Yamada Denki won't open on New Year's Day
TOKYO —
Yamada Denki Co, Japan’s biggest consumer electronics retailer, said Wednesday it will not open any of its 1,000-odd outlets across the country on New Year’s Day from 2009.
Although retail sales are relatively strong on Jan 1 every year, the company intends to place priority on cutting carbon dioxide emissions from its operations and achieving a better work-life balance for its employees, company officials said. The step will reduce the company’s CO2 emissions by about 830 tons on a group basis, the officials said.
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umbrella
wow big news. Not!
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DenshaDeGO
Instead of "achieving a better work-life balance for its employees", JAMAda Denki should hire people who aren't complete tools. Everytime I go into one it's like being back home: clueless staff and terrible service
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kaminarioyaji
But even complete tools deserve one day off a year to spend with their family... It
s a pretty poor life as a shop assistant anywhere in the world, but I would say even more so in Japan. The anti-social working hours, the low pay (usually less than a ￥1000 per hour in a country expensive!) And as for the monotony of saying "irashaimase" to every customer you see all day... I wouldnt be surprised at all if someone, someday conducted some research and found out that all these suicides and family murders we read about on JT all the time were carried out by shop workers driven insane...0
some14some
announcement too early...Oni ga deru ka hotoke ga deru ka when economy outlook is so blink and business closure are so high...Yamaba !
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WhatJapanThinks
What is 830 tons (tonnes?) of CO2? I can't grasp what exactly that number represents; it's even more vague than the usual "enough CO2 to fill 285.38 Tokyo Domes" that we usually get.
Oh, and Yamada et al have horrendous hours; 10 am to 8 pm is one shift, you need to get in two hours early to set up and one hour after to tidy up, etc. My company sends people for front-line work experience to these shops, and they all report it's the toughest month's work they've ever done.
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Altria
Yamada never have any staff on hand to deal with customers...you try searching in vain for someone to help you out, and the only people you can find will tell you 'Sorry, I'm here to sell Docomo/AU/Yahoo BB so I don't know'
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Altria
And I don't know how staff at those places manage to not go insane hearing the same Bic Camera or Yodobashi jingle on a 30 second loop, day after day.
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Nessie
Why don't they close every day and reduce emissions even more? This makes no sense.
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flammenwerfer
every shop should be closed on Jan 1, make one day of the year sacred and off limits - like Xmas Day in the west, its the one day where virtually everthing is closed aside from Gas stations and restaurants. Kudos to Yamada denki for this, irrespective of the carbon BS, purely for giving their workkers some family time.
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zaichik
I think having at least one day a year when one can get away from mindless consumerism is a good thing. Here in NZ, shops are required by law to close on Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Petrol stations and small shops selling essential items of food are open, but if the latter sell alcohol, they rope off the alcohol section as the sale of alcohol is prohibited on those days. It does mean you have to plan ahead with your supermarket shopping, but that's no bad thing....
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Pukey2
I wonder whether any of these people working at places like YamadaDenki and Yodobashi ever get hearing problems. Imagine, the whole day with all that noise and music at full blast. Noise pollution just ain't in the Japanese dictionary.
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Scrote
Every weekend we get a big Yamada denki advertisement with the newspaper and nearly every weekend they also have a full page ad inside the paper as well. Why not stick to one ad?
And if they turned off the annoying music in their stores that would also cut down on CO2 emissions.
And how about not building stores on the edge of town which encourage car use?
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borscht
I can only be in Yamada Denki for about 20 minutes before the music - both the volume and the repetition - get to me and I have to get out for a brain refresher. I suspect people who work there don't even hear it anymore; it's become a background hissss that they can overlook (overhear?). But that might explain how they don't know anything about the products they sell except the price.
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flammenwerfer
The music! argh! Midori denki with their "Saints go marching in" song and Joshin with their Hanshin Tigers song playing over and over ad nausuem. Never been into a Yamada, the former two rule the roost where I live along with K's Denki. Another shop that is excruciating to spend more than 5mins in is the "OK Bottleworld" a cheap liquor store and supermarket. They have this country music syle tune with the words OK repeated incessantly.." Ok Ok nan demo sorou, Ok Okay okay! nanika iikoto ata hi ha blah blak OK OK chiki ichiban....blah blah... ok ok ok ( you get my drift) its truly is the worst 5-10mins of my week, prices are so cheap in that shop so I am forced by my tightwad tendancies to brave the trip though...
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Altria
Midori wa Yasui yo Zenpin ze-i-ko-mi!
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