WHY I quit my Job in Japan

5 years ago, in the year 2011,

I went to Japan on the working holiday

visa, which— and I was intending to stay

there for a year. And I had

one job in mind that I really wanted to

do, and that was to work in a convenience

store. And the reason why I wanted to work

in a convenience store was because, well,

I thought it'd be easy, you know, just

standing behind the register. Scanning the

items, taking the money, doing general

shop duties. But it was a lot harder than

I expected, and even though

I was planning on staying in Japan for a

year, I actually left after 4 or 5 months

because I just got so fed up with the

work, the job that I was doing. It was

just so boring, and I had

so many negative experiences with

customers, rude customers. So this

is what happened. 70% of the time was,

was fine. Like, I actually managed to do

the work. The work wasn't difficult in

itself apart from having— I kept

forgetting things like tiny details about

the job. For example, how long are you

supposed to put a rice ball into a

microwave? Is it 10 seconds or is it 5

seconds? Or how long are you supposed to

put a hot dog in the microwave? Is it 15

seconds or 20 seconds. And I kept making

these little mistakes, and over time the

people around me that I worked with

started to get irritated because I wasn't

remembering what I had to remember, and I

kept having to ask them what to do even

though I had been working there for like a

few months already. And the main reason

for this was because I just couldn't I

couldn't remember the things I was

supposed to do because it was just so

boring and I had no interest in the work.

And the main thing I hated about it were

the customers. There were— most of the

customers were fine, like 80% of the time,

but you'd get a lot of rude customers that

just remain in your memory. You can't— the

rude customers are the ones that stick in

your mind for the longest time, have the

biggest impact on you. For example, There

was this one night and then this guy came

in. He looked like some kind of

construction worker, and I don't know what

happened to him. He had like a— he must

have had like a bad day because he was in

a really bad temper. And there were 2

tills, and I was at my till and I had no

customers. And the second till was the

person I was working with, and she was

dealing with him, and she was like

packing stuff up putting his stuff in the

bag, and then he looked at me and then he

yelled at me. He said, he said something

like, warm this up, and I didn't know what

he was talking about. He wanted his

sandwich warmed up in the microwave. What

kind of idiot wants a sandwich warmed up

in a microwave? I had no idea he was even

talking to me at first, but he was really

angry. He was like shouting at me, and he

wasn't really swearing, but he was using

like really informal language, which is

Basically the equivalent of swearing in

Japanese. So I put his sandwich in the

microwave and he pissed off. And then

there were lots of other times where

customers wouldn't take out their point

cards at the beginning. You're supposed to

ask the customer if they have a point card

at the beginning, but most of the time

customers didn't. And usually if you ask

them if they had a point card, they'd be

like kind of grumpy and angry. So I used

to not like having to ask if they have

point cards. So what happens is if they

get the point card after you've finished

giving them the receipt and the change,

you have to refund the item because you

couldn't— by then, at that point, it would

be too late to add the points to their

point card. So what you have to do is

you'd have to refund all the transaction

and then start over. But it's not a good

thing to do refunds because you had to

write it in the book and Like why you

refunded them. And if you did too many

refunds, you'd get in trouble with the

person, like the people in charge of the

convenience store. So I had

all these like bad experiences with

customers. It just made me— I started to

lose confidence. Every time a customer

would approach the till, the register,

I'd just be like, oh no, is something

going to go wrong this time? And then if

nothing went wrong, I'd be like so, so

relieved, like, oh, thank God it's over.

And then I'd be dreading the next

customer. And my other

problem was the language. Now, at that

time, my Japanese ability was pretty good,

but there still were a lot of times where

I couldn't understand what people were

saying. Not because I didn't understand,

not because I didn't know the words, but

because they They were like mumbling, or

they had— they didn't enunciate properly,

and I couldn't catch what they were

saying. Especially old men, they kind of

grumble and mumble when they speak. So a

lot of the time I had to ask them to

repeat themselves, and then they'd get

like kind of grumpy, even more grumpy,

and it was like really scary. And then

there were these men who would buy

newspapers, but they wouldn't actually

show me the newspaper. They would just

like pick up the newspaper chuck the money

onto the counter, and then I had to pick

it up and then add it into the till. But I

didn't know which newspaper they took, so

I didn't know how much to charge. There's

no barcode on the newspaper to scan it.

You're supposed to look at the newspaper,

see what newspaper it is, and then you had

to manually look it up on the cash

register and then enter in the money. But

all the newspapers look the same to me,

and when they just grab the newspaper and

then just storm off I couldn't see what

newspaper it was, so it was really

confusing, and I got told off a few times.

So yeah, after about 3 months, like every

day having all these different mistakes

and things that I did wrong, my boss,

she kind of— she said, Daniel, can we have

a word in the office? And then I followed

her into the office, and then she started

like yelling at me. Telling me off,

saying, how come you've been working here

for 3 months and you're still making the

same mistakes over and over again? And I

was just so shocked because up until then

she was such a nice person, like smiley

and kind. And then it was just like out of

nowhere she exploded at me. That's what

Japanese people are like. At first they

don't tell you what they're really

thinking. They're like very, very friendly

and kind even if you make mistakes, but it

kind of bottled up and it just builds up

and builds up and then they suddenly

explode at you. And at that point

I just had enough. I was just so fed up

with the job and I was like, why are you

shouting at me? It's not my fault that

this job's so shitty. And I couldn't give

a shit about this stupid job, which I

guess is my fault because if I just tried

harder, if I didn't let the bad customers

destroy my confidence so much, then I

could have done a better job. But I had

just gotten so fed up with the job and

other personal relationships that were

going on at the time. I just wanted to

leave. I just quit my job then.

Um, I did actually try to look for another

job for a few weeks, but I gave up and I

left Japan. And I just felt so defeated

because I wanted to stay there for as long

as I could, for a year, for more than a

year, but I couldn't even last for 4

months in this crappy convenience store

job. And I was just so disappointed,

and I felt like, ugh, I don't want to ever

come back to Japan again. Which is kind of

funny because I actually went back to

Japan a 3rd time and then a 4th time, and

I'm going back for a 5th time. This month,

actually. So that was my work experience

in Japan. It wasn't really a great

experience, to be honest. I love Japan as

a country and I love living there, but if

I could go back in time and do the working

experience— working holiday experience

again, I probably wouldn't do it because—

because that's not what I

want to do in life. I don't really want to

work in a shop. I have other ambitions,

like goals that I have, and I just

can't picture myself being happy doing

that kind of job for the rest of my life.

So yeah, anyway,

thanks for listening to this kind of

rambling-on video. I didn't really plan

what I was going to say, so it was a bit

difficult to, to try and express myself.