The tables have turned now, haven’t they…?

In Japan , behavior is dictated by your position towards the person you are interacting with. In theory, this is nothing really strange at all and something that is valid for all cultures and people I believe. However, in Japan , and especially in a work environment, I believe that there are more formal rules in terms of etiquette than in most other cultures.

When meeting someone in the work setting there are always a number of factors you have to weigh in, considering the persons age, position and previous relationship to you and/or your “group” (as in your company, department, immediate superior or such). Obviously, if it’s a customer you have to keep a high degree of politeness although some leeway is given if the person is young, junior and/or female. If the saying “customer is king” is true in Europe and the US then the saying would probably be “the customer is God” here in Japan . If a customer says “Jump!” we don’t ask “how high?” we just jump as high as we can until he/she says it’s enough. That's basically how it works in a company where large amounts are decided in each deal closed. In business, there usually is a type of food chain and a company like ours is somewhere in the middle, having both customers we need to suck up to, but also providers we can boss around. I think the whole food chain is something for another post though.

Basically, it’s pretty tough being on the service/product provider side in Japan , but it’s very nice to be the customer since you can expect the same level of service as you're forced to give if you happen to be the seller (ok, there’s always exceptions, but I’m talking generally here)...

However, things can get confusing when things get turned upside down. A former long time customer of ours recently started his own business and came to us to see if we were interested in distributing a product he had gotten the rights to. However, both the product and the business concept that he wanted to sell in to us was pretty crappy and for some reason he didn’t seem to understand that the rules of the game had changed, that he was no longer the customer and that it was now us who had become the potential customer. He was the one who wanted to sell something to us. Of course there was no rudeness involved, but the person seemed a bit shocked that our interest was limited and that concerns over his concept and product was raised and kinda left the office looking kinda sad as he slithered away, his tail between his legs. He had been the customer so long and lived his life on top of the business food chain that he never really realized that selling is a completely different ball game...

I felt that someone should have given the guy the speech that Carlito (Al Pacino) gives Kleinfeld (Sean Penn) when he crossed the line from being a lawyer to becoming a gangster, that it’s a new different game now…