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One of the great things about living in Japan is the ease with which you can get things delivered to your door, with companies offering super fast service, numerous redelivery options until late in the evening, and even pick-up-from-your-door options for customers returning goods.
With these services offered seven days a week, delivery companies are fantastic on the customer service end, but upholding this high standard with several big-name competitors breathing down your neck isn’t as easy as it looks.
In recent years the cracks have been beginning to show, with videos capturing some delivery employees behaving badly, and now a new video has surfaced, showing a delivery worker from Yamato Transport, one of Japan’s largest door-to-door delivery service companies, being kicked several times by an older colleague.
Take a look at the video below:
The above clip, posted online on Nov 26, was filmed across the road from a sales office in Fukuoka Prefecture. According to J-CAST News, who interviewed the person who filmed the video, the scene occurred at around 9:19 p.m. on Nov 25, with the older male shouting so loudly his words were clearly audible from a distance.
The man could be heard using course inflections to shout things like “Are you an idiot?”, “You don’t understand a thing”, “You’re always making excuses”, and even “I’ll kill you!”
His rant goes on for over two whole minutes, during which time he approaches the younger man, kicking him on the upper legs three times before kicking the doors of the truck. The younger man stands facing him the whole time, only moving his hands and legs to lessen the blow of the kicks doled out to him.
The person who filmed the video told J-News they shared the video online because they believe it’s wrong for company employees to use violence and abusive language to reprimand staff. They said: "If it’s a supervisor, they should explain things to the other person in a way they understand, and if they make the same mistake again, explain things in a different way that’s easier to understand. It’s wrong for a supervisor to teach through violence.”
In a phone interview with J-Cast News, Yamato Transport said they were aware of the video taken at one of their sales offices in Fukuoka Prefecture, with a representative from their public relations department confirming these were employees of the company.
Refraining to give any further details about the employees involved, the representative apologized for the trouble and concern caused, saying they will be working on investigating the details of the incident and will deal with the matter strictly.
People online weren’t impressed, leaving comments like:
“This is vulgar power harassment.”
“This happens quite often in delivery companies. They usually do stuff like this in a private room and in places where there are no video cameras.”
“I used to hear employees shouting at other employees all the time when I lived near a company like this before.”
“Incompetent supervisors make incompetent subordinates. He should be fired.”
“Do they think this can just be forgiven? Hitting someone like this is a crime.”
“If this ever happened to my son or husband, I would kick the person right back.”
Hopefully this video will go some way in reminding stressed out supervisors to take a step back to reevaluate their own ways of dealing with stressful situations in the workplace. And remind us all to be a little kinder to the nation’s delivery workers, who sometimes get the rough end of the stick from customers too, especially when they have to deliver pizzas on a scooter in the middle of a typhoon.
Source: Jin
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2019/11/30/yamato-delivery-man-kicked-and-yelled-at-by-supervisor-in-japan%E3%80%90video%E3%80%91/
32 Comments
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Sevenseas
Oldman_13
Yeah, we’re all 10 feet tall and bullet proof on the internet.
Disillusioned
He's not a coward at all! He's a Japanese junior employee. Employees do not defend themselves against this kind of power harassment for fear of losing their jobs. If someone is fired from a job, regardless of the circumstances they are blacklisted and labelled a troublemaker, which makes it nearly impossible to get another job. Bullying and intimidation are deeply rooted in all levels of Japanese culture This is just another example. TIJ!
commanteer
You don't know anything about him or the circumstances. And yet you call him a coward from behind your cloak of anonymity? Who is the coward?
No Business
I wish the guy shouting had got his head kicked in.
OnTheTrail
Why is it always kicking?
Why not respond with a right cross a d floor this dude?I had a supervisor yell like that once to me and I said if he wanted unprofessional behavior we could go out back.
Brian Wheway
damaging co property is unforgivable, ( rear doors being booted ) and assaulting co employee unforgivable, if it was me being abused like this even if its my fault even if I had done something wrong, I would punch his light out, I just would not stand for that abuse.
wtfjapan
have "honor and respect" regardless of the situation towards elders or supervision
and this is why this type of mental conditioning continues to fail, younger people aren't slaves to elders, respect is mutual not a given, you have no obligation to show respect to elderly that use abuse and violence to get their point across. If more elderly Japanese understood that their violence and abuse would be most likely met with the same do you really think they'd continue this draconian mindset.
tjguy
THere is no excuse for that kind of behavior. The man should be fired immediately and the whole employment environment at that company should be investigated. It's not like they didn't know this was happening. They allowed him to treat their employees like this. The employee should sue the company. Big changes need to be made there.
3RENSHO
Clearly the senior worker felt the sempai-kohai relationship had been violated; a company named 'Yamato' is certainly going to embody and personify those traditional Nihonjonron values, however reprehensible.
wtfjapan
if it was me being abused like this even if its my fault even if I had done something wrong, I would punch his light out, I just would not stand for that abuse.
and this is why subordinates in Japan keep getting abused because they let it happen.
if you keep making the same mistakes even after be reprimanded, the proper way , then the company has every right to fire you.
Violent Assault is just that , doesnt matter how many mistakes you make , you have every right to protect yourself, no job is worth that abuse and if your going to get fired then you may as well make it worth it.
wtfjapan
There are other ways in dealing with such issues. In this case the abuse by the other employee is called "power harassment" which is frowned upon by companies as it causes them heavy costs they don't need.
and where do you think the concept "power harassment" came from it certainly wasn't a Japanese invention. Go back 20~30yrs and state "power harassment" to J company management, they probably laugh you out of the room with a slap on the top of the head at the same time.
bluedogsdodge
Why is this not in the crime section? The man was assaulted.
wtfjapan
Fighting back would have resulted in the old guy being dead,
how would a kick in the leg kill you, old guy kicks you in the leg you kick him in the leg back, kicks you again you kick him again, what do you think his next move would be. Idiots have to realise that violence/ abuse will most likely be met with similar violence/abuse. Bullys always remember the day when those they bully fight back.
blahblah222
This is part of the Japanese working culture. So nothing will change. Maybe companies will issue written rules on power harrassment, but Japanese companies run on the unwritten rules, and if the written rules conflicts with the unwritten rules, it’s always the unwritten rules that wins out.
The supervisor/senpai may get a slight slap on the wrist because of the video, but if there were no video it would have been completely normal.
Back when I was working for a Japanese company, verbal abuse similar to this happen almost weekly at the office. (Not sure if there’s any physical, since a lot of it happens in closed meeting room doors, but the yelling is so loud the whole floor can hear it)
sakurasuki
Some people can stand up but that's not alway the case, you can see some unlucky workers here.
https://www.j-cast.com/tv/2019/11/29373897.html
Their superior even don't treat them as human.
blue in green
God Bless that young man.
He's got a lot of grit and fortitude to keep quiet
while the old guy loses his g'd mind.
Fighting back would have resulted in the old guy being dead, the young guy out of a job, and his freedom.
It sucks that people act like dicks, but you can only do, what you can do.
commanteer
You were not raised in Japan though, were you? I am sure there is some kind of conditioning in your own upbringing where a Japanese person might say "I would never do such-and-such like wtfjapan." Every culture as its weak points, and the young guy here did nothing wrong that I could see. If you were the sort of Japanese to punch his lights out for this, you would end up working in a nightlife district, construction or the local yakuza.
It's easy to say "they let it happen." But people belong to a culture, and change is always difficult. The first to stand up for change almost always suffer for it. And that's not unique to Japan.
talaraedokko
I’m waiting for a good response not only from Yamato but from the government. In any other country they’d be in court. These delivery companies try so hard. I am an Amazon addict. I get deliveries so often, I sympathize with the drivers. I offer them water, hot tea or a cold drink when I see the weather calls for it. I even offered one guy my gloves. Put this manager back on driver duties.
Michael Machida
All bosses like this will get their day.
krustytheclown
Good managers never lose their cool and scream and shout. They explain what needs to be done and lead by example.
Brian Wheway
As a boss, I think that the moment you start screaming and shouting like this guy,
1: you have lost control
2: you have lost respect
3: Educate your staff to do it correctly, if you dont you only have your self to blame.
we all make mistakes, but shouting at someone only lowers there self esteem and they feel bad, or they just won't care in the future, so your company will start suffer, in the long run.
Toshihiro
If I just listened to the audio, it sounded like a scene from a mobster film. I've been yelled at like this at my work and one tip I can give is to detach yourself from the situation when you're being yelled at, go full airhead mode so you won't take the verbal assault too much. If you're being physically attacked, try to position yourself near a security camera or within sight of other people so you can have evidence of the abuse and (hopefully not) show proof that your self-defense is justifiable. Respect to the young dude who took all that without so much as raising a finger or speaking. That jerk of a boss will have his day, I'm surprised he didn't suffer a stroke for screaming like that for that long
rgcivilian1
re: And the worker took the abuse and did nothing? What a coward.
Actually quite the opposite and commend the younger worker for his 'restraint' vs eye for an eye western mentality thinking. It is much easier to take the eye for eye vs. have "honor and respect" regardless of the situation towards elders or supervision and the price of being blacklisted from ever working again. There are other ways in dealing with such issues. In this case the abuse by the other employee is called "power harassment" which is frowned upon by companies as it causes them heavy costs they don't need.
BeerDeliveryGuy
When I was a kid, this kind of smoke-out was pretty common in the Marine Corps. Times have changed, I hear DIs can’t even “knife hand” anymore.
blue in green
If the young man let the old guy get the best of him,
it would have escalated, not stayed at just kicking.
The old guy might've been knocked to the ground, hit his head, possibilities endless,
none of them good.
The old guy lost his mind, but the young guy didn't.
That's my take.
oldman_13
And the worker took the abuse and did nothing? What a coward.
At least a few Vietnamese workers who were yelled at, took it upon themselves to strike back at their bullying boss.