Bandai Namco has reportedly turned to the unspoken Japanese tradition of layoff-by-boredom by stuffing unwanted employees into oidashi beya, or “expulsion rooms.”

Employees banished reassigned to oidashi beya are left to do nothing, or given menial tasks at best. According to Bloomberg’s unnamed insider sources, Bandai Namco has moved around 200 of its 1,300 person team to these rooms in recent months.

The goal of sticking someone in an expulsion room is to literally bore or shame them into quitting, and Bloomberg’s sources claim it has worked on around half the people Bandai Namco has stuck in there so far.

  • @SkunkWorkz
    link
    28 hours ago

    It’s not that different in Korea though. If you don’t work for Samsung or SK Group you are lower class. And your old friends who do work for those Chaebols will stop associating with you.

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      47 hours ago

      If you don’t work for Samsung or SK Group you are lower class.

      I mean, that’s just factually incorrect. South Korea has a fairly large manufacturing economy, a lot of my family are shipwrights and make really decent money. The other half of my family works for banks and for the government, none of them are considered low class.

      South Korea does have a pretty brutal work regiment, but they also have very aggressive trade unions who aren’t afraid to go on massive and often violent strikes.

      old friends who do work for those Chaebols will stop associating with you.

      According to who? I mean you may stop seeing them as often, but that’s just because the work culture often extends out of office. It’s pretty traditional to go out drinking or eating with your coworkers, but that doesn’t mean people stop associating with their friends who don’t work with them.