Happy late Songkran holiday 🙏. I spent all those time for vacations when I was inactive. (Well, I actually left this blog for months - -”) Today, I’ll tell you the story of my first job.

I passed the probation right around the end of March. It was a breezy 4-5 months of work, although I had to be familiar with new programming language and back-end. What’s awesome is, I applied for an intern position. I was offered part-time position on the same day, and then full-time after the second interview. How lucky I am!

These are my observations after working here for a while.

Pros

I think the pace of work here is pretty chill. Partly due to I’m being new so that’s less responsibility for me. Yet, I’m constantly asking for more work. I’ll almost have no work to do if I don’t. I have an easier time leaving my work at the office, so I’m a happy man at home. Speaking of which, the company isn’t too far from where I live. Just about 30 minutes from the city using MRT. The office building conveniently stands beside a shopping mall and I can waste my time there if I want. Food isn’t the concern, although the food court is in the basement floor.

The company has 20 employees and doesn’t feel like a startup (Which is a compliment. Personally, I have a bias towards startups regarding pressure during work, but I understand that not every startups have these.). Colleagues are the best aspect of this company. Because this is a Thailand-based Japan company, all the familiar vibes are there. I can practically chit-chat and do work freely. So much so that I think a Thai person in an international team indicates great colleagues. Aside from telling dad jokes and teases every few minutes, every single one of my colleagues are helpful and provide beneficial things for the company.

Obviously, working with Japanese means 飲み会 (nomikai - Drinking parties). But the ‘mandatory’ aspect of it is toned down significantly here. You’re not forced to participate. The very first nomikai was around Christmas Eve at a restaurant in Thong Lor. I had plenty of amazing Japanese foods I never had before, even watched the boss handed his credit card to the waiter. Nomikai occasionally happens at times. Sometimes it’s when the Japanese team come to Thailand, sometimes it’s lunch with the executives because the company wants to introduce new joiners (me) to them. The most memorable one so far was the time we had what’s called Omakase for ฿3,000 per person which I’m like 🤯 and I ate real well that day.

This is just me, but when I knew I had to work with the Japanese, I suddenly gained enough motivation to learn Japanese. I got to hear Japanese everyday at work, obviously, until I started to recognize some words. I also got to use Japanese words I learned gradually as the time goes. I can’t really form a sentence, but simple phrases and words like greeting at workplace or giving a compliment is at my reach, although I haven’t touched Anki for weeks now 😅. I might have to clear it up.

Cons

Low pay. I might hold some beliefs about how Japanese managers/bosses perceive Thai employees. Like we’re just cogs in the machine or something, so that’s how much we pay you. I’m not sure if they forgot that they build a company in my country 😬. Also, the perks were meh.

When it comes to Japan work culture, I think of the unnecessarily slow changes and decisions at work. When the company decides to change minor things, it takes them years or they forget and not changing anything. How you do work was up to the boss. I guess it’s the “glory” and “pride” they hold onto, and the idea of “work is their entire lives”.

This company uses PHP and develops internal framework. Barely using external libraries. Some of the code was 10 years old and there’s no action to improve or optimize at all. I understand that PHP pretty much guarantees that you’ll have a job, but the tech stack here is challenging for career growth. New knowledge barely has a place here since the boss/manager pretty much resist changes, or they may have too wide of an effect that I alone can’t resolve it.

What irks me is that, I heard from one of the colleagues that the boss has an idea of “competing” over “collaborating” at work. Which means offer yourself to do work when you can, even the most seemingly insignificant task. You gather all the work you can until you can’t manage enough time for them. It’s not about whether or not they’re done on time. It’s about doing a lot of work. Quality isn’t the focus.

Quality isn’t the focus.

I only know that only Japanese employees in the company do these kind of things. It’s depressing to say that it changed the way I look at them.

Conclusion

For me, this company still leans towards conservative ideas of the Japan work culture. I prefer working for the US, Europe or even Thai-based companies. With the cons outweight the pros, I might stay here for 2-3 years and then seek for another one. I want to improve even more, but this company can’t give me that in the long term. From now on, I might look into Full-stack roles more. Back-end is pretty managable in a different way. I thought I wasn’t great at it. This was my experiences after probation.