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The story
A thread went up on 5ch listing six “jobs and places with brutal hierarchies.” After naming the Self-Defense Forces, the police, nursing, construction, and technical high schools, the thread’s creator asked: “What do you think the sixth one is?”
Replies piled up one after another — the tyranny of the “office queen” (o-tsubone) senior nurses, bans on smartphones and private clothes, the closed-off nature of the construction industry, and the realities of hierarchy in the entertainment world. The thread’s mood split between those defending the system (“as long as you don’t talk back to your seniors, you can get by”) and those framing it as a cultural comparison (“isn’t this whole concept uniquely Japanese?”).
What people said
Using polite speech is actually banned, but the hierarchy itself is very much alive —
if anything it's stricter than a regular company.
It's not just Johnny's — talent and idols in general are strict about this.
Same goes for popular entertainment and traditional performing arts.
At Johnny's the hierarchy is so strict that even senpai get addressed as "So-and-so-kun" (the junior honorific, even for a senior).
Makes you wonder how they even maintain a hierarchy with no polite speech and everyone called "-kun."
The ward boss, known as the "o-tsubone-sama" (the veteran "office queen"), runs the show.
Unlike doctors, nurses have almost no freedom — phones and plain clothes are banned in most workplaces.
That said, doctors' work is overwhelmingly harder and their hours even longer, so maybe it's only fair that doctors get more freedom…
By the way, nursing school clinical training is brutal too.
Universities with decent entrance-exam scores (hensachi) are one thing, but plenty of bottom-tier ("F-rank") nursing schools and vocational nursing colleges are as strict about greetings and manners as a baseball team.
Though the national licensing exam is way easier than the one for doctors…
Nurses have a reputation for brutal hierarchy.
Pharmacists, on the other hand, seem pretty relaxed.
Though pharmacists start with good pay, promotions seem hard to come by.
They study way more than a mediocre engineering major (chemistry or biology track), yet the pay-off is underwhelming.
Doctors aren't really like that, but nurses definitely have a brutal-hierarchy image.
To begin with, you don't need especially high academic ability to become one.
Sure, getting into Tokyo University's general admissions is tough (arguably tougher than some lesser medical schools), but even the old imperial universities (Kyoto, Tohoku, etc.), Keio SFC, or Sophia (St. Mary's) aren't all that hard to get into for nursing.
Construction is a closed-off world too, you know.
Well, as long as you don't talk back to your bosses and seniors, you can survive even if you're incompetent.
Conversely, even if you're skilled, pushing back can be dangerous.
By the way, Western developed countries don't have as strict a hierarchy as Asia (including Japan), but in exchange they place far more weight on ability, academic credentials, and qualifications than Japan does.
In the U.S., even blue-collar foremen are required to have a college degree, and in Germany, master craftsmen need the national Meister qualification.
Well, under seniority-based systems even incompetent people get promoted (or at least stop getting picked on) just by aging into it.
By that logic, construction is also short-staffed, so shouldn't its hierarchy have loosened up too…?
switch from surgery to internal medicine and become a small-town doctor.
Actually, factoring in real estate prices, being a doctor in the countryside might be the better deal —
there's no other way to make good money out there, so your relative standing is stronger.
Those guys don't quit because there's work for them; it's the hospital that runs out of work.
Well, in civil engineering you can get hired without any qualifications (whether you last is another story).
They'll hire anyone — not just technical-high-school grads, but junior-high dropouts and ex-convicts too.
Granted, if you want a halfway decent job you'll need national certifications like an electrician's license, third-class electrical chief engineer, or civil engineering construction manager.
Hospitals, at least, won't even hire you without the national nursing license.
Watch out especially for places staffed heavily by graduates of non-academic-track schools (technical, agricultural, fisheries high schools, etc.) ⚠
Those schools tend to be "sports club"-style with needlessly strict hierarchies and, frankly, lower standards of conduct 😅
・Pretty much any workplace that hires technical-high-school graduates
Sports-club culture, needlessly strict hierarchy.
Plenty of people who are perfectly polite to bosses (seniors) and customers but rude to subordinates (juniors) and outsiders.
The road to going independent is brutal.
Just to add some context: unless you end up under some die-hard, one-man-show site-work sole proprietor, there's no actual physical punishment (fists) in electrical work these days.
In any decently sized company, doing that would be a huge scandal.
Though there's also an argument that without that kind of hardline instructor, things can actually get more dangerous — worst case, someone dies or loses their sight…
Normal for other countries not to have that at all.
Depends on your definition of "other countries," but Confucian-sphere countries including Japan (South Korea, China, etc.), as well as the Middle East and Africa, do have strict hierarchies.
Western developed countries (minus the former USSR), on the other hand, are more relaxed —
but in exchange they weight ability, academic credentials, and qualifications even more heavily than Japan does.
In the U.S. and Germany, even blue-collar foremen can't become foremen without credentials (a college degree or Meister certification).
Jobs that pay little and already struggle to find workers can't afford to run things that way, after all.
Jobs you can make good money at without a degree generally have a "black company" (exploitative workplace) image.
Toyota's factories are one example, but it's even tougher at high-altitude construction work or fishing.
If you want an easier payday, going to college — even a mediocre one — beats the alternative every time.
Sure, technical-high-school grads can out-earn some weak college grads, but needing a slave mentality and sacrificing your body means the cost-benefit just isn't there…
Thanks! 😊
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
It’s worth noting that this whole framing of “jobs with brutal hierarchies” is based mostly on personal impressions and hearsay, not any official survey data. The strictness of nursing hierarchies is closely tied to chronic staff shortages, and some posters in the thread point out that things have actually been improving in recent years. The construction and civil engineering industry is notable for its low barrier to entry — no national certification required just to get hired — which gives it a different structure than nursing, where a license is mandatory. The claim that “Confucian-sphere cultures have strict hierarchies while the West prizes academic credentials and qualifications” is also a well-worn bit of folk wisdom with no real empirical backing offered here. And the thread’s judgments about the “conduct level” of graduates from non-academic-track schools like technical high schools are purely subjective — readers should keep in mind that this varies enormously by school and by individual.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sports Club Culture] The 6 Biggest Jobs/Places With Brutal Hierarchies: “Self-Defense Forces,” “Police,” “Nurses,” “Construction,” “Technical High Schools”.”
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