Pointless Jobs in Japan

Japan is home to some of the most unnecessary jobs I can think of. 

We drove through a toll booth the other day, the kind where you press a button and a ticket comes out to pay off later in the day. Pretty straight forward - but nope - there was a man stood there being paid to push the button for us and hand us the ticket. 

The week after that I accidentally found my way into a fancy department store, and in the lift there was someone being paid to push the button to my floor for me. 

On my 15 minute walk to university (a fairly rural route), I pass about 10 security guards stood at various gates to who knows what. They're so regular that we now say good morning to each other, but I've still never seen them do anything. There seems to be a crazy amount of security for a country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. On my campus there are also security guards paid to watch over every bicycle stand for the entire day, making sure they're all parked with permission and stood perfectly in line.  

Finally, the one that I've noticed since day 1 - crossing guards. They stand with these red baton/light sabers at traffic light crossings and... do the exact same thing as the traffic light. I could maybe understand this in densely populated areas, to stop people crossing when they shouldn't, but they are everywhere and however much I try I just can't see why that would be useful above primary school age. 

a crossing guard in Kyotanabe

I'm sure if I thought hard I could come up with plenty more. I find Japan's determination to hang onto jobs like this really interesting. The country is so famous for its advancement in robot technology etc. etc., yet there is no move to replace a single human job any time soon - even when a capable machine is literally stood there alongside the human, like the traffic lights and toll booth. There's also all the problems in Japan's economy at the moment; from that point of view, getting rid of unnecessary jobs seems like a no-brainer. But I didn't want to jump to criticism too much, so I asked my Japanese friend why he thought they were there, and he came up with 2 points... 

1) Almost all the people working as security, crossing guards etc. are men above retirement age. I'm not sure about the details, but I've heard Japanese people mention many times how bad the pension scheme is here. I guess these jobs provide a supplement when the pension doesn't cover the families cost of living. Being Japan, and particularly for the older generations, this responsibility falls on the man.

My answer to this was that maybe they should scrap the jobs and improve the pension scheme with that money, but then it came to point 2... 

2) It gives them a responsibility. A reason to leave the house everyday and stay active. From what I've learnt in my classes Japan in increasingly interested in the idea of workfare, where in order to get welfare someone has to do a job which is seen to contribute to society (however mundane). It doesn't need to be particularly useful, because it's more for the do-er than the receiver. Japanese society does have this crazy intense work ethic - like working until 9pm+ every day kind of crazy - so I can see why completely retiring from a job which has consumed so much of your life could be a shock to the system. There's also the fact that their life expectancy is so long; old people stay agile for much longer, and they're living in a society where everyone should be seen to contribute in some way.  Thinking about this, I found it less of a surprise that people past the age of retirement continue to work in jobs like the ones mentioned.

Personally, I'm undecided about whether I like it or not. These jobs aren't harming anyone, and if it does give the employee a sense of purpose and keeps them active and healthy then that's great. But if they're forced into it because the government gives them no other choice with such a poor pension scheme, or they've been overworking themselves for so long that they can't stop, that's not so great. I'd really love to interview one of them some day, but 1) the obvious language barrier and 2) it would be hard not to sound patronising and criticial (but why are you here???!) when I'm just genuinely curious to see their point of view. 

5. FEELINGS

I've officially been in Japan for 2 months, and earlier today I came across a blog post I wrote (but never posted) towards the beginning where I talked about all the things I was struggling with. I talked about the pressure you feel when you've been told for so long that something will be the best experience of your life - it meant that anything less than perfect felt like a total failure to me. Being in a new country is really bloody hard and for the first few weeks I definitely had a lot of anxiety that I would never get the hang of it. But I am VERY happy to report that 2 months in and my confidence has increased x10000. Kyoto has started to feel like my home and that makes me happy beyond words :D

Without wanting to sound like too much of a cheesy finding-myself traveller, the thing that I've learned the most here is how resourceful we can be. I tend to be a very lucky person and good things are usually handed to me with little effort on my part, but coming to Japan has made me realise that if things don't happen that way the world doesn't fall apart. I'm just working harder, puzzling things out and coming out with experiences that I can be even more proud of because I've been active in making them happen.

I still get very exhausted and homesick sometimes - apparently around 3 months is the peak of that so there is more to look forward to - but that's all OK. On December 1st I'm moving house. Currently I live in an apartment in Kyotanabe, a suburb city, about an hour away from central Kyoto. I've met some amazing people here and grown really attached to the community, but it isn't the place I believed I was applying for and since I'm here for only 1 year I want it to be the best it can possibly be. It's going to be a long, stressful and very expensive process moving to the centre but I've got so much to look forward to once I'm there!

Basically, I'm good. Having wanted to come to Japan for so many years I had set the bar ridiculously high in my head, and I really worried at the start, but overall I think this country is actually exceeding my expectations. I know it's early days and I don't want to speak to soon but yeah, that's my life right now :)