The purpose of this study is to investigate how Japanese white-collar workers feel and dealwith their own careers in terms of individual career management.Recent years havewitnessed increasing discussion about how one should always be aware of career problemsand be planning and designing one's own career.Under this circumstance, how are those intheir 30's trying to develop their own careers?This paper intends to tackle this question usinga conceptual framework called Mist-Drift Matrix (MDM) developed in the Japanese context.Qualitative data were gathered through intensive interviews of eight Japanese white-collarworkers, who were around 35 years of age.Three cases, which seem to represent the typicalcoping style within the framework, are presented.Results from our analysis of these casesshow that (1) organizational influence is still an important force in in the MDM, (2) individuals show a propensity to stay in a certain domain within the MDM, and (3) there aredifferent styles of coping according to position within MDM.Practical implications are also discussed.