[jpatokal]

This was the American Embassy, which follows American work culture.

Also, in Japanese companies, it's basically impossible to fire people. They can, however, be assigned to a desk in a windowless room and be given nothing to do for several years, until they take the hint and "voluntarily" quit.

[patio11]

c.f. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-il...

Suffice it to say that I am aware of situations created by a societal expectation of lifetime employment which make the above article look positively sane. (And I recently learned that, in some cases, what I had assumed was just an ironclad social contract actually is legally enforceable, which blows my mind.)

[eru]

Not true. See correction to article.

[nandemo]

The correction is unclear... Since there are always exceptions, of course it's not the case that "dismissing a permanent employee (正社員) is always illegal". But there's in fact a (somewhat vague but broad) provision in labour law and also　precedents that make it very difficult to legally fire a permanent employee in normal circunstances.

Basically you can legally fire a permanent employee in the same sense that a civil servant in most countries can be fired: if the employee does something egregious, like stealing from the company, not showing up for a long period of time with no reason, etc. Certainly not for incompetence, or even　if the company has been in the red for several years in a row.

E.g. Japan Airlines went basically bankrupt (technically a restructuring) and even so they had trouble laying off part of the staff.

[wildpeaks]

The Japanese way is good in the sense that, as long as you have Internet, you could make your startup without worrying about putting a roof over your head or finding an office space to work from, and you get a still-full salary to bootstrap it without having to put the time.

You even get access to a pool of other soon-to-available engineers to work with if you're stuck with other poor sods in the room.

Definitely another scenario than the being suddendly kicked out of the door by security right before the week-end with a box of your belongings and, if you're lucky, a tiny check to not starve until next week.

[billmalarky]

I highly doubt you are allowed to retain ownership of anything you create on the job though.