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The story
Weekly Shincho reported on footage from a morning meeting at taxi company Tokyo MK in which the owner’s 62-year-old younger brother was seen screaming at drivers, prompting the company to hold a press conference and apologize on September 3. In the footage, an unintelligible shout that sounded like “Gettafakkau!” rang out repeatedly, and 5ch users flooded the thread trying to “translate” what it actually meant. Reports also say the tirade was triggered when a driver — who had been told to improve his English for foreign customers — couldn’t come up with the English word for “intersection,” sparking a wider debate about the taxi industry’s aging workforce and whether demanding English proficiency from drivers even makes sense.
Published 9/4 (Fri) 5:59 AM
Daily Shincho
Following the September 3 issue of Weekly Shincho’s report on power harassment by the owner, taxi company Tokyo MK held a press conference and apologized. Below are the details of that harassment, based on footage obtained by Weekly Shincho. The footage is also posted on the Daily Shincho YouTube channel.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Translate this into Japanese. (3 points)
Deals massive damage to all enemies
Swaying, turning, trembling — this aching feeling
Most taxi drivers are geezers over 60 — English? Don't make me laugh lol
Exactly
And him losing it and blowing his top over it isn't going to fix anything
That's basically what my mom says too — incomprehensible stuff in her own "foreign language" (i.e., thick regional dialect)
Waigah! Kurasuddosa!!
Can't translate "genne doga"
but I think I could more or less make out the rest
What did the kid getting yelled at even do?
He was asked for the English word for "intersection"
and couldn't say "intersection"
Yeah, it's still there
but they dropped the buffet ("viking," the Japanese term for buffet dining) on weekdays
but it hasn't improved as much as we'd hoped."
Of course a bunch of poorly-educated drivers can't speak English
This is seriously hilarious
Forget that, just put translation devices in the cabs
That's what they should be putting effort into
Plenty of foreign tourists can't speak English either
And anyone motivated enough to teach themselves English to use on the job wouldn't become a taxi driver in the first place
If you can speak English, pulling a rickshaw pays better anyway
Only lazy people become taxi drivers
Though even most grads from there can't actually speak English, at least they'll go through the motions if forced into English lessons
No idea if they'd have any talent for driving though
A starting salary of 350,000 yen a month with an average around 9 million yen a year might actually attract people
Otherwise you're just asking for the impossible
He really should just resign already
Americans don't learn Japanese for the sake of their Japanese customers
Koreans pick up English in no time
At my company too, the foreign employees are more capable
Japanese people can only speak Japanese anyway, right?
No point comparing an international language to a local one
Background and Key Points
The story broke in the September 3 issue of Weekly Shincho, and once footage of the actual morning meeting was also posted to the Daily Shincho YouTube channel, reactions on 5ch focused heavily on the content of the shouting itself. Around unintelligible phrases like “Gettafakkau,” many posts joked about mishearing it or riffed on the nonsensical sound of it, so the words’ shock value ended up dominating the conversation more than the seriousness of the harassment. At the same time, users exchanged more practical opinions on whether demanding English proficiency from drivers even makes sense, given the realities of an aging taxi industry. Full details of the press conference and any disciplinary action against the owner himself have not been reported yet, so further updates are needed. Note that numerous posts also baselessly speculated about or disparaged the management’s background, and those have been excluded from this article.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Full Extent of the Power Harassment] Tokyo MK President Apologizes… “Gettafakkau!” The Full Story of the 62-Year-Old Younger Brother Owner’s “Chair-Throwing Morning Meeting”.”
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