Hi!!!
I am a Japanese in Vancouver Canada.
After I came here and throughout oversea experiences, I was able to learn ton of things related to attitudes of working and colleges corporation.
Social working environment in Japan.
I have worked as a sales of software company for almost 2 years after graduating university in Japan.
I also had have experiences to work a restaurant retail advisor, Hotel staff until that time, but all were as a prat time jobs. Japanese people usually start part time jobs during university students. When we were high school, we spend some specific sports club all time. It depends on person, but I was one of these person.
When I got a job, I was really excited what kind of things I can learn, how much I can grow myself at the first. The company I worked is kind of start up company, so there are not a lot of rule, any fundamental things. So we have to create everything from scratch. I would enjoy most work. Of course some work suffer me from enjoying. My boss was getting trust me and giving more work day by day.
So I had to manage few tasks and decide priorities of each task. All members I worked with looked like so busy and they do work until 9 ,or 10 from 9am.
However, most of my friends who are same ages was working until midnight. So I was like it is normal. I was really new person. So I know I have to do until midnight. I was losing motivation about tour. Because of tiredness. A lot of foreigner have an image that Japanese work a lot , I am same here. It is social environment. If I did not go around world. Overtime working is quite common on all the world. finally I realized it is especially In Japan. I could not go back home without leaving boss. I was said whenever you can go back home, However it is kind rule. I go back on time and boss still is working.
Some people quit jobs because of work too much.
There are both perspective. Good advantages and bad advantages. However, doing too much is mostly not good in any circumstance.
About Vacations,
First of all, is just my story and story from people around me. So it just my biased. So please do not feel bad. In my experiences it is really hard to get long vacations. My company also has vacation systems. I can use 10 days vacation during 1 years. How ever I also had already role of my work. So if I got vacations, some people have to cover my roles too. So I have to ask people instead of me and get approvals from boss. There are always some project with clients. So it is hard to say (I would like to say about vacations) I could say one day vacation. Feel free, However If I would like to go to foreign countries. I need more than 3 days at least. Compare to Japan, In here Canada, using vacation is much easier I feel. There are more welcome for employees to use vacations. It is obviously wonderful aspect in here.
Changing jobs
We have negative feeling about changing and quieting jobs. Some my friends say he or she will work same company at least 3 years. I quiet jobs 2 years though. On the other hand, I have heard if person is working same company for long time, it has not positive mind in North America. So it is completely different with Japan. I am not sure which culture is better. I could say it is also one of the surprised incidents for me.
English is my second languages. So sometimes I might make you guys feel uncomfortable. If I did,
Sorry for that, I will make effort more!!
Have a great day.!!