Dream job: the Japanese man who gets paid to do nothing

[Bob Jones V]

OKYO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Shoji Morimoto has what some would see as a dream job: he gets paid to do pretty much nothing.

The 38-year-old Tokyo resident charges 10,000 yen ($71) per booking to accompany clients and simply exist as a companion.

"Basically, I rent myself out. My job is to be wherever my clients want me to be and to do nothing in particular," Morimoto told Reuters, adding that he had handled some 4,000 sessions in the past four years.

With a lanky build and average looks, Morimoto now boasts nearly a quarter of a million followers on Twitter, where he finds most of his clients. Roughly a quarter of them are repeat customers, including one who has hired him 270 times.
His job has taken him to a park with a person who wanted to play on a see-saw. He has also beamed and waved through a train window at a complete stranger who wanted a send-off.
Doing nothing doesn't mean Morimoto will do anything. He has turned down offers to move a fridge and go to Cambodia, and doesn't take any requests of a sexual nature.

Dream job: the Japanese man who gets paid to do nothing

Shoji Morimoto has what some would see as a dream job: he gets paid to do pretty much nothing.

www.reuters.com

 

[Ransom]

There's a term in Japanese, "Tomason," that refers to architectural relics that serve no purpose--staircases that go nowhere, eaves without doors or windows to protect from rain, gates without fences, and so forth--but are nonetheless maintained as part of the building or structure:

It's named after Gary Thomasson, a player who joined a Japanese baseball team in the 1980s for the largest contract ever signed in the Nippon League, but was such a poor player that he sat on the bench for most of two seasons, while still being paid.

Mr. Morimoto is a living Tomason.