Bandai Namco has reportedly turned to the unspoken Japanese tradition of layoff-by-boredom by stuffing unwanted employees into oidashi beya, or “expulsion rooms.”
Employees banished reassigned to oidashi beya are left to do nothing, or given menial tasks at best. According to Bloomberg’s unnamed insider sources, Bandai Namco has moved around 200 of its 1,300 person team to these rooms in recent months.
The goal of sticking someone in an expulsion room is to literally bore or shame them into quitting, and Bloomberg’s sources claim it has worked on around half the people Bandai Namco has stuck in there so far.
I think we’re misunderstanding the rooms here. Everyone in the comments is saying “ooooh, I’d love that!” But imagine, the company gives you a tough but manageable quota of lines to write out by hand from the dictionary. Every day, 8 hours of writing. No phone, no music, no talking, no distractions, just quietly writing.
For anyone with a decent salaried job, that sounds horrible.
As a software developer writing out lines from the dictionary isn’t part of my job description… they’d be violating my employment contract.
Bosses can’t just demand you do something… your work needs to be stuff you agreed to do.
You probably have another duties ad required clause somewhere. If not, fine one dev to another, asking for hundreds of shitty useless QA tests. Same stupidity but if they can demonstrate a reasonable employee should finish X in Y time…
useless QA tests
As a QA professional, I take exception to that!
If you get into a situation like this please reach out to a labor lawyer - it’s extremely likely that you could make a case for constructive dismissal.
so don’t make your quota.
what are they going to do, fire you?
Exactly! You accidentally hit the nail on the head here.
The goal of the company is to get rid of employees. But they have permanent hire, so the bosses can’t simply fire them without cause (and the bar for cause is very high in Japan). They want employees to quit, or they want employees to clearly fail to perform their duties.
What the employees want is to keep doing decent work at that company, probably until they retire at age 65. Permanent hire is highly treasured, for good reason. The reason permanent hire exists, and is so widespread as required by law, is that Japan values employee well-being more than it values the bosses’ well-being. It’s hard to get a big loan (for a house or apartment) if you don’t have permanent hire. It’s hard to get a high-paying job that doesn’t have permanent hire. Many companies will not give you good positions if you’re over the age of 35, too, which makes changing employers in your 40s-60s very challenging.
not an accident.
Responded before but if you don’t hit the quota, they can probably fire you for cause (removing the severance, maybe pension etc.)
It’s why all the back to office mandates sorta work (in terms of reducing headcount) you can’t just show up and do nothing. If thr company can prove you’re doing nothing, you can probably be terminated for cause. Happened to guys I know in a public, govt funded job with the reason as, iirc “time theft” and the union didn’t really fight for them because the evidence was pretty damning that they hadn’t done fuck all most mornings.
At most companies in Japan, them firing you would not eliminate your severance or pension. Those are typically mostly paid based on years worked, and not on how your employment terminates.
There tend to be extra payouts if you die on the job, at many companies, so it’s not true to say that your termination status has zero impact, but typically it’s a small adjustment.
For anyone it’s horrible. Making someone do monotonous unproductive work is a form of torture. Just look at Sisyphus.
I mean, Camus argued he could at least find satisfaction/meaning in rolling that damned rock. (As part of his “why committing suicide is bad” essay, I think called the Myth of Sisyphus.)
I would start to suspect my employers of bank robbery.
Heck, now I just want to read this before understanding the joke. Be warned, you’re going to get a message in some months thanking you for the reference.
To skirt Canadian employment laws, a previous employer gave me unrealistic targets and even when I acheived them she would say I’m underperforming. This exists in every country. Employers will always find a way to make it look like the employee quit of their own volition.
Sounds a lot like Amazon. Hope you’re doing better now.
In the immortal words of that dumbo from Blizz “do you guys not have phones?”
If you leave me in a room and give me no tasks while still paying me, you’ve got me on salary to slack. And I will outperform everyone. Or no one, I’m not sure which one.
And honestly figuring that out is probably not in my job description anymore.
Seems nice at first, but having worked jobs with nothing to do, time passes so slow. It’s painful.
Yep. There is a reason why “layoff-by-boredom” exists and works. It’s uncomfortable for most us to be bored.
I’d take slow and nothing to do over getting worked to the bone daily every time, I’ve had both. I have an active imagination, I manage.
You don’t have to choose between the two evils though. There are just normal jobs.
Yup. I used to work at a toy store in my local mall that was just not doing business. Anytime I worked, I’d get maybe 5 customers a shift, and these were like 10-6 shifts.
I was so bored I felt like I could cry just to pass the time. There were a couple times where I straight up took a nap behind the counter because I was so tired and bored.
Not for me. I can zone out for hours like it’s nothing.
Used to work security. Even when on a street corner observing for state legislature meetings (no phone allowed), I played games of rearranging letters on billboards or vehicles to make new words. (They have cameras and police, I was just there as a deterrent). Wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t 18 degrees F and 32mph winds…
Pick up a hobby, read a book. Not sure how Japan or other countries are living, but one thing we still have in the USA are public libraries. We can download an app and check out books. For free. There is a lot more stuff at the actual library, but downloading books and reading them for money sounds like something I can retire doing. I take book reading days at my current job. As long as I put in “8 hours” of work they don’t care how I spend my 8 hours.
Time to work on my screenplay/book/stand-up routine/music!
I would say managment should be individually fined by safe work commission for creating an unsafe work environment. But considering Japans long history of mental health issues and work, im unfortunately not expecting much.
In the past, many employees have won wrongful termination lawsuits for this type of behavior. In Japan, employers have a legal duty to give their employees some kind of work.
(The authors were lazy here. This is not a secret thing.)
It could potentially fall under power harassment rules depending upon the implementation, though I assume a company of any size would have their lawyers look over things first. People do successfully fight power harassment, especially in more recent times.
If I’m still getting paid from this with little to no task to do. That seems like an ideal job to me. Even better away from people.
The Japanese are one of the few countries worthy of even more pity than us Americans when it comes to slaving for and being defined by their vocation.
I agree with you completely, but people who don’t play the meaningless game of career trajectory are literally shunned by family there for it.
Not to sound too Korean… but, that’s kinda the social repercussion of electing war criminals, then the children of war criminals, and the grandchildren of war criminals to lead your country.
Modern Japan is a weird poly-sci experiment examining what would happen if you took guns away from a fascist government.
It’s not that different in Korea though. If you don’t work for Samsung or SK Group you are lower class. And your old friends who do work for those Chaebols will stop associating with you.
If you don’t work for Samsung or SK Group you are lower class.
I mean, that’s just factually incorrect. South Korea has a fairly large manufacturing economy, a lot of my family are shipwrights and make really decent money. The other half of my family works for banks and for the government, none of them are considered low class.
South Korea does have a pretty brutal work regiment, but they also have very aggressive trade unions who aren’t afraid to go on massive and often violent strikes.
old friends who do work for those Chaebols will stop associating with you.
According to who? I mean you may stop seeing them as often, but that’s just because the work culture often extends out of office. It’s pretty traditional to go out drinking or eating with your coworkers, but that doesn’t mean people stop associating with their friends who don’t work with them.
Oh thank god. Just when I thought the eastern games industry was mostly insulated from the massive layoffs plaguing the industry, Bandai Namco is here to let me down! Still in such a creative and batshit insane way, but very clearly the same kind of corporate fuck-up effecting the western industry.
Eastern work culture is often times boss level of toxic, but it’s very hidden and subtle compared to western.
I think I would be resentful enough to tough it out for a while and try to force their hand, but I might be giving myself too much credit. I’m pretty rebellious toward authority and would want to jam a thumb in their eye (metaphorically).
I’d be watching Twitch all day. These guys are dumb.
Make this position remote and I’ll volunteer in a heartbeat. You’ll never get me to quit.
This would in no way shape or form work on me. In fact, I want to get a job in Japan now so they can do this to me and it would be the greatest thing ever
This would work on me. I genuinely have less job satisfaction when things are slow and boring…
Free pay to do whatever you want online, while waiting for them to give you severance / unemployment? Sounds dope, no wonder American companies don’t do this. Americans have no shame
You don’t get to do whatever you want. You sit in a small room and sort small pieces of paper into two piles. Then you mix them up and do it again. Then you go home until you come back and do it again for eight hours. For five days a week. Same paper. Two piles.
This was a plot arc in Aggretsuko
