the Japanese man who will get paid to do nothing By Reuters

By Tom Bateman and Rikako Maruyama

TOKYO (Reuters) – Shoji Morimoto has what some would see as a dream job: he will get paid to do just about nothing.

The 38-year-old Tokyo resident expenses 10,000 yen ($71) per reserving to accompany purchasers and easily exist as a companion.

“Mainly, I lease myself out. My job is to be wherever my purchasers need me to be and to do nothing specifically,” Morimoto informed Reuters, including that he had dealt with some 4,000 periods previously 4 years.

With a lanky construct and common seems to be, Morimoto now boasts almost 1 / 4 of one million followers on Twitter (NYSE:), the place he finds most of his purchasers. Roughly 1 / 4 of them are repeat clients, together with one who has employed him 270 occasions.

His job has taken him to a park with an individual who needed to play on a see-saw. He has additionally beamed and waved by way of a prepare window at an entire stranger who needed a send-off.

Doing nothing doesn’t suggest Morimoto will do something. He has turned down presents to maneuver a fridge and go to Cambodia, and does not take any requests of a sexual nature.

Final week, Morimoto sat reverse Aruna Chida, a 27-year-old knowledge analyst clad in a sari, having a sparse dialog over tea and truffles.

Chida needed to put on the Indian garment out in public however was apprehensive it would embarrass her pals. So she turned to Morimoto for companionship.

“With my pals I really feel I’ve to entertain them, however with the rental-guy (Morimoto) I do not really feel the have to be chatty,” she mentioned.

Earlier than Morimoto discovered his true calling, he labored at a publishing firm and was typically chided for “doing nothing”.

“I began questioning what would occur if I supplied my capacity to ‘do nothing’ as a service to purchasers,” he mentioned.

The companionship enterprise is now Morimoto’s sole supply of revenue, with which he helps his spouse and youngster. Though he declined to reveal how a lot he makes, he mentioned he sees about one or two purchasers a day. Earlier than the pandemic, it was three or 4 a day.

As he spent a Wednesday doing nothing of be aware in Tokyo, Morimoto mirrored on the weird nature of his job and appeared to query a society that values productiveness and derides uselessness.

“Folks are likely to suppose that my ‘doing nothing’ is efficacious as a result of it’s helpful (for others) … Nevertheless it’s positive to essentially not do something. Folks should not have to be helpful in any particular manner,” he mentioned.

($1 = 140.25 yen)

(The story corrects Morimoto’s fee to 10,000 yen per reserving, not per hour)