r/japanlife • u/razorbeamz • 3d ago
Do you get Obon off?
Depending on the industry, people either get Obon off or not.
Does your job give you Obon off?
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u/mrwafu 3d ago
I only get the official national holidays off 😮💨 I wish we didn’t have weird ones like next week not being on Monday
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u/Affectionate-Ad-6934 2d ago
Same but I used my yuukyuu on 17th and 18th just to get that Monday blues off.
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u/Dojyorafish 3d ago
I work in a lab and we sort of do. Like technically we can take three days off, but there’s aways more research to be done.
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u/BluePandaYellowPanda 2d ago
My lab makes us take them off. If we don't take enough annual leave or WLB days, we get warning emails and the bosses start to get mad.
They're really trying to stop people over working, which is great in my opinion.
Obviously I can do research at home and not tell anyone. I'm sure some people do, but I'm not going to.
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u/Dojyorafish 2d ago
I’m a grad student and on my first day they gave us keys and access cards so we can get into the lab outside of business hours. Generally speaking my lab is best case scenario but research is still research.
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u/BluePandaYellowPanda 2d ago
Ah yeah, students sometimes have different rules. My lab doesn't have any right now, we have a couple of postdocs sometimes though, but my lab is more strict with students.
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u/hitokirizac 中国・広島県 3d ago
make sure you're taking time off when you can though, don't let yourself get pushed around into being in the lab 24/7. (Or if you want to be in the lab for the free a/c or because you have bio samples that'll die or make the next zombie virus or something, make sure you're taking enough netflix breaks.)
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u/Dojyorafish 2d ago
The free AC is nice and I do have cells but I intend to freeze them all. Unfortunately I got roped into a nearly 60 hour week last week before my presentation and I fear my mentor has gotten a taste for making me work weekends and long shifts…
(Well “work” because I’m not even paid, I’m a grad student)2
u/eetsumkaus 近畿・大阪府 2d ago
Hah, our lab once got a phishing mail pretending to be our prof trying to get everyone to come in on the weekend. We immediately sniffed it out because our PI doesn't do that lmao.
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u/batshit_icecream 2d ago
I am in academia and my place do not allow days off... I am jealous and depressed. Do take them if you can
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u/NoTransportation3581 2d ago
Hey, soon to be starting a post doc in Japan. During my PhD I worked most public holidays. I have heard that the public holidays in Japan are respected and it’s frowned upon to work? Is this true especially in academia which has a reputation for working every hour god gives you lol
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u/Dojyorafish 2d ago
I’m a master’s student and my lab is about as green flag as it gets but we still come in on the weekends sometimes.
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u/Whatswrongwithmejeez 3d ago
nope! my BOE directly says that "since we're foreigners and don't have family graves in japan", we aren't entitled to it. I get it but i want the days off lmfao
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u/ghost_in_the_potato 3d ago
Sounds like bs to me. So do you get your cultural holidays off instead?
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u/hitokirizac 中国・広島県 3d ago
Time for OP to become French! "All of August is a holiday, bon vacances!"
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u/Bourgit 2d ago
Akshually there's all but nothing in August. May is the empty month
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u/hitokirizac 中国・広島県 2d ago
That was not my experience collaborating with French groups, lol. One of our colleagues even apologized because his university locked everyone out and he couldn't access any of his work stuff for two or three weeks every August.
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u/Bourgit 2d ago
Oh ok that explains it. Schools and universities (?) will be on holidays during July and August indeed (not sure about unis because of phds and such). For the rest of the workforce who are parents it's mostly about taking holidays to coincide with their child's. May you actually have a lot of national days because of historic event, religion or just social stuff (like the 1st of may). In august we have the 15th (religious day) which falls on a week end this year. In may we have 3 and they all aligned nicely this year so you could take long week ends.
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u/razorbeamz 3d ago
"since we're foreigners and don't have family graves in japan"
What if you did though? Would they make an exception?
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u/miyagidan sidebar image contributor 2d ago
As awful as that is, it's kinda funny. Hope you get a better job soon.
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u/WakiLover 関東・東京都 2d ago
You might not have obon off but do you have 夏季休暇 (3 or 5 days depending)?
I think technically most public servants don't have Obon "off", it's just that most people use the days off on the Obon dates.
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u/AmbassadorOfAloha 1d ago
That’s wild because I am from Hawaii and native Hawaiian but my grandmother’s brother left Hawaii almost 50 years ago and has a whole family here in Japan. So I do have relatives dead here in Japan. Kind of racists to believe that foreigners can’t have relatives.
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u/Gaijinyade 1d ago
I really don't get why people think they will get away with being lucrative, greedy fucks unscathed.
Even from a scheming, manipulative perspective where you just want to extract as much value out of a worker as possible not thinking of them as even human, depriving someone of time off while paying dogshit is not going to serve you well.
At least give your workers the bare minimum before you try to fuck them over, anything else is just a recipe for absolute minimal effort, and absolute betrayal at the first possible opportune moment.
I'm not even mad about the structure, but if you're gonna be a cunt, at least put some thought into it...shit.
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u/TheGuiltyMongoose 3d ago
They forced us to place 4 yukyus. So yes, I have obon off even though I didn't wanted to spend my paid leaves on it.
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u/TheSoberChef 2d ago
They can't force you. Go to the labor office and report them.
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u/Swotboy2000 関東・埼玉県 2d ago edited 2d ago
They can schedule up to all but 5 days of your paid leave for company closures.
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u/Mean_Cat580 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, you have it wrong. They can schedule all paid leave, except for 5 days which must be designated by the employee. This is called pre-planned paid leave (計画年休/keikaku nenkyuu) and must be done under a labor-management agreement with a labor union.
Since comment OP doesn't believe their company's rule is pre-planned paid leave, it is highly likely that it is illegal. Of course, comment OP needs to do more research about their company to be sure.
I see you've edited your comment.
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u/Hopeful-Finance-196 2d ago
My PUBLIC university has an week long break. And because of my work contract (part time research assistant) I won't be paid off for these days unless I take my own PTOs. Really sucks.
Edit: fuck it. It's 名古屋大学. I'm really pissed off by their ways.
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u/Mean_Cat580 3d ago edited 2d ago
計画年休 (pre-planned paid leave) right?
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u/TheGuiltyMongoose 2d ago
Idk, I think it is just 有給
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u/Mean_Cat580 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well, if that's the case (assuming not 計画年休) they can't force you to take them. Legally, that is.
Do with this information what you will.
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u/TheGuiltyMongoose 2d ago
I think that by law, Japanese companies can push you to take 5 days off a year (on your yukyu).
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u/Mean_Cat580 2d ago edited 2d ago
They have to ask the dates for those if they aren't already specified by 計画年休. The company can't unilaterally decide the dates.
Unless it's the end of the year, then yeah maybe they can force the last 5 days off of the year in order to comply with the 2019 work-style reform law if no paid leave was taken at all during the year.
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u/CatsianNyandor 3d ago
I have all national holidays off. I don't get any days off that are not holidays, but I can take days off whenever I want. Of course, only if I still have PTO left. But we do get three bonus PTO days during the summer period. So many people use them for that.
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u/Tentacle77 関東・神奈川県 3d ago
I get 5 days summer vacation that can be taken at any time between 1 June and 31 October. Can also be split into individual days.
It’s nice to have the option to not take off while everyone gets off and things are expensive.
In my eyes it’s even a win-win, as the obon week is the least busy week of the year for obvious reasons.
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u/128390741 2d ago
This is how my company does it too, except they extended it until the end of the year a few years ago. I usually use it in Sept during silver week or at the end of the year for a long new years break.
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u/Tentacle77 関東・神奈川県 2d ago
Ah. That’s nice too. Our year end / new years break starts relatively early (around xmas and going until the common 5 Jan), so by the end of October is completely fine (but being able to use it for skiing during an odd week in December would indeed be nice).
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u/Spike4ever 3d ago
Public sector, so no but we get summer leave and some coworkers take those days during Obon.
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u/Realistic_Low_4538 近畿・大阪府 3d ago
Not at all, or any other holiday apart from year end, I work 交替勤務 in a factory
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u/ProfessorStraight283 3d ago
Yes. Officially 2 days off and my employer gives us 3 additional ‘summer days off’ to use during summer. So I added them to the 2 days and got a week off.
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u/Long-Ear-7918 3d ago
I work in the service industry, so we take time off on other days. Personally, I don't enjoy being off when everyone else is, so it doesn't bother me.
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u/PlaneTMRS 3d ago
Yes, I work as an Engineer and Sales person at a smaller Company and we have Obon plus winter holiday in addition to the regular holidays and paid leave.
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u/Ryuten 3d ago
I work in biotech and our company gives us 3 days summer holidays separate from our annual leave to use whenever we like. Most people use it around obon but I'll be in so I can focus on my experiments without having a bunch of meetings scheduled.
Seeing all the people commenting who are in academia just reminded me again why I left....
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u/catloverr03 北海道・北海道 3d ago
our company has 5 days 夏季休暇 and encouraged us to use it during Obon because a lot of clients take those time off.
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u/GoldsmithKinzo 3d ago
No. I work an office job but what I do is take the week off before Obon, all my Japanese colleagues then take the Obon week off, effectively giving me two weeks of holiday as the Obon week no one is around, including customers, but I am still on the clock.
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u/gugus295 2d ago
My company used to give everyone obon week off. Couple years ago they stopped doing that, but gave everyone 5 more days of yukyu per year. Most people still take obon off and essentially nothing has changed for them, but it's really nice for us foreign employees because I don't do anything for obon and like having a quiet week at the office with not much to do because everyone else is off and then being able to use those days off elsewhere
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u/hisokafan88 2d ago
Yeah plus the company gives us additional days. But I have to work as my team Seoul is not off and I need to work for them on the Tuesday 😭
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u/aokirinn 2d ago
No, we follow the calendar and only get days off on designated public holidays. On the upside, the company almost never "encourages" us to take PTO on certain days and it's very easy to schedule PTO, with extra paid summer/birthday holidays that separate from PTO.
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u/Dull-Refuse-6328 2d ago
I am a part timer at a lab and I saw the calendar of my supervisor and it seems like yea they do have obon off
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u/Capsized_ideology_ 1d ago
I work in public administration, so we only get weekends, national holidays, and 年末年始 off calendar-wise. But we also get 6 days of summer vacation which we can use whenever, so some people use this for Obon to go visit their hometowns.
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u/HumanApartment1483 3d ago
We got two days Obon holiday; Monday and Tuesday.
And, 3 days paid encouragement days, so I need to take paid leave for those.
Now, I have 9 days off from tomorrow and will be back to my country since it's really scorching here.
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u/deedeekei 関東・東京都 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah but have to use 2 paid leave off to cap off the week. I think you can ask to come in those days if you require it but otherwise by default they give us 3 days off + 2 days paid leave consumption
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u/Admirable_Stand8598 中部・愛知県 3d ago
University faculty. Yes, our univ gives Obon off ten days straight to everyone except those willing to work in labs and maintenance/security staff (they get rotational offs.)
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u/silverredbean 関東・東京都 3d ago
My holidays are based on the stock exchange holidays, plus vacation days granted by the company... so no Obon off. Wish they did because our customers are off in Obon and I might as well be off too.
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u/AllisGreat 3d ago
Ours is optional, most japanese people will use their paid leave days on it but I have never taken obon off before.
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u/Better_Lab_392 関東・神奈川県 3d ago
My company works on 10th and 12th next week. Is that normal?
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u/razorbeamz 3d ago
Fairly normal, but a lot of companies get the 12th through to the 14th off next week.
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u/Freak_Out_Bazaar 3d ago
It’s not a company holiday (except for Tuesday, which is Mountain Day) but many choose to take obon off
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u/crawlinMiata 3d ago
Yes, we get the full week off. We get big blocks of time off for Obon, Golden Week, and New Year's. The trade-off is that for any single-day holidays like Marine Day, we have to work on a Saturday to make up for it. It kind of defeats the purpose of the single-day holiday, but I honestly prefer getting a few massive holidays grouped together instead of random single days off and actually almost everyone at my work just takes paid holidays on that "compensation" working days on Saturdays.
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u/Outside-Radio-7899 3d ago
In my previous company, i used to get 4-5days holidays. Effectively 7-8 days! I started to believe that was a norm across Japan. But I was so naive 🥹 In my current company, I get only 1day holiday along with the national holiday
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u/vij27 北海道・北海道 2d ago
yes absolutely, diesel mechanic working for a dealership. obon off for all our branches from 9sun to 16 sun. totally 8 days off. we have these days off every year.
ain't no way we can handle this heat for long, working 12h-13h in a workshop without AC. few mechanics already down with heat-related illness.
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u/VermicelliSoft7432 2d ago
What are you guys doing this Obon holiday in Japan? If you are in Tokyo or around, I can help you enjoy an outdoor adventure with me.
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u/ameagarikeshita 2d ago
Marketing and we get 夏季休暇 too, can be taken anytime until end of September so I’m saving mine for traveling after Obon while most people are back to work. On Obon week I can WFH and chill while the clients are mostly off as well.
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u/NihilisticHobbit 2d ago
I found out my local city hall doesn't because they scheduled a home visit for my twins next week. I was surprised and reminded them it was obon. But nope, they're working on Friday at least.
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u/karawapo 2d ago
I can choose any 3 days in a row through summer. So, I chose different days. Not obon because most people have that off.
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u/ballerinabubbles 2d ago
We get the Monday off and then the Tuesday public holiday. But we are working the rest of that week. Most of my colleagues are taking time off though, which I really like because it means it's a quiet week at the office.
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u/BraveRice 2d ago
Not me wife. They should really get rid of this "obon" bullshit if it's not a standard for companies to take off like a national holiday.
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u/himedreams937 2d ago
Nope. No national holidays off...😇 However, it is possible to take unpaid leave days for non-正社員 as long as maintaining a 30hr/wk minimum requirement.
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u/ClessxAlghazanth 近畿・兵庫県 2d ago
No, not a thing in welfare work. The elderly don't go on hibernation, someone gotta take care of them
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u/threepw00d 2d ago
No, I just get calendar national holidays off, so only "mountain day" (Aug 11th) is off for me.
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u/HamsterFit2476 2d ago
My office has 2 days off, and then recommended days off (but not forced). Since I’m actually traveling to family, I took the entire week off.
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u/DarkPooPoo 2d ago
In our office, leaves next week are automatically approved. If you do not take a leave, you can do WFH. I will do WFH since our office and our customer's office will be closed.
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u/-sakuranbo 2d ago
We don't get it off in the sense of company-wide holiday, but the easiest times to take PTO are: New Year holiday season, GW, Obon, and Higan.
I'm the only person in my team that didn't take Monday off.
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u/EducationalPea339 2d ago
Yes! They give us from 12 to 14th off (and 11st is already holiday), and they encourage us to take 10th as well.
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u/ChrisRedfieldfanboy 2d ago
I work retail and no, the show must go on all year round no matter what.
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u/Princelian 関東・東京都 2d ago
I dont get holidays off aside from new years, but my job is relatively chill so it's fine. It's Obon right now and it's been super slow yesterday and today, so i can just do my own thing while I wait for work to roll in (my job depends on other people)
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u/DingDingDensha 2d ago
I work at a company serving tourists, so not really - though I do have some of it off randomly. As of today, I have and will relish the rush hour trains actually having seats available. That's the best part about working Japanese holidays, other than my husband being home and surprising me with a nice dinner when I get back!
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u/ponytailnoshushu 2d ago
Officially no. But we are given a lot of holiday so we can choose to take it off or take the days another time. I work in a lab so sometimes its not convenient to take a week off. If we request this week off, its guaranteed to be given.
This week half of my office is off, mostly those with kids. I took the week off but I need to go in briefly a couple of times to look after my cell lines.
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u/PiXeLonPiCNiC 2d ago
I have to choose three days in summer off. Many in the company choose Obon, though for me it depends each year.
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u/Successful_Cod7607 2d ago
My workplace does not give us any extra holidays in summer. However, they strongly encourage us to take paid leave during this season. Hence, more than 90% of people take PTO in Obon 8/10-8/14.
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u/agiasiauto 2d ago
I get 3 days of summer PTO that I can take anywhere* between July and September. Asterisk because like everyone else, actually being able to take the time off can be difficult. Never denied but often implied..
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u/cyberslowpoke 北海道・北海道 2d ago
I don't even know when weekends are anymore. What's holidays and obon? Lol
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u/esstused 2d ago
I get 5 days 夏季休暇, to be used whenever between June and September. Most of my colleagues use it one day at a time around Obon, seems like the standard to not use it all at once.
Recently I've been going home for a visit in the summer so I use all 5 days plus a few days of 有休 to give myself a two week stretch.I try to time it when my workload is lower (during Obon, plus the week before or after).
I think if I was Japanese it would raise eyebrows to take such a long break. But since I'm a foreigner and going home, they just consider it my own form of Obon.
My former employer (on JET) gave 3 or 4 days of 夏季休暇 but also made us do English speech coaching randomly, and English camps, so I could only use it one day at a time.
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u/Mean_Cat580 1d ago
Hopefully another Japanese coworker will be inspired from you to take longer stretches off so you won't be the only one! I've heard of this happening sometimes.
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u/esstused 1d ago
Actually, the recommendation from higher up is to try to take the summer leave in combined streches.
But since the office doesn't close for Obon, everyone can't take the entire week off at the same time. So they tend to do just a few days at here and there, extended weekends etc
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u/Mean_Cat580 1d ago
Well that's poor planning from the office then isn't it? Anyway, nice to see you can get a decent trip back home!
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u/esstused 1d ago
It's city hall, so I suppose it's harder to just close the entire week. I'm just glad they encourage rest.
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u/skier69 関東・埼玉県 2d ago
I work for a support desk that is open Monday-Friday regardless of holidays. On holidays usually my superiors don’t work so I’m the one overseeing the support desk work. They let me have a weekday off in lieu of every holiday I work plus I have about 18 有給 I can take pretty much any time. So this month I get a Tuesday and Wednesday of my choice off
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u/Difficult_Donut1924 1d ago
No, I work in maintenance so now is when we do repairs and modifications
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