Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

Nomura teaching Harvard grads to serve tea

Hot off Gen’s tweet, here’s a quick collection of posts as the ripple begins:

• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124882265902988289.html (the original article – behind a pay-wall)
• http://dealbreaker.com/2009/07/nomura-finding-lehman-employee.php
• http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=11762 (for comments)
• http://www.finextra.com/community/fullblog.aspx?id=3133

Being most familiar with this exact pair of cultures – American and Japanese – I find this clash fascinating. It’s sad and depressing no doubt, and I don’t have much hope for Nomura management to understand what is so wrong teaching 17th century office practices, but there’s a small part of me that’s thrilled this news is making headlines, in a sort of “I told you so” way.

My bet is that Nomura management will only react to the negative press by retreating and decreasing their diversity quotient.

Most Japanese corporate work environments do not value cultural diversity, and are afraid of what they don’t know. If you’ve ever been exposed to a Western work environment, you will not like working in a Japanese one.

Note, I am not saying one is better than the other. Simply that a Japanese work environment takes a very unique soulless personality to actually enjoy it.

This reminds me of a recent research-study anecdote I heard at a lecture last month.

A Chinese student who was working part-time in a Japanese fast-food kitchen was asked if they felt their experience was transferrable globally. The response was a firm “No.” Turns out, the Chinese student was proud of his dish-washing speed when one evening the Japanese kitchen boss came over and told him to slow down. The student was perplexed, and asked why.

“If you finish too early, you will have nothing to do and that will make me look bad.”