My experience interning abroad has been nothing short of unique. Certainly, a lot of that uniqueness stems from the fact that I am working my first full time job in a non-Western country that is entirely new to me. However, there are quite a few reasons beyond that elephant in the room that make my internship stand out from others in my program.
My company is a very flexible, fluid organization, with a plethora of projects and departments. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, LOOK UP Accounting also houses a co-working space, a cafe, and a studio. Our office is located in Shimokitazawa, a young, vibrant neighborhood with bustling restaurants, cafés, live music venues, and thrift stores. For those who are familiar with Houston, it is quite comparable to the Heights or Montrose. Consequently, I am not housed in a massive corporate high rise. Rather a loft-like office that would look familiar to many American start-up employees.
Given these facts, my observations about business in Japan as compared to the United States are a bit slimmer than those who are working in a more traditional setting. Luckily, part of what makes this experience so valuable is getting to meet and learn from other interns in the same boat. About 40 of us are in the same housing, and I’ve been very lucky to hear about a plethora of internship experiences.
A seemingly minute but interesting nuance is the difference in communication between our two cultures. Both a friend and I have observed that it is expected to relay all messages and communications in public channels (on Slack, for example) where all employees have access to the communications. This differs from the projects and jobs I’ve used tools like Slack for in the United States, as the usual method is to only include everyone on messages that have information that pertains to them. Emails are a similar phenomenon, you are meant to keep all necessary employees included on every email thread, whereas in the United States this would be a bit of an annoyance and perhaps considered inefficient.
In my opinion, this stems from a difference in decision making between the United States and Japan. The U.S. has a very top-down approach, where a single employee will make a decision and then expect others to follow it. Japan is a bit more communal in decision making, and while it might not necessarily be the responsibility of subordinates to approve a boss’s action, most of the time a consensus is desired between multiple parties when making a decision. This can lead to a lot of back and forth, and I find it logical that more people would want to be informed of what’s going on in the company.
Another interesting fact I wanted to share (which also provides some context for my photos) is the amount of people working multiple jobs in Japan. This observation doesn’t come from my internship directly, but rather from a paddleboard tour I took of Miyajima island. The trip ended up as a solo venture with only a guide and I. Her name is Tomo, and I had a great day out on the water doing my best to practice Japanese with her. Other than her position working as a paddle board tour guide, she also works retail at a vinyl store and is a line cook at a restaurant! I thought this was an interesting economic trend to mention while still getting to share about some of my activities outside of working hours.
Working in Tokyo has been such an incredible experience, and I’m very sad to see my time here end!
