Dream Job Recruitment: Wages Vanish Upon Waking

A startup announces a 'Dream Job' side gig where simply getting into bed generates hourly wages, but upon waking, the transfer history disappears and the terms of service turn out to be an illusion.

2025-07-19

Translations: JA

Money Maze

Dream Job Recruitment: Wages Vanish Upon Waking

Startup company “Naplace Inc.” announced on the 9th a side job service called “Dream Gig” that claims to provide compensation just for sleeping. While the official website boasts “Your futon becomes an ATM,” 137 first-day users testified that upon waking, their bank app deposit notifications had vanished without a trace.

The company’s system pretends to be simple. When you launch the dedicated app and start sleeping, your bedside smartphone detects snoring and adds points calculated at 2,000 yen per hour. These are then automatically transferred to your account—such is the dream-like specification. However, at dawn, the login history itself resets, and the terms of service display “This page has been eaten by sheep.”

“I should have earned 16,000 yen overnight,” laments office worker Shiho Horai (27). All that remains as evidence are crow’s feet and a mysterious final notification from the app saying “Goodnight capitalism.” The inquiry desk is an AI chat, but all it returns is “Was it a good dream?” - excelling only in escapism.

Even lawyers are drowsy. Komakura, a lawyer and nap director at the Kasumigaseki Drowsiness Prevention Study Group, points out that “Terms of service appearing in dreams are beyond the scope of civil law.” He notes that “It’s natural not to remember reading the terms—they never existed in reality,” creating an unprecedented legal issue of “mental capacity during sleep” for damage claims.

Meanwhile, investors remain unawakened. In the initial funding round, a market cap of 8 billion yen was attached to non-existent cash flow. When asked about the valuation basis, they proudly state “Dreams are immeasurable, hence infinite,” but this is closer to pillow height than accounting standards.

The administration has also begun beating the futons. The Consumer Affairs Agency hints at investigation, saying “The night market is too dark.” The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is positive about “improving national productivity through sleep promotion,” while the Ministry of Finance furrows its brow, saying “We’d be troubled if taxes also disappeared.” An official dozing beside the government building mumbled in his sleep, “In the end, we just want to collect taxes without working too.”

The company’s proposed countermeasure is the breakthrough plan to “cash out before waking up.” This requires users to run to ATMs in their dreams, with sleep quality expected to significantly deteriorate. The “earn while you sleep society” ironically drives the nation back to sleep deprivation.

Stakeholder Comments

Naplace President Ryosuke Hayamakura: “The deposit didn’t disappear, you just woke up”
Ministry of Finance Futon Division: “The moment we considered a sleep tax, both the amount and the division vanished like a dream”
Behavioral economist Yumehiko Shirakawa: “Monetizing the collective illusion of ‘wanting to earn without working’ is revolutionary”
Pillow (personified): “Such heavy responsibility cannot be borne by down feathers”
Phone charger: “I worked all night for zero wages too”
Terms of Service PDF: “Since I never existed, I bear no legal responsibility”
Sheep counter app: “What can be counted are sheep, what can’t be counted is compensation”
Investor AI bot: “Revenue forecast? Analyzing regression based on REM sleep duration”
Consumer Affairs Agency dog (office pet): “Woof woof! (Translation: The footprints are gone!)”
Dawn bird: “Chirp… (Translation: Get to work already)”