I wonder if her friend was Korean. I used to live in Korea and the currency difference is about 10:1 with Japan. I spent a weekend in Japan and made the same mistake once. I saw a 10,000¥ wallet, mistakenly did the Korean mental math (1000₩≈$1) and thought it was $10 instead of $100. Luckily the cashier corrected me before I bought it.
You’re right, I hadn’t read that yet at the time I posted this.
Retraction: It appears that minors are not allowed to be working in meat processing plants, but that he was hired by an external staffing contractor who did not properly adhere to those restrictions.