Japanese Man Gets Paid S$99/Hour To Accompany Clients & Do Nothing Else

Japanese Man Gets Paid For Accompanying Clients & Doing Nothing

For most of the Singaporean workforce, we are midway through another tough week slogging it out in the rat race.

While some revel in the hustle and bustle, others would rather do absolutely nothing.

A Japanese man seemed to have found a way to do exactly that while earning a decent living, charging up to S$99 an hour just to accompany his clients.

Although many reports describe his job as someone who does “nothing”, what he offers seems to be more of an escort service, where clients would pay him to accompany them in different social scenarios with no strings attached.

Japanese man charges clients S$99/hour just for his company

According to Reuters, Shoji Morimoto gets paid to do absolutely nothing.

That description may be a bit of a stretch as he’s essentially providing his time and companionship for 10,000 yen (S$99) an hour.

This ‘companionship’ can come in many forms — playing the see-saw with a person at a park, waving someone off at the train station if they want a send-off and accompanying someone who wants to wear a sari out in public.

Here’s Mr Morimoto just existing at a museum in Tokyo, while his client enjoys the sights and sounds.

The 38-year-old Tokyo resident mainly gets his jobs from Twitter, where he has amassed over a quarter of a million followers.

He even has a repeat customer, someone who has hired him over 270 times, notes Reuters.

Before the pandemic, Mr Morimoto would accompany at least three to four clients a day. These days, he would tend to one or two a day.

While he has no trouble getting new gigs, he still picks and chooses his clients wisely.

Mr Morimoto has once turned down offers to move a fridge, move to Cambodia, as well as any requests that are sexual in nature.

When asked to describe his job, Mr Morimoto says that he “basically rents himself out” to clients who want him to be wherever he wants to be, to “do nothing in particular”.

He has gone on 4,000 sessions in the past four years alone.

Clients hire Japanese man for a variety of reasons

An 8-minute-long featurette with BBC Reel gives more insight into the peculiar occupation and gets the clients’ perspectives.

One of them, who recently opened a new cafe, had allegedly been experiencing slow business.

They decided to hire Mr Morimoto to eat at the store just to lift their spirits.

Another client hired him to accompany her to a cake store in Tokyo as she was unfamiliar with the city, being from out of town.

A client also hired Mr Morimoto to accompany her to Enoshima Island for her birthday.

As she has a skin condition affected by the sun, she didn’t want to concern her friends by asking them out.

While it may seem like a roundabout way of avoiding the issue at hand, this way of handling matters is apparently common in Japan, claims the BBC.

Not as easy as it may seem

Mr Morimoto’s life must sound like a dream for some; earning a living while doing nothing.

However, another side of the job is having to listen to his clients’ problems and undertaking their emotional baggage, should they have such conversations.

While he seems to have found a way to navigate that matter, we’re sure the occupation occasionally poses some challenges too.

Nevertheless, kudos to Mr Morimoto for making a living out of a unique job while offering people much-needed companionship.

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Featured image adapted from @morimotoshoji on Twitter and Twitter.