Capcom Faces Bullying Accusation

[Stu35]

In a rare display of me having nothing better to do on the internet, I've actually read every response so far on this thread, instead of simply picking two I disagree with and starting an argument, or one I agree with and saying 'this' followed by some additional opinions.

...

I've come to several conclusions:

1. Japan is a fucked up country with a fucked up culture. I appreciate that, as a modern western man I'm supposed to be able to look at foreign cultures and go "Ah, they do things differently there. I shall respect our differences and simply accept that they do things differently over there, after all: we're not so perfect ourselves here in Blighty; consider XFactor, Chavs, Economy and all that gubbins." ... Yeah, that's not my style - Japanese culture is weird, and aside from delicious sushi, the original Power Rangers, and Transformers, I don't want any part of it.

2. People will jump to conclusions on either side of something, no matter how much or little information they are given. They will then argue that they have not jumped to a conclusion but are waiting for more information, whilst insisting that the conclusion they jumped to has merit based on the information they already have. (Confused? Me too).

3. I find comparisons of CAPCOM, EA, Activision, etc. to supervillians (and their sidekicks) as being a really, really funny concept, and I intend to spend the next 45 minutes that I should be getting ready to go out drinking on finding webcomics depicting this. If there are none then I'm going to email my comic-drawing mate, and demand he draws me some.#

4. Whilst doing this, I'm getting Pinky and the Brain going in another tab, because it's awesome.

5. ???

6. Profit.

 

[Zydrate]

I would indeed like to hear the other side of the story.

I'm sorry for the girl's mental issues (My family being plagued by a few) but if she wasn't doing her job, maybe she needs to find something more suitable for her?

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Ive said it once, I'll say it again, Capcom: The EA and Activision of Japan.

EA and Activision?

I dunno.

Capcom seems like the stupid sidekick who always messes up.

I mean come on, spelling mistakes on game packaging?

and ignoring the pleases of a lady that is getting screwed over to the point where she tries to pill herself to death is sidekick tier?

We don't know both sides yet, so I'm not willing to throw around accusations.

I see your point, but these are the same people that tease us with Megaman Legends 3 and other trolltastic stuff, i would not put this past them either.

Capcom are the biggest trolls in the industry.

No EU Monster Hunter titles in a long time, no Megaman, releasing 'Ultimate' versions of fighting games, less than a year after the release of the original.

They need to change their logo to this.

You're just having a laugh, (I assume), but is it possible that these things are maybe related to each other at least a little bit?

What I mean is if Copcom really does have this kind of work environment, (key word "if"), then couldn't some of their more "trollish" actions be related to, or even because of how the employees treat each other? A bad work environment leading to bad business decisions.

Just a thought. Probably not right, but something they may want to change/prevent just in case.

Actually a very interesting point.

It would make more sense than Capcom just being composed of incompetents .

Well I'm not say that being incompetent doesn't have anything to do with it either. That is again IF they have such a deplorable work environment. Though even if they don't, working on making sure they never will can only be good in the long run.

If they really have it so bad there that an employee may try to kill themselves, and they know it is that bad but do nothing about it, that's just dumb. Dumb on a moral level, and a business level.

Especially if businesses in Japan work by the philosophy "group before the individual". I mean even if this whole thing is true, but only one part of the company was like that it's still very bad for the company as a whole. It be like if you or me got cancer in a part of our bodies, found out, and just said, "Well, it's only in that part. No need to worry."

All that said I hope Copcom, it's current employees, and former employees can all recover from this for the better.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Part of me wants to feel sympathetic towards this young woman, but at the same time every time I see any reference to a lawsuit in the news I want to facepalm hard.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

*snip*

I have to agree with you, the entire time I was reading this I couldn't help but wonder if she was just bad at her job and couldn't cope with that fact. It sounds a lot more reasonable than her superiors banding together to pretend her ideas suck just to spite her

 

[Farther than stars]

I agree with everything that was just said, except: "and giving an employee nothing or very little to do." Who is going to be upset with a boss giving them a very light work load?!

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

I agree with everything that was just said, except: "and giving an employee nothing or very little to do." Who is going to be upset with a boss giving them a very light work load?!

Any employee who understands that said light work load can be used during their yearly performance review to determine if they get a promotion, pay raise or even if they continue working for the company.

 

[Casey Goddard]

I work for a Japanese company and I can confidently say this kind of thing is not at all uncommon. Of course that doesn't mean it's okay. Actually, I would go so far to say this is an opportunity for gamers to let Japanese business culture know that they need treat their female workforce with more profession courtesy.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

@Grey Carter

The fact that the employee was female needed to be mentioned in the title why? If they were male, would you have said Male Employee Sues Capcom Over Bullying? Somehow I doubt it.

Up to your usual standards, I guess.

ITT: lots of people reading an internet forum post with the supposed single sided account of an alleged incident and believing every word of it.

 

[Leadfinger]

Always sounds worse when you only hear one side. A suicide attempt seems a little out of place, unless that was her only means of getting by at the time. A stupid jury will soak up that suicide attempt like a sponge, she will probably win.

There are no juries for civil cases in Japan. The case will go before a judge. Also, Japanese labor law gives employees stronger protections than in the U.S. or U.K. The company will have to prove they had a good reason to fire her and that they followed the legal procedures.

 

[Ogargd]

Always sounds worse when you only hear one side. A suicide attempt seems a little out of place, unless that was her only means of getting by at the time. A stupid jury will soak up that suicide attempt like a sponge, she will probably win.

Sorry if someone has already replied, but in Japan they don't have Juries I'm pretty sure (unless things have changed since I was last there).

OT: Personally I think this is horrible and sadly typical in large companies.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

While it's definitely one-sided, it's hard to believe that any employee could screw up in so many departments that many times. Especially in Japan, where some of those companies have some crazy-dedicated workers.

It wouldn't really surprise me if this story was true, but at the same time, if it is, then that's horrible and I really, really hope some of these people end up being stomped by a Godzilla in their lifetime (or fall out of a building, but personally I still hold onto the belief that Godzilla will one day be a true story).

 

[chimeracreator]

Always sounds worse when you only hear one side. A suicide attempt seems a little out of place, unless that was her only means of getting by at the time. A stupid jury will soak up that suicide attempt like a sponge, she will probably win.

There are no juries for civil cases in Japan. The case will go before a judge. Also, Japanese labor law gives employees stronger protections than in the U.S. or U.K. The company will have to prove they had a good reason to fire her and that they followed the legal procedures.

That also might explain why they waited so long to fire her IF she was bad at her job as they had to build their case unlike in some states in the US where you can be fired or leave your job for any or no reason whatsoever unless your contract explicitly states otherwise.

 

[ProtoChimp]

But why they did bully her, then? Doing all that just for shits and giggles seems like a stretch to me.

I've never knowna bully who needed nor wanted a reason. It was always "they/you fucking deserve it".

 

[Therumancer]

That seems pretty insane, especially if the HR department did nothing about it. Still, presumably the HR department would have still operated within the legal areas of the law and at least noted her complaints? Should make the case fairly straight forward in court.

I find this a pretty alien concept myself, I personally would never stay at a place of work that was causing me so much distress to the point that I would think of killing myself. I understand that employment rates aren't fantastic over there but even still.

HR Departments exist to protect the company, not the employees. What's more they themselves have limited resources, and during any inquiry in a boss vs. subordinate issue the boss by definition is at an advantage when it comes to controlling information.

It should also be noted that companies are all about smooth functioning, right or wrong in an absolute sense, if one person becomes the focus of ire within an entire team, it's not practical to fire or disapline everyone else in a department for that sake of that one person as that will lower the productivity, and cause all kinds of other problems.

It's not GOOD, but that's how it is with companies accross the board, not just with Capcom, and it's a touchy issue because from a practical sense you really can't just start firing people, or forcing them to tolerate someone they don't like to the point of it having turned into harassment.

That said, I do think that there needs to be more protection for employees (as someone who was screwed badly myself, more than once), but really it's not something that can happen internally within the companies, the authorities acknowleging the problem is a start (as happened in Japan) *BUT* one also needs to have the resources committed for actual enforcement, and a legal system designed to deal with this kind of problem.

An issue for example is that in an employee vs. employer greivience that goes through legal channels it typically becomes a civil matter. That means neither side starts with the assumption of bearing the burden of proof. The company controls all the records and information, and has more resources to draw on for lawyers, so it's pretty obvious how it goes.

A solution to that would be to force employers in such cases into the criminal justice system, and have the state with it's resources pursue the case, which doesn't happen that often. The problem of course being that investigations, especially up hill ones, are very intensive in terms of money and resources, and the goverment just doesn't have the money or resources to pursue every case of a disgruntled employee who might have bene mistreated by
an employer.

It's not good, but I understand why things are the way they are.

That said, in cases where you wind up with an employee who has every hand against them, it's rare that they aren't the problem, especially if it's been the case from the very beginning. I can say this as someone who has escorted many people off property after being fired, and having heard or looked into a number of cases officially or otherwise.

I do think that during unemployment hearings, there should be some more solid repercussions for companies when it's found during review than an employee was fired without cause. Right now that seems to be the only real system that works for this, at least within the US, but it really has no teeth, it gives money from the state, but doesn't actually address the problem employers when they exist. You'd think that if they have thousands of cases every year of people being fired without cause after review, that you'd start seeing some managers and company owners facing some penelties, and even doing jail time for crimes ranging from the stereotypical harassment (sexual or otherwise), to outright fraud in lying to their employees.

Such are my thoughts.

 

[Sylveria]

As if we needed more reasons to think Capcom is scum.

 

[Fbuh]

I really do feel bad for her, assuming tha the rstory is true. However, the only thing I could really think about while reading the article was "young Japanese woman." Maybe I just need a cold shower and a lie down...

 

[Woodsey]

Reports of "pawahara"

No one else seems to have picked up on this, so I'm not sure if I was actually meant to laugh or not. (Which I did.)

 

[CardinalPiggles]

And what did she do to bring such things upon herself? Or was it just a misunderstanding that escalated? We need more information before we can execute judge people.

Also, different people have different tolerances for stress, saying 'she tried to kill herself, it must have been bad for her' just sounds stupid to me, because there are many other factors to consider, other than her attempted suicide.

 

[naab]

-snip-

-Snip-

Also in Japan, isn't your place of work taken VERY seriously?

Yeah in Japan a few years back there have been reported hara-kiri's (suicides) by employees of specific companies because they "failed" the company