14 Reasons Why The Japanese are Richer Than You

As a follow up to my post on Otetsudai Networks I checked out their website in more detail. On their webpage they have a marketing movie, I'm not sure if it was made for them but they are the supporters of it. It follows one crazy Japanese guy as he challenges a World Record for most jobs in a day. There isn't much dialogue and the titles are in English and Japanese so there are no language problems for anyone to watch it. I've pasted it below for you all to take a look. Their site is Love Jobs (japanese only), like many Japanese sites it's very, very slick with lots of Flash.

It really brings home how a location based job network like Otetsudai Networks could be so useful in a place like Tokyo. It's the modern day equivalent of the day laborers who sit and wait in various parts of Tokyo for someone to hire them (there used to be one spot near my apartment at Takadanobaba). It also shows you why the Japanese are rich, because they are working all the time :-). If you watch the video closely towards the end of the day you see that look on his face that you see on so many Japanese faces as you walk around Tokyo, the one that says: "if I work another minute I think I'll drop dead" and then he keeps going.....

Comments

[Johnny-johnny]

Great video Steven. I really like the etiquette around receiving payment. 35,000 yen isn't a bad effort for a days work, right? A few hundred $USD?

[Steven Kempton]

At today's rate it's over $300. Which isn't bad and of course the flexibility around that is excellent as well for him. Not sure if it's quite as helpful to employers, but those that commented on the Japanese site did say they'd have him back again.

The etiquette is very normal in Japan for when you get paid, handing cash over is considered a bit strange so it's normal to use envelopes. But since it's only for a couple of hours work then the real winner is obviously the envelope company :-)

[Zul]

Gosh, I salute the guy for willing to take up (and complete) the challenge. The look on his face at the end tells you about his feeling; triumph with a lot of emotion.

[Steven Kempton]

I think he looked happiest in his substitute football player job.