This is Erina

She's 30 years old and works at a car repair shop in Toyota Japan

And she's just waking up for work

She lives with her parents in this two-story house, which is very common in Japan even outside of the city

You don't take a shower in the morning?

She says she prefers to take baths at night instead very common in Japan

How long does it take to wear makeup?

For breakfast

Her mom makes her an Onigiri which she packs with a Mugicha (Mugicha is a barley tea)

Oh, yeah, and she's thanked her favorite morning drink

Soy Mlik Tea

Unlike major cities like Tokyo

Erina commutes to work by car

She rents a parking space from her neighbor nearby since the two Lots at her house are full

Oh, yeah, and I keep saying Toyota and you might be wondering well, the answer is yeah

The city was named after the car manufacturer as Toyota is located here

Fun fact 85% of the population in Toyota works in the car industry

And IT Prefecture where Toyota is located has more registered cars than anywhere in Japan

Oh look she's watching the morning TV news on her navigation screen

So her commute time is about 15 to 20 minutes without traffic

Which is pretty normal here and it definitely beats the average 1 hour long Tokyo shoulder-to-shoulder train commute

Oh wow, did you hear the anime voice?

That's your coworker activating this car security system?

Oh wow, just in time

So what the mechanics are doing right now is called Rajio Taiso

Which translates to radio exercises

It's a warm-up calisthenics performed to music and guidance from a radio broadcast

The mechanics here do it every morning before they start work

In fact, it's an old Japanese tradition dating back to 1928

Not all Japanese companies do it these days, but many still carry on the tradition

Oh and the mechanics follow up the morning exercises with Chorei

A morning company meeting to review with each other what work needs to be done for the day

Erina works for a company called Aiho Denki

An auto repair company employing about 30 staff mainly mechanics

Like most people, Erina works Monday through Friday

But she's also required to work every other Saturday

When Erina arrives to work every day

She has to stamp an attendance book

pretty old-school right?

I think the mechanics are still discussing today's tasks

So, how do you start your day?

Many smaller Japanese companies don't hire daily cleaning services

But instead rely on workers to clean the office

It's supposed to promote selflessness and community. What do you guys think?

Nice now the shop is clean as a carburetor

she can finally get back to her desk and work on accounting tasks

Her Japanese title is Keiri Jimu

Which means both office accountant and office administrator

I don't know if this is common in other countries

but let's just say she has a...

Expensive role in the office

Are you usually by yourself in the office?

So it looks like one of them is cleaning a different part of the office

and the other one is picking up a mechanic at a customer site

Hmm the guy gave her something, what is that?

So fax machines are still alive and well in most Japanese companies

In fact, if you ever receive a Japanese business card,

you'll notice that most respectable companies still have a fax number listed

Hey, did you notice how she waited a long time to hang up the phone after talking?

That's because hanging up the phone before the client is considered immensely rude in Japanese business culture

I guess she's busy doing her morning desk work.

So let's go see what's under the hood of this shop

So the weather itself is kind of taking a turn for the worse

It's really raining outside so I'm just gonna kind of see what they're fixing today

What are you guys fixing right now?

Oh got it, that's a replacement AC evaporator for the car

Can you tell me what this is?

Oh basically, it says which mechanic has to do what for the day?

So if you look right behind me

You'll actually see a little shrine and you'll find this a very common in Japanese houses as well as Japanese businesses

They're known as a sense of good luck for the business

Which is actually kind of like a feng shui to it where it always needs to face the same direction

What's actually quite interesting are these magnetic stickers?

These stickers are used as indicators for when someone's a new driver

Basically you attach the magnetic sticker to the front and the back of your car

In fact in my case, they don't drive so much in Tokyo or in Japan for that matter

So every time I drive I prefer to actually have one of these stickers on the car

So right now she's gluing down special receipts called Ryo Shu Sho for record-keeping

these official receipts are used to track expenses in Japan and they're quite magical

As only the total amount of the expenses listed and the individual items disappear

Erina, are you going somewhere?

So ordering and picking up bento lunches for everyone is another one of her daily tasks

But damn it's a pain when it's raining like today especially for filming

Oh I guess a quick smoke to help her along to the next task

It's also part of her job to prepare tea for everyone before lunch

Even though everyone can buy their own drinks from a vending machine

See traditional Japanese business culture is still very apparent in this company

as group needs are placed above the individual

Oh that's thoughtful of her, apparently when it's hot outside she makes barley tea instead she changes depending on the weather

This is the break room and she's now setting things up for everyone,

How nice of her

So how much is one bento?

Wow about four dollars and fifty cents

she further explains that the company subsidizes the bento so it only costs 350 yen about three dollars and 20 cents

Wait, you're not eating with everyone else?

Thanks Erina's hard work the mechanics can have a pleasant lunch break

So the bento menu is always the same?

Hmm Okay, I guess I'm gonna explore more

at least the rain has let up a little bit

It's still a bit cloudy, but it was a lot better than earlier

Check out this car behind me, It's kind of like a three-wheeled little buggy

It has one wheel in the front and has two wheels in the back and it has kind of like a truck bed

And in fact I've never actually seen one of these in my life

and the door opens up in the front right there

I can see that it has even red seats

Oops, I just caught her during a lunch time nap

let's turn off the camera and come back a little bit later

After a nice lunch nap

Erina has to clean up the break room

So it looks like we're going on the delivery run to drop off some parts for a customer

Why did you choose this job?

What's your favorite car?

So they're off delivering the packages right now to the client

And they should be back in a little bit, it took about...

I don't know like maybe 15-20 minutes to drive here

Oh they're back, that was quick

While Erina's finishing the rest of her job this afternoon

It's a bit quiet, so let's play some Inspector Gadget and look around this place

So these two young mechanics are new hires

Let's see what they're up to

Hey, what are you guys doing?

So basically they're removing the black glue from the blocks so they can reuse them for installations

So, what's up for this Porsche

Oh I guess AC repairs are in high demand for the summer

Erina, what are you doing right now?

Traditional Japanese companies are still very much paper-based

So Erina has to prepare the monthly payment slips for each employee

Her second smoke break of the day at least this time, she has a break buddy

So he's telling me that his work officially starts at 9 a.m everyday

But he has to ride even earlier for the exercises and the morning meeting

Damn. It really takes a dedicated mindset to work in a Japanese company

Exchanging business cards when you first meet someone is still very much an important part of Japanese

Business culture the cards though start to pile up so she has to organize them for the CEO

Now she's picking up parts from the storage room for the mechanics she really does everything in the office

So it's half-past five and one of her final duties is to empty out the trash bins throughout the office

Oh look it's a talking anime car

I didn't get a chance to show you guys earlier

What do you think?

All right end of the day time to count the money

So Japanese money is made with thick paper, So it allows them to count like this

It's quite differently compared to America.

I wonder if any other countries counted this way

Nice, finish just after 6:00

I've noticed more and more companies in Japan adopting standard working hours for their employees

But don't get me wrong many Japanese companies still have crazy long work hours

It seems like her dog Coco-chan missed her too

At the end of the day her mom usually prepares a meal

if she doesn't have plans with her friends

And look she's serving hamburger tonight

I think it's a great way to end the day

but what did you think about her day?

As you can see right after dinner they're just hanging out watching TV

And this is like basically a day in the life working at an auto repair shop

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