t expect her to put in nice words for you as your work reference when your future employer asks. This company is said to practice a healthy working environment and does not take superiors abusing their authority lightly. You are wrong if you believed that. Superiors do it in a passive aggressive manner and stabs you in the back. They appear to be considerate and understands your point of view but really, you’ll just be one of their pawns in the politics field. Normal executives who have worked for a long time have more authority than people with managerial roles. If employee says go left, manager goes left. As a result, these employees think they have the rights to treat newcomers badly and talk down to them. No human rights. During the Covid cases spike period, we were asked to return to the office despite many cases in the office and us raising concerns of pertaining to our safety. Work can be done remotely from home but the manager chooses to ignore the concerns raised and proceeds to arrange fully work in office without discussion. This particular manager likes to micro-manage and keeps an eye on every employee to make sure he/she does their work despite constantly saying that there should be mutual trust between the superiors and the subs. No growth for employees even if you work there for 10/20 years. Hard to promote as management’s perspective of hardwork means constantly OT-ing. No matter how great your ideas are, you will not be taken seriously. Most of the employees who work there for a long time are stuck up and arrogant. Only a few are nice and if you’re lucky enough, the person passing their job to you will guide you patiently. If you’re unlucky, you’ll meet someone who thinks the world evolves around her and there is nothing you can do about it because the superiors are biased. Inefficient operations. If there is a more effective way of doing things that can save A LOT of time, the senior employees will think of a thousand illogical excuses for you to follow their way, just to show that they’re hardworking and smarter than everyone else in the company. Company needs to get this into their head that OT does not mean hardworking and that the amount of time you’ve worked in the company does not determine how smart you are. Super stringent rules and regulations. No idea who set these unrealistic rules and regulations that sometimes even the superiors don’t abide to it but expects new employees to. No breaks to be taken in between of work otherwise superiors will send us reminders in the whatsapp group with the intent to embarrass that person. Similarly for minor matters like leaving the file open for a few seconds, they choose to mass email the whole department than to privately message you, just to tell you to close the file. High turnover rate but who can you blame?Manager has been interviewing more than 10 people for that one position in the last 1 year. Most of them resigned within 3months. Says alot about the company. Office is like a sauna. So hot! Unrealistic expectations of new employees. They expect newcomers to be able to work independently without supervision within a month when the task assigned has a fixed schedule and is only done once a month (meaning you must master it after doing it once). You don’t get paid enough for the workload either. It just seems like they’re casually throwing things to you just because you are new.