Japan is a country very different from Denmark and Finland.
I have been here in Tokyo for 2.5 months so far and it has been a crazy experience!
Currently I am doing my internship as a sales intern at a start up coming called
Beyond Borders, which is a company that deals in real estate and it has been
the busiest time of my life. The company growing fast and we recently moved
to a new office so.. YAY!
Anyway.. As a sales intern, I am not really an intern but actually function as a full-time employee. I work as long hours as the full-timers, I have the same responsibilities and I am in charge of managing a huge amount of customers.
So how long is a general working day for me? Well, first of all I get up 7.30 in the morning and make it to work by 9AM (There is a 30 minute walk to the office, so need to get up well in time for breakfast), I then work until 1 o’clock and have around 1 hour for my lunchbreak and finally I end work at 6PM.
With that said, there is a lot of Zangyo and my longest day has been a whopping 12 hours!
Of course, in Japan there is also time for fun and that’s where nomkai comes into play.
Nomikai is a sort of drinking party together with your boss and co-workers and it is an
incredibly good time for bonding and just overall having fun and relaxing a bit more than
the somewhat tense atmoshphere that can sometimes be at a serious day at the office!
When I have a day off and actually have time to do something other than work and visa related things, I tend to spend it on exploring Tokyo. So far I have walked aroudn most of Shibuya and Shinjuku and have also been to various other areas due to the nature of my job.
Japan is an amazingly beautiful country with many shrines and a great view at night (Sorry I don’t have any night life photos of the city), but I promise it’s great!
Finally, as I worked in Finland last year I guess I have some experience to compare the two working cultures.
As I’ve already mentioned working in Japan is a lot tougher due to the many extra hours of work, possible overtime (which often is the case in this business) and a stronger social hierachy.
While this company is a start-up, they are not exactly your traditional Japanese company, but still has some traits of traditional Japanese working life.
Overall, I have loved this experience so far and I definitely recommend trying out something similar if you are really looking to get hands on experiene!
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