The DOs and DON'Ts of Working in Japan

This guide mainly applies in an educational context, but can be extrapolated for almost all Japanese workplace environments. It's full of generalities of course and mainly applies to a workplace that consists of mostly Japanese employees. If your workplace is very international, then this guide might not apply.

1) Never Say Die
Don't take sick leave, and don't take vacations. Stay late at work often, and talk to your co-workers about how tired you are. Also, participate in everything optional (i.e. sports festivals, school festivals, speeches given by VIPs that you can't understand, etc). Yes, it will involve giving up your weekends and evenings, but participating in events and activities in your workplace show that you are committed to your job.

2) Don't complain.
If your situation is miserable and you hate your job, this is a tough one, but Japanese almost never complain and neither should you. If you absolutely must complain about something, make sure you speak to a Japanese co-worker and get their advice on the best way to go about doing it. Obviously you can complain about harassment and so on.

3) Retro Up!
Act like you are from an episode of Leave It To Beaver. Japanese value cheerful optimism, cooperation, friendliness, thankfulness, and a purity (i.e. sexual purity) of dress and comportment (short skirts are oddly an exception). Don't believe me? Just read their manga or watch their movies/dramas. The messages in these portrayals of society are always someone who triumphs over adversity by being cheerful, moral, and hardworking. Your role-model is now Jane Eyre. The younger generation is changing, but the younger generation isn't going to be the people interview, hiring, supervising and working together with you at the moment. It's still old-school here.

4) Ask for permission
Especially when you are starting out, you will not know the workplace culture. Make sure you ask for permission to do almost everything out of the ordinary, even if it seems harmless to you. Want to have a class outside on a nice day? Ask permission. Want to make a website for your students online? Ask permission. Want to use an unoccupied room covered in ten years of undisturbed dust? Yes, you've got it - ask permission.

5) Give away some glory
Make suggestions to your sempai. This is tough to do as it involves your sempai (co-worker above you in rank) getting credit for all your ideas, but as a junior worker it is not your place to offer constructive criticism. Once you have worked for a few years, then you can make suggestions at meetings. Until then, if you want to make a suggestion, then make it to a co-worker and ask them to suggest it for you.