The Japanese Man Who Receives Payment for Doing Nothing
Shoji Morimoto, a resident of Tokyo, offers his services as a companion for hire. The 38-year-Twitter old’s bio reads, “I will lend you a person (me) who does nothing.” I am limited to eating, drinking, and responding to straightforward questions.
Morimoto always accepts bookings, at least according to his nearly a million followers on Twitter. Morimoto, also known as Rental-Do-Nothing-Man in Japan, charges a booking fee of 10,000 yen (about $70), plus travel and meal costs.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Morimoto claimed to have finished about 4,000 assignments in the previous four years, which, at his rate, comes to about $280,000.He told the news agency, “My job is to be wherever my clients want me to be and to do nothing particular.
Morimoto worked at a publishing company before he became Rental-Do-Nothing-Man, where he frequently received criticism for “doing nothing.”
He told Reuters: “I began to wonder what would happen if I offered my capacity to ‘do nothing as a service to clients. “People often assume that my inaction is worthwhile because it benefits [others].However, it’s acceptable to actually do nothing. Nobody has to be useful in a particular way.
He said around one in four of his clients were repeated customers, including one who had hired him 270 times. Currently, Morimoto has one or two clients a day—but before the pandemic, he would have three or four bookings a day.
While some clients just want Morimoto to provide companionship, he has also had requests to play on a seesaw with a customer, while another complete stranger asked him to wave from the platform as the stranger’s train departed.
However, Morimoto does have some boundaries.
He said no to a would-be client who wanted him to move a fridge and another who asked him to go to Cambodia, and he does not take sexual requests.
Last week, Morimoto and Aruna Chida, a 27-year-old data analyst dressed in a sari, sat across from one another and had a brief conversation over tea and pastries.
Chida was hesitant to wear the Indian outfit in public because she was afraid her friends would be embarrassed. So she turned to Morimoto for companionship.
Shoji Morimoto meets his client Aruna Chida at a cafe in Tokyo, Japan on August 31, 2022. He charges 10,000 yen ($71.30) per booking to accompany clients and merely serves as a companion.
She said, “With my friends, I feel like I have to keep them entertained, but with the rental guy (Morimoto), I don’t feel like I have to be chatty.”
Morimoto is not the only person in Japan performing such an odd job and making money. People in Japan perform a wide variety of odd jobs on a daily basis while making money.
Here are some of these:
- Dog food tester: In Japan, people make sure their dogs eat nutritious food. As a result, some professionals inspect the food before feeding it to their dogs.
- Wedding ceremony attendees: Japanese people have a solution if you want a large wedding but don’t have any friends. If someone doesn’t have enough friends or family to attend the wedding, there are professionals who do.
- Professional pusher: Getting into a train is a struggle on weekdays because they are too crowded. Therefore, to ensure that everyone reaches work on time, Japanese people have a professional pusher who pushes people into the train so that they don’t miss it irrespective of how crowded it is.
- A boyfriend: This has become more common these days. As finding a boyfriend seems like a daunting task, Japanese people can kill loneliness with the help of a professional boyfriend.
- A cuddler: If just a boyfriend is not enough, people in Japan can hire a cuddler too. So if you have money and if you are in Japan, getting a cuddle is not that hard.
- Professional apologizer: Some people are not good at saying that they are sorry. But this is not an issue for people in Japan. They can simply choose a paid service through which someone else can apologize on your behalf in the best way possible.