Ben Madilynn
TOKYO — A system engineering firm here has 11 unusual employees: cats, whose “work” consists of being cute, taking naps by the window and helping (or, interrupting) their human co-workers, among other feline things as they meow through the busy workdays.
The 11 “cat employees” at Qnote Inc. in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward belong to its sales department, where they are in charge of soothing their human colleagues as well as public relations on social media. They are even given titles, such as department head and division chief. The company’s feline employment started in 2004, the year after it was founded, when it took in Futaba, a female cat who had been in foster care at a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood.
Benefits of employing cats include promoting active communication among human employees through taking care of their feline co-workers, and helping close the emotional distance among human employees. Having cats in the office also apparently helps improve the company’s image. Non-cat employee Yuki Igarashi, 26, told the Mainichi Shimbun with a smile, “We’re mostly glued to the chair in front of the computer, so having the cats interrupt us is just the right amount of change of pace.”
When the business purchased the four-story building for its office space four years ago, it was renovated with cat walkways and other features to create a better working environment for the feline workers. CEO Nobuyuki Tsuruta, 55, said, “Work shouldn’t be about enduring and being overly formal; it’s better to do it in a freer environment with flexible thinking.”
(Japanese original by Naoaki Hasegawa, Photo Group)
