For the past few days, people in chat rooms across Japan have been grasping for a neat rendering of “boutto suru”: the state of sitting at a desk, staring off into space, unengaged, unproductive and, in this particular context, unsackable.
The term is currently circling in the ether because of a survey published by Shikigaku, a Tokyo-based consultancy, on the phenomenon of the hatarakanai ojisan, the old geezer (or, less commonly, his female equivalent) in the office who manages to get away with doing no work.
When asked if such a person existed in their workplace, 49.2 per cent of workers in their 20s and 30s at Japanese companies with over 300 employees affirmed that he did. Collectively, that’s an awful lot of paid daydreaming, but might it possibly be money well spent?