This story is hilarious. But before I share it, I should back up and explain a few things.

In Japan, it is really hard to quit your job. In America the standard amount of time needed to give before one's final day when they want to quit is two weeks. Many jobs do ask for up to a month, but some jobs also don't even require the two weeks. It of course does depend on your level in the company. Someone at the executive level usually needs to give at least a few months notice, as they are more difficult to replace, while people at the bottom can often leave as they choose. I remember when I worked at a supermarket part-time; when I was ready to quit after graduating university, I told them I wanted to quit and they told me to pick a day between that day and the next month. Given the chance, I picked the next day.

In Japan it's a bit different. Most businesses are perpetually under-staffed. Add to that that in Japan people are expected to help out at the entire business, not only their job. This leads to a culture where any one leaving makes everyone else's' job much harder as they have to take on more work until someone else is hired, which might be a long time. This is incidentally why it is incredibly hard to take personal days off work in Japan and on average few people use their personal days, because the peer pressure not to take them and make other people work harder is so high that it leads many people to just never take a day off.

Anyway, so quitting a job is hard. The boss might up and refuse to allow someone to quit, or they will say to ask them again in a few months, or they won't say yes or no but will just try to avoid answering. Meanwhile, as soon as other people in the office hear that someone is trying to quit, they might start bullying that person.

It might sound nightmarish—and it is.

Due to this, within the past few years there has arisen a type of business that specializes in quitting your job for you. That may sound tremendously silly, and in America or many Western countries it might be. One can imagine Monty Python doing a skit about it. But given what I just wrote above about world culture here, you might see how beneficial a business like this could be for people.

These companies handle it all. They will break the news to your boss that you want to quit, then they will handle everything else necessary to that quitting. All in all, silly as they might sound, I think this type of business is wonderful and very helpful to many people who are otherwise trapped in jobs that won't allow them to leave.

That out of the way, I thought this story was funny.

Basically, one job-quitting company was contacted by another job-quitting company about an employee who wanted to quit. Let that sink in a minute and then laugh about how absolutely ridiculous it is. The lesson is, of course, that this bad job culture is so pervasive in Japan that even in companies set up to side-step it, it exists.

Anyway, read the story here.

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.