Day in the Life of a Japanese Hotel Worker

This is a day in the life of a Japanese hotel worker this is johay 30 years old living in tokyo and he's just waking up for work he starts his day by checking his temperature as these days it's become a company requirement he lives in this one room apartment and by Tokyo standards it's fairly spacious [Music] yohe how long does it take you before you leave the house i guess that's a single life interestingly Tokyo has a highest number of single households in Japan at 49 whereas the average in Japan is 35 percent damn that's a lot of masks i guess these days you can never have enough yohe is originally from Chiba and first moved to Tokyo for university after graduating he started working for his current company first in kobe for two years then transferring back to tokyo yohi lives only five minutes away from the train station and then another 15 minute train ride to work without a transfer it's not the shortest commute time but far better than most in tokyo plus he doesn't have to negotiate through a Tokyo rush hour transfer all right we're back with another day in our life i'm really excited to see how this day unfolds yohe should be on this train right now let's see how he slept the night before good morning how did you sleep last night [Music] is your office far from here so yohe works as an assistant manager at apple hotel shinjuku gyoen mai apa is one of the largest hotel chains in Japan there are 623 hotels in the country with about 98 000 rooms [Music] apple hotel uniquely identified as a new urban style hotel high quality high functionality without all the unnecessary services often mistaken as a Japanese business hotel which are typically budget style hotels smaller rooms bare amenities and close to the train station originally intended for traveling Japanese Salarymen has a traditional Japanese morning meeting called chore at his hotel though there are both day shift and night shift workers and so at the beginning of each shift they hold a similar meeting to command staff recite the apple principles in unison which is typical for many japanese companies afterwards the staff practice their customer greetings in Japan there's a unique hospitality customer called omotenashi it means services are always completely genuine and honest because it's so deeply rooted in japanese culture the staff make extra efforts to provide guests with the best experience possible without expecting anything in return first thing in the morning yohei cleans around the hotel yohei do you do this every morning in Japan it's important for companies to maintain a clean kept area in front of their business which also includes public walkways although not their responsibility to clean they do it anyway next he helps sanitize the hotel due to kovid the hotel has adopted stricter cleaning and sterilization measures yohei visits each of the 14 floors in the building and wipes down all the elevator buttons as well as other high touch areas in the hotel [Music] during peak checkout times yohei focuses on assisting guests the hotel uses express checkout stands the machine has a built-in sensor that recognizes the room number automatically registering the checkout into the system while also notifying the cleaning crew that the room is ready to be cleaned [Music] oh i guess he's going to the hotel restaurant so yohe checks in with a head chef to confirm the next day's menu so he can prepare signage as well as informing choir and guests something smells good oh there you go breakfast is served in japan hotels are often used as evacuation locations so storing food and water is necessary so why did you decide to work oh it looks like they're starting their monthly fire drill so they select the location in the hotel for the fire to start it's a staff's responsibility to quickly and safely guide guests to evacuate as well as extinguish the fire if possible usually the hotel is filled with guests so it's critical for the team to regularly drill in case a real fire were to happen in order to keep everyone safe wow they're really taking this seriously i'm getting flashbacks from another day in the life i recently did apparently the company also have first responder training four times a year so that all the staff are comfortable with evacuation procedures reporting to the fire department and even handling a fire extinguisher after the drill the team reviews what they did good and bad so they can make improvements for the next time around what just happened throughout the day he's tasked with random guest requests and issues like this it's critical for the hotel to always maintain a clean and pleasant environment for its guests so a lot of his time is also spent regularly checking the hotel facilities are well-kept [Music] what do you enjoy most about working here okay a company man you don't really have much office work right in addition he adjusted room prices based on the current room occupancy to attract more guests so it looks like yoe has some office tasks to do right now let's take advantage of this time and see if there's room to explore this place [Music] so this is one of the storage rooms on each of the floors let's go inside and see what they have i guess basically it has everything that you would expect it has sheets as towels it has a soap it has batteries it has hubs that's pretty much everything you would need what's quite interesting is that the elevators here have two doors one is used for the clients and then the other one is used for the workers this right behind me right here says deluxe toilet let's see what a deluxe toilet looks like let's lock that basically you have your basic baby changer here and then you have your regular automatic toilet which i love even has a special flushing sound so that you don't bother anyone or if you make special noises in here that other people can't hear from the outside and just behind me they even have their own parking lot but because real estate is a little bit tight in the city they have a special type of parking lot let me show you [Music] wow look at all of these batteries right here i suppose with 411 rooms there's as many or even more remote controls oh i guess he's decided to have lunch at the hotel restaurant today since staff rotate on breaks yohe usually eats lunch by himself oh that's the same curry we saw earlier i wonder what it tastes like [Music] looks like he's having hamburger for lunch that looks amazing do you eat here often after lunch he prepares for room inspections to maintain the highest level of room cleanliness he performs quality checks for 10 rooms randomly if he finds an issue he fixes it himself and reports it back to the cleaning crew so the same thing won't happen again [Music] oh there's Shinjuku Gyoen Park yohei how did this room do well that's one room down nine to go so these are the standard size rooms [Music] cool even has luggage space under the bed so after this check he re-sanitizes the room the cleaning crew also sanitizes the room but since he entered the room afterwards the room must be sanitized again oh now he's going to the dai yokujo in english it's a large bath at a ryokan or hotel what are you doing it's widely known that japanese have a deep rooted bath culture preferring full baths over showers because of this many urban and business hotels these days offer a shared bath area in fact many salarymen and other japanese decide upon the hotel based on whether the hotel has a shared bath or not here they have the onsen bath where all the guests can come and use you can see right behind me is that they have these stalls where you can take a shower and clean yourself off before you go in and look right there they have everything you need shampoo soap and conditioner [Music] during the peak check-in hour yohei assists guests with a check-in machine at his hotel guests can also check in through an app to save time at the front desk guests can simply scan the code and immediately receive their card oh the guests in a package of the hotel in advance now yoe is helping him carry it to his room in japan tipping is not customary and in some ways can be awkward as it's unexpected it's ingrained in japanese culture to take pride in your work no matter at what level to receiving a tip as an incentive to deliver the best service is viewed as unnecessary all time back to omotenashi as an assistant manager yohei also helps train the staff throughout the day providing guidance on proper procedures and overall guest services how long have you been working here what do you like most about this job [Music] after chickens slow down yoe has to perform other miscellaneous tasks oh he's speaking keigo it's a formal way of speaking polite japanese intended for customers superiors and hotel guests schools in japan generally teach students the fundamentals but only until one enters the real world is it used so even for Japanese people it's sometimes difficult to speak without practice how long does the hotel keep the lost and found items [Music] good work that's another happy guest he still has a little bit of time left so he sanitizes the used cars for next time and now he cleans around the hotel one more time before leaving yay finally finished after work he usually goes out to dinner with his friends as there are many restaurants and bars in the Shinjuku area but because of kovid these days he goes straight home [Music] oh he's making gyoza tonight that looks pretty good in yohei's free time he plays a guitar in a band and he writes his own music [Music] wow he's pretty talented i guess tonight he's feeling it so it looks like yohei is going to be playing the qatar for just a little bit longer then after that he'll take a bath and then probably go to sleep by 12 o'clock tonight let me know what you guys thought of this day in the life of a Japanese hotel worker let me know in the comments if you guys want to help support the channel check out my 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Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 672,101

Rating: 4.9683213 out of 5

Keywords: Paolo, Japan, Japan guide, Japan travel, tokyo, day in the life, life in tokyo, day in te life japan, day in the life hotel worker, hotel worker, hotel worker in japan, japanese hotel worker, hotel worker life, hotel receptionist, hotel in tokyo, hotels in japan, japanese hotel, japan hotel, tokyo hotel, apa hotel, apa hotel tokyo, working hours in japan, japanese work culture, japan work culture, working in japan, japan life, japanse business hotel, salaryman, omotenashi

Id: qZsdm0RZ18k

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Skruff94]

Paolo is actual cringe content... To be fair, the videos themselves arent even that bad, he is just cringe as fuck.