I tend to only gift books to people I know well; that way, I know for sure I'll be giving them something they'll enjoy. I only make an exception to this when the person in question has explicitly mentioned wanting a specific work.

Might seem too fussy of me, but I mostly do this because I've received way too many books I have no interest in; several people I know have the bad habit of gifting random/popular books to their bookworm friends, because people who like reading will consume anything, right?

I've received so many Dan Brown books as gifts. So... many...

>You should read your own link, because you can get fired after showing financial loss, and I'm well aware of Japanese labor laws. One of my main jobs was facilitating work visas for foreign nationals. But this is all besides the point, nowhere did I posit that mass layoffs are normal.

Re-read the entire conversation. You claimed a " cultural breakdown" in a discussion regarding japanese companies not wanting to replace an enormous amount of workers by using software. Getting fired due to financial losses is another matter entirely and, even then, it's not an easy measure, and this is also mentioned in the link.

>What I am saying and what you can't seem to comprehend is that Japanese C suites aren't avoiding increasing efficiency and automation in some honor based care for their employees. At least not any more than western ones, what they care about is not verbalizing that dishonor. Even among equals.

As I've said from my original post, I know very well what they mean. The point here is that terminating workers en masse is seem as a socially unacceptable measure, and that is reflected in how companies approach pitches. And, once again, I consider that a much more admirable mindset. I'm not calling anybody a saint, I'm saying societal structures there are different in this regard, and I consider that a positive thing.

I know I'm repeating myself, but despite your claims that you are an "expert" in japanese matters, this conversation makes it quite likely that you are either not as informed as you claim to be or simply not taking the time to properly read and interpret what is being posted.

I have, yes. That's kind of implied by my post.

You claim to have worked there, but you seem to be unaware of japanese laws on terminating employees.

I know full well what they mean. I'm partially japanese and have already been in the country several times. I also have family there.

Frankly, your last paragraph is a rather hilarious admission that you don't really know much about the country (or its laws). Japanese work culture is brimming with bizarre issues (just google "japanese black companies"), but mass terminations that put workers at risk are not one of them. This also presents its own problems, of course (the ojisan who doesn't work is a classic), but that in no way changes my previous assertion:

>And frankly, to me it always seemed to be a much better mindset

> I had one particular company that had people inputting thousands upon thousands of blocks of financial data by hand. A software that they already had could have automated it, so without them even needing to pay anything I was like "in 10 minutes we can have your software set up to draw data automatically and input it from place A to place B, so that you won't have to pay people hundreds of man hours in salary to do it". And their response was basically "we can't do that. Inputting that data is someone's job, and to take it from them would dishonor both us and them". Where obviously pretty much anywhere in the West the response would be "hell yeah, sign me up"...

I can confirm that they behave like this, yes. And frankly, to me it always seemed to be a much better mindset.