Thursday, April 10, 2008

We should have a meeting and discuss this!

One of the things that I had almost forgotten about, but is now quickly coming back to me is the amount of long winded and pointless meetings that exists in the more corporate environment. Recently I participated in a meeting together with Mr. Shachou, the sales manager and the marketing manager to discuss an upcoming event.

I'm still so new in the company that I don't really have any prior involvement in this particular event and participate more as an observer at this stage and since I do not want to stir up too much trouble too soon by speaking my mind about some of the more questionable topics and directions.

So, remember, that participating in this particular meeting is the president, marketing manager, sales manager and me, so some of the top layer in the company. The marketing manager explains his plans for the event (pretty long winded with extreme amount of detail, but I can live with that). Then he reaches the stage where he talks about the help he needs from some of the salespeople in the organization and hands out a list with names of about 7 salespeople and the tasks that he has in mind for them.

Then he comes to the person that will operate the computer which is not as difficult as it sounds, it consists of clicking to the next slide when the speaker says "next slide" and nothing more really. A heated discussion breaks out involving both managers and the president whether another salesman would be more suitable for this task or not, this discussion goes on for about 5 minutes until a conclusion has been reached: another salesguy will do that instead.

All the time during this discussion I am just sitting there stunned by the whole thing; that such a minor and insignificant topic requires a discussion involving the top layer of the company. Well, the absurdity of it provided me with some entertainment at least!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is why japanese salarymen can't go home until 11pm.

Robbie Kunz said...

Hey, I love your blog... I'm a senior in college here in the US and I've been looking for personal experiences on working in Japan but I can't find many!

I want to do consulting work at a company in Japan, too. Any advice you can give? Do you use only Japanese at your job? What is the salary like in comparison to working in the US? Do you like working there? Any other valuable information for someone like me?

If you have any good posts on those topics, please let me know! Thanks!

Mr. Salaryman said...

Hey there Robbie, I don't mind giving you some advise and/or hints, but probably better if you send me an e-mail at tokyosalaryman(at)hotmail.com

owenandbenjamin said...

Another reason the japanese salarymen don't get home until 11pm is that they are out getting drunk with their co-workers after work.

It's a job requirement Robbie.

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