Won't Miss #497 - open office plans

One of the cool things about teaching in Japan? No open office plan (usually)... though my husband's second job did have such a style. The noise was awful. This was one of the cubicles I taught in at my last job in Tokyo. Ah, luxury!

I can't speak for offices around the world because I only have experience with two countries - America and Japan. In the U.S., most people work in a private office or a cubicle with partitions on 3 sides. I can't say why this is done, but I've always believed it was to avoid distraction, control noise, and offer privacy. It's a lot harder for your coworkers to interrupt you if they have to get up from their desk and walk around your walls or through your office door than if they can just speak to you across a desk or two. You also get muted sound from their phones and work habits.

In Japan, it is most common to use what is called an "open office plan". That is when there is one big room and the whole staff for a section (or even a company) has desks next to and/or facing one another. This style is cheaper and allows companies to move employees around and cram others in at a whim. It is also a style which has a negative impact on productivity and creates more stress for employees. Most people hate this, but the overwhelming majority of Japanese companies use this style. They say it builds their team spirit, but the truth is that it's about keeping an eye on people and saving money. What was worst about my personal experiences with such plans was that they were horribly cramped. You weren't only operating in a barrage of stimuli and experiencing a plethora of interruptions, but you were crammed in like sardines.

I hated the open office plans in Japan and I absolutely will not miss them. 

Won't Miss #279 - personal space differences

I didn't have a picture of someone invading a private part or orifice, but that kokeshi doll on the right looks annoyed at the proximity of the kokeshi doll on the left to her posterior, doesn't she?

The Japanese have very different ideas about personal space. They don't like to hug and feel very uncomfortable about it, but they have some habits which are far more invasive and offensive than hugs. One is kancho, in which people try to shove their hands as far as possible up another person's behind. I've also seen and heard about women's breasts being grabbed by other women. There was a commercial for weight loss a few years back where a woman who lost a lot of weight was greeted at the door by a friend and the friend remarked on her weight loss then poked her breasts several times as if she was checking a balloon's inflation level. I also had a British friend whose (adult) students goosed her breasts. You can also find blog posts about incidents of crotch-grabbing and rubbing among foreigners who have been essentially assaulted by both Japanese adults and children.

I won't miss a culture that thinks it is okay to touch or assault the most private places of other people's bodies as pranks or humiliation, but finds hugging, kissing, or other displays of physical affection unacceptable and embarrassing.

Won't Miss #155 - Invasive Paternalism

Japan has a much more paternalistic culture than most Western countries. Sometimes, this is beneficial, but sometimes it is a step too far and violates privacy. For instance, many countries are having problems with obesity and Japan is no exception, though their problem is not nearly as severe as that in Western countries. In Japan, one of the current "solutions" to the problem is to have companies measure the waist size of their employees and those who exceed a certain number are sent to a doctor for weight loss counseling.* While I think that weight loss counseling is good, I think the humiliation and invasion of privacy that comes with measuring people's waists in the office is going too far.

I won't miss these types of invasive paternalism and the way they function to bully people into conforming to certain standards.

*It is important to note that the waist measurements are relatively arbitrary and do not take into account height or general body type, only gender. Muscular or tall people can be classified as overweight under this system.