ive recently fallen into a great opportunity to witness the legendary japanese salaryman (サラリーマン) in person. before this week, ive only caught fleeting glimpses and heard rumors of how they spend more time in the office than out of it, how the only clothes they own are suits and neckties, and how they drink themselves stupid multiple nights a week. but now that ive moved to tokyo (東京), the breeding ground of said legends, i am surrounded by them all day everyday. and it seems that almost everything i heard is true and then some. i bet i could write books on all the peculiarities of salarymen, but ill try to keep it to just a couple of blog posts.

__japanese salarymen and comical sleep deprivation__
the salarymen that ive been meeting lately typically work about 12 hours day. one diligent person i work with didnt even go home one of the nights this week; he worked the entire night through, working more than 24 hours straight. on top of the long weekdays, salarymen often work at least one day of the weekend too. its easy to see how all those hours could make someone exhausted pretty quickly. but what makes it worse - at least in tokyo - is that many salarymen have incredibly long commutes as well. another person i work with commutes close to 2 hours a day.. EACH WAY!! so, if you add almost 4 hours of commuting to a 12 hour work day, these people are left with about 8 hours of free time. after factoring in the time spent eating meals, binge drinking because of the crazy amounts of stress, and raising a family, theres literally not enough time in the day for salarymen to get a decent amount of sleep.

and it shows!! not only do many salarymen pass out on the trains (sometimes even while standing) during their commutes to and from work, they also fall asleep at work. and because everyone is so sleep deprived, its become socially acceptable to sometimes take quick naps at their desk during lunch. just within my first 3 days at my new job, ive already heard 2 salarymen snoring at work.. IN THE BATHROOM!! thats right, some people were so tired they either purposefully or accidentally (im not sure which is worse) fell asleep while sitting on the john. one thing to note is that they werent silently nodding off either; these salarymen were so tired they fell into deep snore-tastic sleep. on the toilet. in a public restroom. at work. incredible.