12/05/2026
The other day I was scrolling and stumbled onto a video that went viral on the internet.
A Japanese guy walks into a konbini, grabs his stuff, walks straight to the counter, slaps it down and looks at the foreign staff: "温めて‼" (Heat it up!) No ください (please). No smile. Just a flat-out command like he's ordering a robot.
The foreign staff? He snapped. Slammed his hand on the counter and told the customer straight up: say it politely, or I'm not heating anything.
I just want to share my thoughts on this.
Here's the thing. In Japan, customer service culture runs DEEP. Japanese staff are trained to absorb rudeness like a sponge, smile through it, and move on. The customer is God is basically baked into the system. So a Japanese konbini worker would probably just swallow it, heat the food, and silently die a little inside. Most interviews with Japanese workers confirm this. They don't explode. They endure.
But this foreign staff didn't grow up in that system. He didn't sign up to be treated like THAT. And here's the question: did that customer talk to him that way BECAUSE he was foreign? Would he have used the same tone with a Japanese staff member? Because if the answer is no, that's not just rudeness. That's something uglier.
The foreign staff might have felt it too. That gut feeling of "he's doing this to me because he thinks he can." That's not just frustration. That's humiliation. And a person has a right to protect their dignity, no matter what country they're working in.
BUT. And this is important. If you're a foreigner working in Japan, losing your cool at a customer, especially physically slamming things, puts you in a very vulnerable position. Legally, professionally, socially. Even if you're 100% right, the optics rarely work in your favor.
You deserve respect. Just make sure the way you demand it doesn't become the story instead of the rudeness itself. What do you think? Was the staff right to push back? 👇
