Day in the Life of a Japanese Factory Worker

this is the day in the life of a Japanese factory [Music] worker [Music] this is kinta 33 years old living in Yokohama just south of Tokyo and he's just waking up for work he's been living in this apartment with his mom since junior high but was born and raised in Central yokahama and moved here after his parents [Music] separated this is his typical morning breakfast one banana I guess he is not a big breakfast [Music] person hey I see a lot of records and CDs you must like music what do you like oh do you have a favorite band oh can you play instruments oh can you [Music] play dope and in fact his dreams in high school was to play in a band and work tirelessly to make a life from it but after University his band broke up and made the hard decision to seek out regular full-time employment as he plays his music on the [Music] side like most Japanese in the city he commutes to work by train which for him is only two stops away in total 20 minutes door too in his previous job though which is not Inc commmon in Japan he would commute one and a half hours one way to the east side of Tokyo so when he received an offer from his current job he was more than grateful to accept the shorter commute now he makes a quick stop at the convenience store to pick up his lunch in Japan it's more typical to purchase food at a shop near one's workplace to avoid car the item but he particularly prefers this Lawson over the other options closer to work good morning y'all I'm back with another day in the life and I've got an excellent video for you guys today I can't wait for this one to start Kent should be coming shortly good morning did you sleep well last night so his workplace is located in a quiet residential area often known in Japan as a bed town as many people living here take advantage of the lower cost of living and commute to their work located in the Central City area Kenta works at yio poultry a well-renowned egg factory with a proud 995e history even running its own farms in Japan tago AKA eggs have a place in every meal which is why it's no surprise that the country ranks the second highest consumer of eggs globally each person consuming on average 339 eggs per year with almost a century of experience their 160 hardworking staff remain committed to providing the freshest eggs possible while bringing joy to egg lovers throughout the nation each and every day and Kenta is responsible for leading the shift workers in the Cojo AKA Factory [Music] what's that his job officially starts at 7:50 but he arrived a little before this time punctuality is a deeply ingrained aspect of Japanese work culture emphasizing The Importance of Being fully prepared and ready to work before the start time rather than simply arriving at at the start time and of course before entering the factory area all employees are required to meticulously clean off their uniform of dirt and dust wash and sanitize their hands on top of wearing a mask and a [Music] hat his first task is to turn on all the machines in the factory with three independent conveyor belt Lanes each with multiple machines it actually takes some time to power them up for the day's workload ahead [Music] next he checks the inspection machine and sticker penders to ensure they're in proper working order it's his responsibility to perform all these tasks before the other Factory workers arrive so that they can start their day without delay what's that because eating raw eggs in Japan is part of the daily Cuisine the expiration dates are set much shorter than other countries like the US where eggs are generally considered edible for 4 to 5 weeks after packaging Japanese consumers tend to strictly follow dates printed on the cartons and will quickly dispose of raw eggs even after one day of expiration prioritizing freshness and safety above all what are you going to do next before the shift workers clock in Kenta preloads the eggs from the warehouse as there was a shipment late last night this Factory alone packages and ships out about 450,000 eggs per [Music] day at 8:30 all of the factory workers perform morning calisthenics together in unison Guided by an old radio broadcast called rajio tyone it's a rather typical exercise from many factories in Japan and it dates back almost 100 [Music] years next the workers continue their daily morning meeting known in Japan as CH it's kenda's responsibility to provide instructions to all of the workers and inform them of any important Factory matters now the factory is finally running Kento what are you doing are there busy days at the Egg Factory oh okay what about the season by grouping orders and assigning them to specific Lanes he's able to maximize the efficiency of their line workers and overall production once assigned he watches over the lanes and makes adjustments as necessary ensuring that all of the eggs are boxed quickly and as smoothly as possible oh no an egg fell off unfortunately these accidents do happen especially given that eggs themselves are quite fragile since the carton differ in size depending on the type of product ordered it's also kenta's job to manually adjust the machines for each package size throughout the day so when in Japanese factories it's very common to have more part-time shift workers than full-time workers in this Factory a 100 of the workers are part time while 60 are fulltime awesome the egg delivery is here in the meantime let me quickly walk you through what happens in this Japanese Egg Factory and show you how they offer the freshest eggs possible so newly laid eggs generally arrive at the factory within 24 hours with about4 deliveries each day the eggs themselves are produced by chicks raised exclusively on the farm which undergo an extensive Quality Control process reviewing each aspect of its life from Health Management to feeding the newly delivered eggs are washed on the conveyor belt to ensure a safe and clean product the eggs are then scanned both by cameras and human eyes to detect stains defects or even cracks in the eggs Japanese consumers are known to be highly selective and will commonly reject products with blemishes so the scanning process must be meticulous next the eggs are inspected with a spectrophotometer to detect blood contamination only the eggs that pass all the previous tests are sterilized using a light 2,000 times stronger than the Sun finally the perfectly sterilized eggs are sorted by size and packed into designated [Music] cartons in Japan a variety of carton sizes are available usually 10 6 4 and even two most likely catering to customers who value freshness over the convenience of storing eggs and bulk as mentioned earlier raw egg consumption is built in the daily Japanese Cuisine from as simple as raw eggs over a bowl of rice over Nat as a dip for Sukiyaki all the way to a top beef Tartar and sashimi and although specific data on egg related food po cases are unavailable Japan in general has a low number of food poisoning cases even more so compared to say the United States which has roughly 3,000 times [Applause] more oh there's Kenta hey I see brown and white eggs what's the difference cool that's good to know it looks like K's G me managing the line for a little bit so while he's doing that let's see what's [Music] cracking okay so let's see what's going on around this office okay let's see what this guy's doing excuse me can I ask what you do here I see what's the most difficult part so the production quantities are pretty much fixed but if there's a shortage it's his responsibility to help Source more eggs does that mean you travel a lot true salesman how long have you been doing this wow thank you okay let's see what this lady is doing over here hi can I ask you some questions what do you do here so why is everyone wearing a uniform in many traditional Japanese companies female office workers are required to wear a company uniform apparently at this company the women can choose from three different versions so how long have you been doing this nice thank you hello can I ask what you're doing how what I see the factory offers at many different egg products each Source from their multiple Farms so he inspects 10 eggs from each farm for each product to further ensure that each batch of eggs meets are high quality standard in the inspection he weighs and measures the egg adds pressure Until It Breaks to check the Shell's firmness to get the how unit then measures the color of yolk all to confirm the freshness of the egg if it doesn't meet their standards he notifies the prodction team and they're not sold as raw eggs how often do you get bad eggs in the summer though because chickens tend to get tired easier they at times lay watery eggs interesting thanks so I think this is the president's room right [Music] here hello are you the president how long have you been president apparently he's the son of the owner and the second generation of the company so what did you do before this nice so what's most important to you when running this company for sure did Co affect the business interesting thank you and look they even have their own smoking room right here hey Kenta orders are piling up huh really does it ever get overwhelming okay what are you going to do [Music] next now he takes his 1hour lunch break he already bought his lunch this morning so he usually just goes straight to the break room it looks delicious what's that as a full-time shift leader he has to stagger his lunch break with the other full-time shift leaders so that the morning part-time workers can continue to work until noon a very commoning schedule format for Japanese factories he quickly finishes eating and then spends the rest of his time on his phone what do you looking at now oh what's your favorite recently what's it about oh you really like music [Music] huh after his break the evening shift clocks in so he's in charge of running the meeting similar to what he did this morning can't tell what are you going to do now good [Music] luck now for the afternoon ship he continues on the same task he performed earlier this morning which he's proven to be more than comfortable with but he says that the amount of information he had to learn and memorize when he first started was quite overwhelming he had to remember how all the machines operated in each lane and familiarize himself with over a hundred different types of products packed at the factory while he made a few mistakes along the way he studied and worked hard to get himself up to speed as to not slow down his [Music] team [Music] Kenton did something happen it's not every day but sometimes major issues arise and it's also his responsibility to resolve these issues as soon as possible so that production doesn't stop too long is it okay now so I think Kent is going to be over there work on his label for just a little bit longer so while he's doing that let's see if he can break out of our shell so I think there's actually something supposed to be like back [Music] here oh look at this this is where they keep all the eggs oh it's moving so basically they have a crane right here and it takes the eggs in this room and moves it to the conveyor belts surprisingly it's not too cold or not too hot I think they keep it around 20° C oh look they have a robot arm right here these days it's fairly common for factories to rely on machines but at this Egg Factory packing odd-numbered cartons would say three five and seven eggs which this Factory also offers is apparently easier performed by hand and I guess this is where all their labels are so the factory has many different products like this red egg AKA brown egg for westerns high in vitamin or these fresh eggs look at this they even have honest [Music] eggs and this place right here is where they send off all of the eggs look at all these eggs I even recognize ones that I see in the supermarket and from here on the freshly packaged eggs are delivered directly to stores and various customers for them to [Music] enjoy did you finish making all of the orders for the day pH the tough part of his day is done now he goes back to the office to take care of all the related paperwork from today while also preparing for tomorrow's production oh he's using a hungo a Japanese stamp equivalent to a signature by stamping the expiration dates for tomorrow's work he basically notifies the people using the date that he authorized and confirmed it himself although the hko culture is ever slowly disappearing in Japan today it's still widely used for official Japanese business and legal documents before leaving he usually has a quick meeting with the night ship work workers since the factory operates throughout the night until the day's production is complete it's his responsibility to pass on any important information to the next [Music] shift at 6:00 p.m. he finally finishes work and tonight he's meeting up with his band at the studio in the Tokyo Shinjuku [Music] area [Music] oh I guess everyone is here how long have you known Kenta so how would you describe him what do you mean maybe we should have him [Laughter] drink bro your drumsticks are destroyed [Music] wow they're going harder than I thought if you want to check out his ban the KE I'll leave a link in the description maybe it'll bring him one step closer to his dream oh is this your CD cool thank you all right so it looks like Kent and his friends are going to be here until 10:00 jamming out and after that he'll go home probably take a bath eat some food and go to sleep around 1 or 2:00 but that's pretty much a day in life of of a Japanese factory worker if you guys like this video help me out and hit the like button if you guys want to help with the channel then definitely check out the merch or check out my hot sauce and if you guys want to see more videos like this or anything related to Japan hit that subscribe button in the Bon I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 789,574

Keywords: Paolo, Japan, tokyo, life in japan, day in the life japan, japanese worker, working in japan, day in the life, japan life, work in japan, living in japan, japan working hours, factory worker, a day in the life, japanese culture, factory worker in japan, japanese factory, japan work life, japan day in the life, working hours in japan, Japanese egg factory, Japan egg factory, japanese work culture, how safe are eggs in Japan, Eating Raw Eggs in Japan, Japan egg safety

Id: gPAeO0VNb3o

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 12 2024