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  • This is a day in the life of a Japanese delivery person

  • This is Yasuho, 22 year old living in Tokyo, and she's just waking up to start her day

  • She lives alone in this newly built 1K apartment and like many Japanese,

  • she prefers to take a bath at night just before she goes to sleep.

  • Oh nice, she's boarding mop slippers

  • Yasuho, how long does it take you to wear makeup?

  • I guess she doesn't eat breakfast in her apartment

  • She commutes to work by bike, taking about only ten minutes to get to the office

  • In fact, it's pretty rare in Tokyo for someone to live right next to the office as

  • most workers commute on average about one hour by train one way

  • Also, compared to other Japanese workers, her day start a little earlier, so living nearby is ultra convenient.

  • Yasuho works as a delivery person at Sagawa Express

  • One of the largest transportation companies in Japan, with more than 50,000 employees

  • spread across 400 offices throughout the country.

  • All right, so Yasuho should be coming around the corner right now

  • Let's see how much she slept this morning

  • Good morning.

  • What time did you go to sleep last night?

  • Oh, she's changing into her Sagawa uniform, looking sharp

  • What did you just buy?

  • Okay, she's eating a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast Pocari sweat is a popular sports drink in Japan

  • This is the go-to drink when Japanese want to quickly get hydrated

  • So this is the main Sagawa shipping terminal in the Tokyo area

  • and where all shipments are sorted every morning

  • She needs to pick up the boxes which go to our specific delivery area and load them into her micro van

  • Yasuho, what's in your pocket?

  • So every delivery person carries a name stamped with a date on it to mark delivery slips and other documents

  • It's a huge space to work so communicating effectively between workers is important

  • Right now she's sorting out smaller packages by address so it's easier to deliver

  • What did he just give you

  • Oh, and that's her manager, it looks like they're going over material regarding new Sagawa services

  • So every morning before she starts they actually clean the car which is quite interesting, right?

  • You can see how clean it is

  • So the company has a rule that drivers like Yasoho can't start deliveries until their van is completely cleaned.

  • That explains why I never see a dirty Sagawa delivery truck in Tokyo

  • In fact workers cleaning at the office or students cleaning at school is fairly common in Japanese culture

  • Highlights the importance of your surroundings and being responsible for your own good

  • Now that the delivery van is clean, she's able to load the boxes for her delivery area

  • Where are you going now?

  • To start the process, every morning she fills out a handwritten form with all of her details on it.

  • So what she's doing now is called "Tenko"

  • The company must ensure that all drivers are safe to be on the road.

  • In order to do this, every driver needs to report their health condition

  • as well as perform a breathalyzer test

  • and finally, read the safety driving rules in front of an inspection staff

  • Wow, it seems like Sagawa performs a lot of safety checks before they can get on the road

  • Damn, she even has more checks. Does every delivery company in the world do this?

  • Now that Yasuho has picked up all of our packages at the main Tokyo terminal

  • She's headed to a smaller distribution hub for a specified area

  • Before she starts delivering packages, she stops by this area delivery hub and picks up this special Sagawa cart

  • She loads the boxes from the van and then pushes the card to each delivery spot

  • She basically repeats this process until her van is completely empty of boxes

  • Now she's delivering the remaining smaller packages

  • What's that?

  • So she's currently assigned to the Nihombashi area, which is

  • known to have many apparel wholesale facilities

  • So she delivers not only to regular houses, but to many apparel shops and businesses.

  • Why do you always say thank you twice?

  • In Japan, streets are relatively safe, especially from theft which we'll notice that bit more throughout this video

  • But she's still careful to lock her cart during deliveries

  • So she's been working as a delivery person for about six months, so she's fairly new to her job

  • She says that she likes it because she gets to communicate with customers every day

  • and having trusted relationships with them gives her motivation

  • So what's the hardest part of working as a delivery person?

  • Yay, she finally finished all of her deliveries. That wasn't so bad

  • So what are you gonna do now?

  • Her PDT device works as a timecard as well, so she clocks off during lunch

  • You have to change during your lunch break?

  • Ahh, I guess that's why I never see Sagawa workers eating out

  • makes so much sense now

  • So she's meeting up with some of her senpais for lunch.

  • Senpai is a Japanese word used for senior colleagues and mentours.

  • So, how long have you been working at Sagawa?

  • What's your favourite part of this job?

  • How about you?

  • Have you ever had trouble with foreign customers having to use English?

  • So they often go to this Japanese izakaya restaurant together

  • Izakayas are usually frequented during the evening

  • but many open for businesses during lunch time to serve affordable set menu items like this place

  • Alright so we're just back from lunch and she actually has a longer lunch than usual

  • It's about an hour and a half

  • Usually people only have an hour break

  • But I guess they have longer break times here maybe because you're just like

  • tired of walking around all morning probably

  • One thing though, I'm so glad it's not raining today because it would be a total mess trying to film this

  • But if it did rain, this is the waterproof uniform. It also covers up the bag and device

  • and if she wants it can convert the short sleeves

  • So we're afternoon task is to visit clients to perform sales activities

  • Time to suit up again

  • So she goes back out on the same route to of course some clients

  • Sagawa now has a charter shipping service where you can purchase a full pallet and send anything you want as long as it fits

  • It's a useful service when you have lots of stuff or large items

  • Now she goes back around on the same delivery route and picks up outgoing packages

  • and does more sales for new services

  • When she sees the package laying in front of the store all alone like this, it indicates a new pickup

  • She checks for the Sagawa label

  • If so, she collects the package, provides a customer with a delivery receipt, and then creates a delivery label on her device

  • Fortunately for the sender and the delivery person leaving unattended packages

  • in front of the store is relatively safe in Japan.

  • To basically be walking around right now picking up all of the packages from different clients

  • Her neighborhood is set so she goes around kind of like on a set path

  • But if she wanted to she can actually pick up different packages from different locations

  • She now takes up the picked up packages and loads them into a waiting delivery truck

  • She says her job is very teamwork focus which she loves, and in between deliveries,

  • she enjoys chatting with her co-workers

  • Where are you headed now?

  • Now that she's done with her delivery task for her assigned area she has to head back to the main office

  • Wow, she's doing another safety check even in a public parking space. Amazing!

  • It seems like a lot of Sagawa drivers are back as well

  • After she brings the van back she needs to perform a final "Tenko". By law, these records are kept for one year.

  • So before she leaves today, she also has to do quite a bit of administrative tasks. So let's see what she has to do.

  • So basically she needs to take care of the cash accounting as well.

  • For example, cash on delivery transactions

  • she received today as well as parking fees she's paid.

  • Yay, finally done! Do you have any plans after this?

  • She's stopping by a supermarket on the way back.

  • Wow, it's pretty massive comparatively speaking for Tokyo terms.

  • You're not buying so much?

  • Yasuho, what did you cook

  • Many younger generations these days just buy food at the convenience store to take home and eat

  • But Yasuho likes to cook and it's cheaper and healthier

  • So she just finished taking a bath she has an hour of free time before she goes to bed

  • She goes to bed at 10 o'clock, but that's pretty much the

  • day in the life of a Japanese delivery person

  • What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments

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This is a day in the life of a Japanese delivery person

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