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I don't typically post primary level comments in CW threads but I was having a conversation with my wife last night that prompted me. It's not particularly explosive and treads much of the same ground as many more nuanced posts before it.
Last night I'm in the middle of sorting out a chicken lasagna among other things and I get this text from my wife: Something shocking happened at work today.
I checked the clock. I sleep very early most nights and I calculated roughly what time she'd be getting home, added how much time she'd need to decelerate and actually sit down for dinner, how long after that she'd get the story tellable in her mind, then how long it would take to hear it, factoring in my own responses, if any, her reactions to those, and keeping in mind the obvious unknown variable that maybe the story would, indeed, be shocking. I knew I'd be sleeping later than usual.
Because none of the trivialities of my day mean anything to anyone here I'll get to the point. A temp worker at her company under her tutelage has made noises that she may be leveling some sort of harassment
suit(edit: complaint) (power probably). Not against my wife, but against her direct supervisor. The reason? This temp worker has three complaints that I can tell:She was said to resemble a well-known (by other people, not me) celebrity chef on her first day. It may be relevant that I do not know what this chef looks like or whether being compared to her might be taken as an insult or compliment. This, to me, seems to matter, but maybe it doesn't, as simply the acknowledgement that the temp worker has an observable appearance and that this appearance has made some impression may, in the end, be the sin at hand.
She was asked if she is on Facebook.
She was asked her birthday.
2 and 3 were asked because apparently the supervisor was prompted by Facebook to "friend" a person with the same name as the relevant temp worker. Unsure and with no profile photo to go on, but assuming it might be her as the kanji for her name is rare and matched that of the recommended person, he unwisely and perhaps naively made his inquiry. I assume he asked her birthday for the same reason (that seems to be the case.) All of the above was done in full earshot and view of my wife and others in the office. This suggests it was not a hamhanded prelude to some attempt at making contact for an out-of-office assignation.
All this has erupted in now a series of slightly delayed-reaction texts from this woman to her work group (of which my wife is a part.) Asking whether the company has any sort of guidelines on this (my wife used a different word than guidelines but I can't remember it) and prodding that her complaints be sent up the company chain-of-command. Presumably to the mainest of main offices. The first step of this is already occurring.
I sat there listening and kept thinking to myself how Japan always seems to import the worst of American culture. From shitty hiphop styles (I'm old) to self-entitled behavior when dealing with service personnel (many convenience stores now have a term: customer harassment [kasuhara] because people are such assholes to workers. And I mean assholes. Like getting the worker to dougeza because of some imagined infraction. It doesn't help that this is a country where people commit suicide over hurt feelings.) To now a willingess to go Defcon 4 over what, to me, seem the mildest of social grievances. The triumph of HR.
I've no idea if this woman has a legitimate legal case. Recently a Hyogo prefectural governor came under fire for the kind of inappropriate behavior one would expect from a Thai royal. Or is it? In some ways it's par-for-the-course in what has always been a very hierarchical society. Sempai lord their authority over kohai who grumble but then become sempai a year later and do the same thing to their underlings. But the Hyogo guy's vwry public scandal has put the term powaah hara in the public lexicon.
But then I don't necessarily expect much from the law here, which sometimes seems applied with such bizarre reasoning it makes me wonder if I should GTFO now.
The terms sekuhara, powaah hara, kasuhara and whatever else are all abbreviated forms of borrowed terms from English (sexual harassment, power harassment, customer harassment, etc.)
Anyway we'll see. My wife is upset because she wonders at the repercussions on her supervisor, whom she likes, and with whom she has a friendly working relationship. "If it becomes like this," she said, "how will anyone be able to work together at all?"
Possibilities: I'm hearing this at least once removed. Tone, language used, body language, eye contact, all are unknown to me (but will also be unknown to anyone who adjudicates this). Maybe this supervisor guy leers at the tempworker and my wife just isn't aware of it. Maybe the temp company assured her that at this work no one would ever ask her anything personal about anything and now that's happened. Maybe the temp worker is aware of some other infractions that have occurred in her sight and this is her way of bringing all into the harsh cleansing light. Maybe, as Jordan Peterson has suggested, men and women just may not be able to work together, despite common sense western (and eastern) assumptions.
I nodded. She was right: It was shocking. But I slept earlier than I had expected.
This was interesting to read. I’m learning Japanese right now and recently have been practicing kenjougo and sonkeigo (forms for extra politeness).
One of the exercises was an extended dialogue of an employee and his boss talking and I had to convert the normal forms to the honorific ones.
It really surprised me when I was done how much of an asshole the boss seemed to me. My tutor had to repeatedly reassure me that he’s not being an asshole; its ok because he’s the boss.
I accepted it more or less but now what you’ve said has made me reconsider a bit if maybe there’s something to it.
I probably sound like a woman most of the time I speak Japanese. Except when I don't. But everything from how to say "I" (men say 俺 ore or 僕 boku, and only women really say 私 watashi, except of course when men decide to say watashi in certain circumstances for subtle reasons, or when a woman decides for funzies with her galpals to call herself ore) to question tags (yaro vs. dessho at least here in Kansai) to word choice can be marked masculine or feminine. This is not even getting into issues of power where the sempai will use words to the kohai that the kohai should not use back to the senpai. As a foreigner I am exempt from a lot of this, but this also means I am constantly perceived as linguistically limited (which I am) and therefore not fully part of the program.
When in doubt, listen to the view of the Japanese person, who will be getting all the subtleties. That said, I am of the belief that one person can't give the one right answer any more than any random American can tell you how to interpret a given social situation at the shopping mall in Columbus, Indiana.
Agreed.
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