Day in the Life of a Japanese Car Repair Worker in Toyota

this is a Dana life in a Japanese auto repair shop [Music] this is Edina she's 30 years old and works at a car repair shop in Toyota Japan and she's just waking up her work she lives with her parents in this two-story house which is very common in Japan even outside of the city you don't take a shower in the morning she says she prefers to take baths at night instead very common in Japan how long does it take to wear makeup [Music] for breakfast her mom makes her an O negative which he packs with her Mookie child oh yeah and she's thanked her favorite morning drink soy milk tea unlike major cities like Tokyo Adina commutes to work by car she rents a parking space from her neighbor nearby since the two Lots at her house are full oh yeah and I keep saying Toyota and you might be wondering well the answer is yeah the city was named after the car manufacturer as Toyota is located here fun fact 85% of the population in Toyota works in the car industry an IT prefecture where Toyota is located has more registered cars than anywhere in Japan oh and look she's watching the morning TV news on her navigation screen so her commute time is about 15 to 20 minutes without traffic which is pretty normal here and it definitely beats the average 1 hour long Tokyo shoulder-to-shoulder train commute Wow did you hear the enemy voice that's your coworker activating this car security system oh wow just in time that's what the mechanics are doing right now is called Raji oh tae-seok which translates to radio exercises it's a warm-up calisthenics performed to music and guidance from a radio broadcast the mechanics here do it every morning before they start work in fact it's an old Japanese tradition dating back to 1928 not all Japanese companies do it these days but many still carry on the tradition oh and the mechanics follow up the morning exercises with children a morning company meeting to review with each other what work needs to be done for the day and Lina works for a company called i hoed Enki an auto repair company employing about 30 staff mainly mechanics like most people Audrina works Monday through Friday but she's also required to work every other Saturday when Audrina arrives to work every day she has to snap an attendance book pretty old-school right I think the mechanics are still discussing today's tasks so how do you start your day many smaller Japanese companies don't hire daily cleaning services but instead rely on workers to clean the office it's supposed to promote selfishness and community what do you guys think nice now the shop is clean as a carburetor she can finally get back to her desk and work on accounting tasks her Japanese title is kitty Jimin which means both office accountant and office administrator I don't know if this is common in other countries but let's just say she has a expensive role in the office are you usually by yourself in the office so it looks like one of them is cleaning a different part of the office and the other one is picking up a mechanic at a customer site hmm like I gave her something what is that so fax machines are still alive and well in most Japanese companies in fact if you ever receive a Japanese business card you'll notice that most respectable companies still have a fax number listed [Music] hey did you notice how she waited a long time to hang up the phone after talking that's because hanging up the phone before the client is considered immensely rude in Japanese business culture I guess she's busy doing her morning desperate so let's go see what's under the hood of this shop so the weather itself is kind of taking a turn for the worse it's really raining outside so I'm just gonna kind of see what they're fixing today what are you guys fixing right now Oh got it not too replacement AC evaporator for the car can you tell me what this is put in la paga home judicata topping off Gigi sugar hot that it for the warning Oh basically it says which mechanic has to do what for the day so if you look right behind me you'll actually see a little shrine and you'll find this a very common in Japanese houses as well as Japanese businesses they're known as a sense of good luck for the business there's actually kind of like a thanks right to it where it always needs to face the same direction what's actually quite interesting are these magnetic stickers these stickers are used as indicators for when someone's a new driver basically you attach the magnetic sticker to the front and the back of your car and back in my case they don't drive so much in Tokyo or in Japan for that matter so every time I Drive I prefer to actually have one of these stickers on the car so right now she's gluing down special receipts called real shushil for record-keeping these official receipts are used to track expenses in Japan and they're quite magical as only the total amount of the expenses listed and the individual items disappear Idina are you going somewhere so ordering and picking up bento lunches for everyone is another one of our daily tasks but damn it's a pain when it's raining like today especially for filming oh I guess a quick smoke to help her along to the next task [Music] it's also part of our job to prepare tea for everyone before lunch even though everyone can buy their own drinks from a vending machine see traditional Japanese business culture is still very apparent in this company as group needs are placed above the individual oh that's thoughtful / apparently when it's hot outside she makes barley tea instead she changes depending on the weather this is the break room and she's now setting things up for everyone how nice of her so how much is one bento Wow about four dollars and fifty cents she further explains that the company subsidizes the bento so it only costs 350 yen about three dollars and 20 cents [Music] wait you're not eating with everyone else thanks ed eanes hard work the mechanics and have a pleasant lunch break so the bento menu is always the same okay I guess I'm gonna explore more at least the rain has let up a little bit it's still a bit cloudy but it was a lot better than earlier check out this car behind me it's kind of like a three-wheeled little buggy it has one wheel in the front and has two wheels in the back and it has kind of like a truck bed and in fact I've never actually seen one of these in my life in the door opens up in the front right there I can see that it has even red seats oops I just caught her during a lunch time now let's turn off the camera and come back a little bit later after a nice lunch nap Edina has to clean up the break room [Music] so it looks like we're going on the delivery run to drop off some parts for a customer [Music] why did you choose this job come on our best guys what's your favorite car suited use ICT will do so they're off delivering the packages right now to the client and they should be back and all of it it took about I don't know like maybe 15-20 minutes to drive here oh the back house quick finishing the rest of a job this afternoon it's a bit quiet so let's play some Inspector Gadget you can look around this place so these two young mechanics are new hires let's see what they're up to hey what are you guys doing this side you'll see the time I need nothing so basically they're removing the black glue from the blocks so they can reuse them for installations so what's up for this Porsche oh I guess AC repairs are in high demand for the summer Idina what are you doing right now [Music] traditional Japanese companies are still very much paper-based so Edina has to prepare the monthly payment slips for each employee her second smoke break of the day at least this time she has a break buddy so he's telling me that his work officially starts at 9 a.m. every day but he has to ride even earlier for the exercises and the morning meeting damn it really takes a dedicated mindset to work in a Japanese company exchanging business cards when you first meet someone is still very much an important part of Japanese business culture the cards though start to pile up so she has to organize them for the CEO now she's picking a part of the storage room for the mechanics she really does everything in the office so it's half-past five and one of her final duties is to empty out the trash bins throughout the office oh look it's a talking anime car I didn't get a chance to show you guys earlier what do you think all right end of the day time to count the money so Japanese money is made with thick paper so it allows them to count like this it's quite differently compared to America I wonder if any other countries counted this way [Music] nice finish just after 6:00 I've noticed more and more companies in Japan on topping standard working hours of for their employees but don't get me wrong many Japanese companies still have crazy long work hours it seems like a dog Coco time mr2 at the end of the day her mom usually prepares a meal if she doesn't have plans with her friends and look she's serving hamburger tonight I think it's a great way to end of the day but what did you think about her day as you can see right after dinner they're just hanging out watching TV and this is like basically a day in the life working at an auto repair shop if you guys want to help support the channel then definitely check out the Tokyo merch and if you want to see more videos in this day in the life series and I'm coming up with so much more so definitely hit that subscribe button and the Dublin and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 2,061,135

Rating: 4.9176464 out of 5

Keywords: Paolo, japan, toyota, day in the life, day in the life japan, office worker, working in japanese office, japanese office, japan office, working hours in japan, japanese salarymen, japanese salary woman, japanese office tour, jobs in japan, work in japan, japanese auto shop, japanese car shop, salarywoman, traditional japanese office, Japanese OL, 自動車 修理, 豊田市, トヨタ 車, toyota car, car repair, japanese car, Japanese worker, office lady, Japan work culture, japanese work culture

Id: 4m4UxbDgGhc

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/nipponbaseball]

mechanic ?

[u/Necrofridge]

Always mindboggling how low tech Japan is in so many places

[u/lazarus870]

Looks like the kind of place where people really enjoy each other and enjoy working. It didn't look like anybody was too overworked or stressed out.

[u/pardonmeimdrunk]

That’s a clean auto repair shop. Hard to tell where the shop stops and the administrative starts.

[u/KuusiSataa]

Wasn't expecting to see an Alpine A110 in this video.

[u/idpeeinherbutt]

That looks exhausting.