Otsukaresamadesu

I don’t know if you read Slate, but I do. Last week they had a feature on procrastination. This is relevant because I am, as you may know, a chronic procrastinator (it’s really a miracle that this blog even gets written). And, if you’re reading this, you’re probably procrastinating a little right now. That’s ok. We can work through this together. I’ll point you in the direction of an article that embodies my feelings about procrastination:

http://www.slate.com/id/2190918/

And one about procrastination in other cultures:

http://www.slate.com/id/2191310/

This article posits the theory that the Japanese may, actually, procrastinate more than Americans. I want to say that this is absolutely true. In Japan, procrastination is not the problem of the individual, as it is in America, rather, it is institutional. Procrastination and inefficiency are actually built into the Japanese system.

Every morning we begin the day with a morning meeting. This is an entirely useless activity. Someone stands up, tells everyone to stand up, then we all bow and say “good morning” in unison. Then, the meeting coordinator gives the date and says that the meeting is starting. Then he/she gives the floor to the principal. He says a few words about how the day is starting before passing the conch to the vice principal, who says something equally useless. Then the homeroom teacher for each class talks about who’s absent today and why, and other useless information. Only occasionally (when the schedule is different or there is some event later in the day) are the contents of the meeting of any relevance. The whole thing is just a waste of time.

And so are the staff’s daily activities. Some teachers are actually busy, but what is the vice principal doing all day? He never leaves his computer. He sits in front of it for almost twelve hours a day. What is he up to? There’s no possible way that the vice principal at a junior high school with ninety seven students has so much work that he has to put in twelve hour days. The principal pretty much blatantly has nothing to do. He’s constantly walking aimlessly around the staffroom, and whenever I look into his office, he’s staring out the window. They’re both wasting time. But the key is that they look busy. You’ll almost never see a Japanese person blatantly wasting time (that’s why the principal’s behavior is so shocking). Everyone masks their procrastination by making it look like they have a lot to do. The appearance of work is vastly more important than actually doing work. That’s why it’s such a big deal that everyone comes in on time and leaves very late. You get paid to be at work, not to do work. If you come in late or leave early, you must be lazy. Even if you only have three hours worth of work to do, you must stretch it to twelve hours. To be efficient is frowned upon. To be efficient is to finish early, and to finish early is to be lazy. To be efficient is to be lazy.