A busy working day full of meetings, emails, deadlines and urgent requests? Shoji Morimoto’s job looks very different. He is a professional ‘nothing-doer’. The 38-year-old Tokyo resident is hired by people as a companion for all kinds of activities, for example to go to the park or to drink tea together.
For his services Morimoto asks 10,000 yen (70.91 euros) per session. In the past four years he has had about 4000 sessions. ,,I rent myself out. My job is to be everywhere customers want me and to do nothing in particular,” Morimoto told Reuters news agency. That does not mean that Morimoto does everything that customers ask of him. He does not grant sexual favors. He declined a request to move a refrigerator, and he also refused when a customer asked if he would come to Cambodia.
About a quarter of his clientele knocks on his door more than once, Morimoto says. One customer has already hired him 270 times. Among other things, Morimoto was once called in to spend a day playing with the seesaw in the park. Another customer wanted to be greeted enthusiastically at the station when his train left.
People don’t have to be useful in any particular way.
‘Do nothing’ as a service
Data analyst Aruna Chida, 27, recently hired Morimoto to drink tea and eat cakes with her. She wanted to wear a sari in public but was afraid that her friends would feel uncomfortable if she wore the Indian garment in front of them. “When I’m with my friends I feel like I have to entertain them, but with Morimoto I don’t have to talk all the time.”
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Before he found his calling, Morimoto worked at a publishing house, where he was often turned upside down because he was ‘not doing anything’. That gave him ideas. “I started to wonder what would happen if I offered my ‘do nothing’ skills as a service.” With his work as a ‘nothing-doer’ he now earns a full income with which he can provide for his family. – he has a wife and child – can take care.
He would rather not say exactly how much he earns from his work as a ‘nothing-doer’, but he does have about one to two customers a day. Before the corona crisis, there were three to four. “People think my ‘doing nothing’ is valuable because it benefits others. But it’s okay to just not really do anything. People don’t have to be useful in a certain way.”
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