I need to share with you a cute short story of my daily work experience in Japan. Sometimes it is very difficult to explain what makes working in Japan truly interesting, from time to time challenging to overcome the cultural gaps or sometimes tiring due to the incompatibility to foreign business approaches. Today I came across a good example that shows Japanese professional earnestness to perfection. To my complete surprise I have received an email back from one of my business contacts in Japan in English. Actually so far I had never had any communication with him in English. The topic of the email: He had replied to my automatic out of office reply.
Dear Sibylle san
Thank you for your email. I know your schedule.
Already I have sent an email to your colleague about a product related question.
Regards,
Mister Veryfriendly
From time to time the Japanese approach to business efficiency really amazes me. From my perspective redundant activities like the above are quite common, but I guess some of my business counter partners have more time at their hand than I do. My goal is to cut my overtime hours short, but I guess some Japanese professionals have a different perspective on time and money.
Brought to you by Sibylle Ito (伊藤シビル)
*LOL* I’m a perfectionist myself, but I don’t like the ineffective way Japanese people often tend to work. No wonder there’s so much overtime, really.
Cute story, thanks for sharing!
I really appreciate that friendliness and extra flourish of respect I have experienced from Japanese citizens in business and education.