外籍员工逃跑 日本同事鄙视
Bloomberg News周四，人们在日本成田国际机场排队等候办理登机手续。日本的生活显示出回归正常的初步迹象，但那些曾经离开、现在小心翼翼回到办公室的外籍侨民和日籍人士，或许正面临着一个新的挑战：怎样面对危机中坚守岗位的同事们的排挤与愤怒。
某大型日资公司一位能说流利日本话的外籍员工说，上周他前往大阪躲了三天，结果让日本经理和同事非常愤怒，他觉得自己回到东京工作时必须非常小心地避免遭到排挤。
“外人”（gaijin，日文“外国人”的简称）的逃离使东京一些办公室内出现了对立。上周，在美国驻日大使馆发布自愿撤离通知，并派出飞机将美国人运往安全地带后，外国人逃离日本达到了狂热的程度。大规模出逃过程中，逃离日本的外国人获得了一个新的称号：“飞人”(flyjin)。
相关报导东京证券交易所负责人齐藤敦(Atsushi Saito)说，很多国家安排飞机接他们的人员回国；在某些使馆，他们向本国在日国民发送短信说，局势是非常危险的，而在一些公司，高管来到日本消除员工的疑虑；消除谣言、让其他国家知道日本是一个多么伟大的国家，或许是东证所的部分职责。
一位驻东京外籍侨民开有自己的小公司，上周他决定和一个商业伙伴一起去伦敦。他说，从工作效率的角度来讲，这是一个正确的决定，因为月底之前有重要任务必须完成；但是我对于离开日本感觉不是很好，肯定人们会认为这是懦弱的表现，我也不会反对。
那些回到东京的外籍人士会发现，这里的生活基本上已恢复正常，例如，上下班高峰时段火车上十分拥挤，而午饭时间主要金融区的餐馆里挤满了西装革履的男士等。但同时，正常生活秩序被破坏的迹象依然存在：很多商场为省电下午六点关门，还有很多店铺仍然缺乏牛奶和卫生纸等基本商品。
驻东京的一位外籍投资银行家说，看到这么多员工离开他并不感到吃惊。他说，金融业招人不是为了让他们来冒生命危险的，我们做的是投资银行业务，聘请的是投资银行家一类的专业人员，我们正努力不去排斥那些回来的人，虽然没有上升的趋势，但有些是善意的“欺负”。
周二接受采访的几位经理表示，无可否认，大多数领导团队工作的外籍高管都留在东京，或把办公室迁到日本别的地方。大多数情况下，离开的外籍人士是全职妈妈、她们的孩子以及没有下属或可在香港和新加坡远程工作的那些员工。当然，一些日本人也离开了东京，不过主要是投奔日本其它地方亲人的妇女和儿童，而她们的丈夫则为了工作仍留在东京。
德国大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)负责日本业务的总裁多里扎斯(Gerry Dorizas)说，如果我这个总裁离开东京，那我的领导作用也会为人所轻视，我们彼此间一直都很透明。他任总裁一职已有四年时间。
大众汽车日本公司已将全部员工转移至爱知县(Aichi prefecture)的丰桥(Toyohashi)，包括12名外籍员工和130名日本工作人员及家属。
在日本开展业务已有50多年的波音公司(Boeing Co.)说，该公司驻东京的30名员工中，大多数都留了下来，尽管公司提出他们可以去名古屋(Nagoya)工作，或让外籍员工休探亲假。
位于东京的日本一流招聘公司Hays的常务董事莱特(Christine Wright)说，我认为没必要走，如果你对员工负责的话，你就会留在这里。
有人说，外籍员工可能发现当地同事比他们预想的更善解人意。他们说，10年的通货紧缩和经济困难已经改变了日本人的心态。福莱希尔公关公司(Fleishman Hillard)负责日本业务的主管Shin Tanaka说，我觉得几十年前日本人更多的是有一种群体意识，但现在已经少多了；我认为大多数日本人选择留下来，是因为他们觉得留下几乎没什么风险。
在外资投行工作的一个日本雇员说，上周有些同事离开并没有让他感觉不安。他认为科技缩小了空间上的距离，有些人离开东京也能继续本职工作。他说，其实离开本身并不是什么问题，他们目前正在亚洲其它国家进行远程工作。
尽管如此，返回东京和日本其它地方的“飞人”可能会是未来几周管理层需要设法应对的一个问题。
平克说，公司里可能会出现隔阂，一部分人觉得被遗弃，一部分则是即将返回东京并在最初一段时间会感到些许压力的外籍雇员，大多数公司正努力给他们一些适应的时间，可能一周左右这种隔阂会自行消失。
Life in Japan is showing tentative signs of returning to normal, but a fresh challenge may be facing the expatriates and Japanese who left and are now trickling back to their offices: how to cope with ostracism and anger from their colleagues who have worked through the crisis.
One foreigner, a fluent Japanese speaker at a large Japanese company, said that his Japanese manager and colleagues were 'furious' with him for moving to Osaka for three days last week and that he felt he was going to have to be very careful to avoid being ostracized upon returning to work in Tokyo.
The flight of the foreigners─known as gaijin in Japanese─has polarized some offices in Tokyo. Last week, departures from Japan reached a fever pitch after the U.S. Embassy unveiled a voluntary evacuation notice and sent in planes to ferry Americans to safe havens. In the exodus, a new term was coined for foreigners fleeing Japan: flyjin.
The expat employees' decision to leave is a sensitive cultural issue in a country known for its legions of 'salarymen': loyal Japanese employees whose lives revolve around the office, who regularly work overtime and who have strong, emotional ties to their corporations and their colleagues.
'There is a split between on where their allegiances lie. In Japan, the company and family are almost one and the same, whereas foreigners place family first and company second,' said Mark Pink, the founder of financial recruitment firm TopMoneyJobs.com, based in Tokyo.
The head of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, at a news conference Tuesday, expressed his disappointment that so many foreigners─from the U.S., France, the U.K., China and Hong Kong, among others─had been urged to leave the country by their governments and by worried families. Their flight was at least in part due to the more alarmist tones the foreign media took in coverage of the disaster, compared with the local news that emphasized how problems were being addressed.
'Many countries arranged for planes to bring their people back home. In some embassies, they sent messages to their nationals in Japan that the situation is very dangerous, while at some companies, top executives have come to Japan to provide reassurance,' said Atsushi Saito, head of the TSE. 'It may be part of TSE's role to put down rumors and to transmit to foreign nations what a great country Japan is.'
One expat in Tokyo, who runs his own small business, decided to go to London last week with a business partner. 'It has been the right thing to do from a work-productivity point of view, as we have a big deadline to meet at the end of the month,' he said. 'That said, I don't feel very good about leaving and I'm sure people will perceive it as cowardly, and I won't object to that.'
Those foreigners who return will find life in Tokyo is largely back to normal, with trains crowded during rush hour and men in suits packing restaurants during lunchtime in the city's main financial district. But signs of disruption linger: Many shops close at 6 p.m. to conserve electricity and many stores are still out of basics such as milk and toilet paper.
One foreign investment banker in Tokyo says he wasn't surprised that so many employees left. 'We don't hire people into the financial industry to risk their lives─this is investment banking and we hire investment-banker types,' he said. 'We are trying to avoid ostracism for those who come back─there is no upside in that─but there is good-natured hazing.'
To be sure, most foreign senior-level managers leading teams in Tokyo stayed in the capital or relocated their entire offices to other locations in Japan, according to several managers interviewed Tuesday. In most cases, the expats who left are stay-at-home mothers, their children and those workers who don't have staff reporting to them and can work remotely from Hong Kong and Singapore. Some Japanese, of course, also left Tokyo, though mainly women and children going home to their families in other parts of Japan, while their husbands stay in behind to work.
'If I had left as the president, my role as a leader would have been diminished,' said Gerry Dorizas, the president of Volkswagen AG's operations in Japan, who has been in that role four years. 'We've been very transparent.'
VW Japan has moved all its staff, including 12 expats and 130 Japanese staff and their families, to Toyohashi in Aichi prefecture.
Boeing Co., which has operated in Japan for more than 50 years, says the majority of its 30-strong staff in Tokyo have remained, despite an offer to work in Nagoya, or for expats to take a home leave.
Christine Wright, managing director of Hays in Tokyo, one of the country's leading recruitment firms, said: 'I saw no reason to leave; if you have a commitment to your staff, you stay there.'
Some said the expats would likely find local colleagues to be more understanding than expected. They say a decade of deflation and economic hardship has changed the Japanese mindset. 'I think the Japanese had more of the group mentality decades ago, but not so much now,' said Shin Tanaka, head of PR firm Fleishman Hillard's operations in Japan. 'I think most people are staying because they think there is little risk.'
A Japanese employee at a foreign investment bank said he wasn't bothered by the fact that some of his colleagues left last week. He felt the gap was narrowed by technology, anyway, allowing some who left to do their share. 'It hasn't really been a problem,' he said. 'They're working remotely out of other countries in Asia.'
Still, the return of the 'flyjin' to Tokyo and other areas of Japan will likely be an issue for management to grapple with one way or another in the coming weeks.
'Most companies are trying to give some space to people on both sides to adjust: the people who feel they were abandoned and the foreigners who are coming back and feeling some initial tension,' said Mr. Pink. 'Within a week or so that may resolve itself.'
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