This is a day in the life of a Japanese delivery person This is Yasuho, 22 year old living in Tokyo, and she's just waking up to start her day She lives alone in this newly built 1K apartment and like many Japanese, she prefers to take a bath at night just before she goes to sleep. Oh nice, she's boarding mop slippers Yasuho, how long does it take you to wear makeup? I guess she doesn't eat breakfast in her apartment She commutes to work by bike, taking about only ten minutes to get to the office In fact, it's pretty rare in Tokyo for someone to live right next to the office as most workers commute on average about one hour by train one way Also, compared to other Japanese workers, her day start a little earlier, so living nearby is ultra convenient. Yasuho works as a delivery person at Sagawa Express One of the largest transportation companies in Japan, with more than 50,000 employees spread across 400 offices throughout the country. All right, so Yasuho should be coming around the corner right now Let's see how much she slept this morning Good morning. What time did you go to sleep last night? Oh, she's changing into her Sagawa uniform, looking sharp What did you just buy? Okay, she's eating a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast Pocari sweat is a popular sports drink in Japan This is the go-to drink when Japanese want to quickly get hydrated So this is the main Sagawa shipping terminal in the Tokyo area and where all shipments are sorted every morning She needs to pick up the boxes which go to our specific delivery area and load them into her micro van Yasuho, what's in your pocket? So every delivery person carries a name stamped with a date on it to mark delivery slips and other documents It's a huge space to work so communicating effectively between workers is important Right now she's sorting out smaller packages by address so it's easier to deliver What did he just give you Oh, and that's her manager, it looks like they're going over material regarding new Sagawa services So every morning before she starts they actually clean the car which is quite interesting, right? You can see how clean it is So the company has a rule that drivers like Yasoho can't start deliveries until their van is completely cleaned. That explains why I never see a dirty Sagawa delivery truck in Tokyo In fact workers cleaning at the office or students cleaning at school is fairly common in Japanese culture Highlights the importance of your surroundings and being responsible for your own good Now that the delivery van is clean, she's able to load the boxes for her delivery area Where are you going now? To start the process, every morning she fills out a handwritten form with all of her details on it. So what she's doing now is called "Tenko" The company must ensure that all drivers are safe to be on the road. In order to do this, every driver needs to report their health condition as well as perform a breathalyzer test and finally, read the safety driving rules in front of an inspection staff Wow, it seems like Sagawa performs a lot of safety checks before they can get on the road Damn, she even has more checks. Does every delivery company in the world do this? Now that Yasuho has picked up all of our packages at the main Tokyo terminal She's headed to a smaller distribution hub for a specified area Before she starts delivering packages, she stops by this area delivery hub and picks up this special Sagawa cart She loads the boxes from the van and then pushes the card to each delivery spot She basically repeats this process until her van is completely empty of boxes Now she's delivering the remaining smaller packages What's that? So she's currently assigned to the Nihombashi area, which is known to have many apparel wholesale facilities So she delivers not only to regular houses, but to many apparel shops and businesses. Why do you always say thank you twice? In Japan, streets are relatively safe, especially from theft which we'll notice that bit more throughout this video But she's still careful to lock her cart during deliveries So she's been working as a delivery person for about six months, so she's fairly new to her job She says that she likes it because she gets to communicate with customers every day and having trusted relationships with them gives her motivation So what's the hardest part of working as a delivery person? Yay, she finally finished all of her deliveries. That wasn't so bad So what are you gonna do now? Her PDT device works as a timecard as well, so she clocks off during lunch You have to change during your lunch break? Ahh, I guess that's why I never see Sagawa workers eating out makes so much sense now So she's meeting up with some of her senpais for lunch. Senpai is a Japanese word used for senior colleagues and mentours. So, how long have you been working at Sagawa? What's your favourite part of this job? How about you? Have you ever had trouble with foreign customers having to use English? So they often go to this Japanese izakaya restaurant together Izakayas are usually frequented during the evening but many open for businesses during lunch time to serve affordable set menu items like this place Alright so we're just back from lunch and she actually has a longer lunch than usual It's about an hour and a half Usually people only have an hour break But I guess they have longer break times here maybe because you're just like tired of walking around all morning probably One thing though, I'm so glad it's not raining today because it would be a total mess trying to film this But if it did rain, this is the waterproof uniform. It also covers up the bag and device and if she wants it can convert the short sleeves So we're afternoon task is to visit clients to perform sales activities Time to suit up again So she goes back out on the same route to of course some clients Sagawa now has a charter shipping service where you can purchase a full pallet and send anything you want as long as it fits It's a useful service when you have lots of stuff or large items Now she goes back around on the same delivery route and picks up outgoing packages and does more sales for new services When she sees the package laying in front of the store all alone like this, it indicates a new pickup She checks for the Sagawa label If so, she collects the package, provides a customer with a delivery receipt, and then creates a delivery label on her device Fortunately for the sender and the delivery person leaving unattended packages in front of the store is relatively safe in Japan. To basically be walking around right now picking up all of the packages from different clients Her neighborhood is set so she goes around kind of like on a set path But if she wanted to she can actually pick up different packages from different locations She now takes up the picked up packages and loads them into a waiting delivery truck She says her job is very teamwork focus which she loves, and in between deliveries, she enjoys chatting with her co-workers Where are you headed now? Now that she's done with her delivery task for her assigned area she has to head back to the main office Wow, she's doing another safety check even in a public parking space. Amazing! It seems like a lot of Sagawa drivers are back as well After she brings the van back she needs to perform a final "Tenko". By law, these records are kept for one year. So before she leaves today, she also has to do quite a bit of administrative tasks. So let's see what she has to do. So basically she needs to take care of the cash accounting as well. For example, cash on delivery transactions she received today as well as parking fees she's paid. Yay, finally done! Do you have any plans after this? She's stopping by a supermarket on the way back. Wow, it's pretty massive comparatively speaking for Tokyo terms. You're not buying so much? Yasuho, what did you cook Many younger generations these days just buy food at the convenience store to take home and eat But Yasuho likes to cook and it's cheaper and healthier So she just finished taking a bath she has an hour of free time before she goes to bed She goes to bed at 10 o'clock, but that's pretty much the day in the life of a Japanese delivery person What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments You guys want to see what I'm doing on the daily? Then definitely check out my Instagram account You guys want to help support the channel then check out the Tokyo merch and I recently created a Discord channel for people who love Japan or people that are traveling Japan to get their questions answered I'll leave all of the links in the description as usual and I have so many more day in the lives to come So if you want to check those videos out hit the subscribe button and the bell button and I'll catch you guys in the next one.
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