{"id":117,"date":"2013-11-09T07:12:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T11:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/?p=117"},"modified":"2014-02-12T16:18:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T20:18:13","slug":"nicole-mitsubishi-ufj-financial-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/2013\/11\/09\/nicole-mitsubishi-ufj-financial-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole – Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Nicole and I have studied Japanese since I was a Senior in High school. I was born in Tokyo, Japan and lived there for about 2 and a half years while my parents both worked for AT&T in Tokyo. I then moved to New Jersey where I have lived ever since. My mom was not never attached the the Japanese culture like my dad is. My dad still goes to Japan every year since I left as a baby and takes shodo classes at NYU once a week. We have many family friends who my dad still keeps in touch with today. I have grown up with the language my dad always using certain phrases on a daily basis. After coming to UVM I was originally a Biology major but after taking a couple Asian Studies courses and beginning the Japanese language classes I knew that is what I wanted to study.<\/p>\n

My uncle works for another bank in the city and asked for me to send him my resume on a whim so I did. I got an interview that because of school obligations I was unable to attend. However I then returned home for spring break and went into the office and sat down and waited for someone to meet me. After waiting about 3 hours someone finally came down and said ” I like your moxy come on up.” I was then asked some questions about my background and why I thought I would be the best choice. Then at the end of the “interview” (which in my opinion was not very formal and probably would have been more intense if I actually showed up when I was supposed to) the man who had been speaking with me said “You will do, we will be in touch.” We shook hands and then he was gone. So I was excited I got the job but then again completely confused because I did not know when I would start, what I would do, who I would be working with or much of anything for that matter. Then a week into my summer vacation I got a call on Monday and I finally got to speak with my supervisor. He said “We will have you work Wednesdays, See you around 7AM this Wednesday and we shall get started.”<\/p>\n

I found that working for a Japanese company I was often faced with many challenges. There are many differences in the way that Americans run business compared with the way Japanese run their business practices. I found that often the presentations would try to get a point across but the main points would sometimes be “lost in translation” because of the way that the Japanese phrase things. I believe that because of their high focus on being polite main points can often be misinterpreted.<\/p>\n

I worked for UFJ bank over the summer one day a week. I would primarily be proofreading and translating emails. I would often arrive at work around 7AM and stay in the office until about 830- 9 PM. The job was more for an experience rather than the money. While they did pay for my monthly train pas and metro card I did not get paid much, but I did not really mind because I think working for the company just really opened my eyes to how different it really is working for a Japanese company. I even had it easy because my job was here in American so I believe that I got like a “crash course” in Japanese business.<\/p>\n

I would go through presentations that my superiors would plan on presenting to American clients just to double check the points they were trying to get across were clearly stated. Also I would often have many office workers forward me emails that they would have me translate and then tell them the main points so they know how to answer.<\/p>\n

They found it to be more efficient especially with lengthy emails that would take them more time to answer and go through than it would have if I helped.<\/p>\n

The atmosphere of the office was very unusual. I found that there were many people there working long days like myself but I often felt like I was the one working the hardest. People would certainly seem busy.<\/p>\n

In the evenings I always would wait until my supervisor left before I would leave the office. I noticed this after working there for about 2 weeks that this was how other people of lower rank would act. I found that they would wait until their superior above them left the office before they would leave. This often meant my hours were very erratic. Since I did not have a set “work day” I would often never know what time I would get home or what time in the morning I would get my first assignment.<\/p>\n

I found the job quite stressful at times because I was thrown into a business environment that was very different than the one I had become accustomed to. I found there were a couple funny things that I noticed working at the bank. I went through more business cards working there and interacting with people from the company than I have ever given out. All in all, it was a great experience for those looking for jobs in Japan or even in Japanese companies here in America. It is very different and there is no arguing with that.<\/p>\n

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My name is Nicole and I have studied Japanese since I was a Senior in High school. I was born in Tokyo, Japan and lived there for about 2 and a half years while my parents both worked for AT&T in Tokyo. I then moved to New Jersey where I have lived ever since. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106583],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japanese-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/ksuzuki-workinginjapan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}