＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Recently, there was an issue where the owner of a Seven-Eleven convenience store requested to operate for 19 hours by closing between 1:00 AM and 6:00 AM due to a labor shortage, but the request was rejected by headquarters, and the store was asked to pay a penalty and have its contract terminated.
＜The troubles of “owners” in conflict with “Seven-Eleven’s franchise headquarters”＞
＜セブンイレブンのコンビニ店オーナーが、「人手不足」などの理由で午前1時から午前6時まで閉店する「19時間営業」を申し出たが本部から拒否され、「違約金」と「契約解除」を申し渡されるという問題＞
１．Stores that are “open 24 hours a day.”
It goes without saying that internet markets like Rakuten and Amazon are open 24 hours a day, but there are also many physical stores that are open 24 hours a day.
（1）Convenience store
Currently, all convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, as a rule.
（2）Supermarket
The Koyo in front of Hankyu Takatsukishi Station is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
（3）Fast food restaurants
Approximately half of McDonald’s restaurants are open 24 hours a day.
Yoshinoya also has roughly half of its stores open 24 hours a day.
（4）Family Restaurant
（5）Internet cafe
（6）Karaoke club (bar)
（7）Izakaya chain
（8）Bookstore
（9）Pharmacy
２．Problems with “24-hour operation”
Approximately 80% of crimes, such as convenience store robberies, occur late at night.
In addition to security concerns, store owners face the dilemma of having to pay personnel costs such as night-time shift allowances and utility bills, while not being able to make enough sales to cover them.
３．Movement to reconsider “24-hour operation”
In the fall of 2017, FamilyMart announced that it was beginning an experiment to stop late-night operations, or in other words, to reconsider its 24-hour operations.
The reason for this seems to be that “there are fewer people working at convenience stores late at night,” and “because there are fewer late-night workers, there are fewer late-night customers.” Another factor may be that “there are fewer people going out at night like there were during the bubble period.”
In the United States and China, “unmanned convenience stores” like Amazon GO are reaching the stage of being put into practical use, albeit still experimentally.
The McDonald’s in Takatsuki Center Street used to be open 24 hours a day, but now it is open from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. McDonald’s has apparently discontinued 24-hour operations at over 40% of its stores in the past two and a half years.
The family restaurant chain Royal Host will discontinue its 24-hour operations from January 2017 and has also begun considering introducing regular closing days.
In 2014, it was revealed that Sukiya, a beef bowl chain run by Zensho Holdings, had become a “one-person operation” practice, with only one employee on duty during late-night hours. This led to harsh working conditions where employees had to work without even a break. In the worst cases, this could lead to death from overwork.
This situation is also spurring the movement to reconsider 24-hour operations.