4 ms·

what do you mean by "socially productive work?" is that opposed to, say, "company productive work," or along some other axis?

patio11 17y ago
How to explain this... when you're in your twenties, you're expected to do a lot of work to prove your dedication to the company, but it isn't really expected that that work will be productive work. For example, I am 27. We have other 27 year old engineers who cannot, in fact, program Java above the level of a CS101 student. They majored in e.g. library sciences, not engineering. This is not considered bad because they're Japanese salarymen and as such will be at this company for the forty years. If it takes us most of a decade to get them up to speed on the whole Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps thing, well, that's just an investment in their future worth to the company. We'll have employees senior to them review everything they do and rip out much of it. In the engineering track, we'd assume that by 30 ~ 35 you've demonstrated whether you're going to be a net-productive software engineer or whether you should be moved into e.g. requirements analysis or producing documentation. If you're net-productive, you will start making stuff which directly affects the shipping products without getting exhaustively rewritten -- hence, socially productive. But nobody calls a 27 year old flailing away at his first for-loop non-productive. Of course he is being productive: he is training up an asset that the company will be able to tap in a decade. (And if he doesn't have a for-loop to flail away on he better find something to flail away on because insufficient utilization of him would reflect poorly on his team.) I have a quirky relationship to these norms because I'm a foreigner, so if e.g. I can be reliably tasked with building a system and getting it to production without needing line-by-line guidance by my superiors, well, everyone knows foreigners are quirky.
- heresy 17y ago
  That's insane. How much are you exaggerating for effect? I have a hard time believing software engineers in the mid-20s can be so unproductive, or that any culture could be so accepting of such a thing. It doesn't mesh with my foreigners take on Japan, but then I have never lived or worked there.
  - patio11 17y ago
    Are you familiar with the significance of the word "FizzBuzz" as it relates to programming skill levels? Tolerating non-productive programmers for long stretches of time is not a trait unique to Japanese corporations. We expect ours to eventually grow out of it, though.
    - hga 17y ago
      This sounds like institutionalizing on company/sector wide scales non-productive programmers for something like a decade, instead of some programming teams being dysfunctional. Japan is very short on young people; how easily can it afford to waste a decade of their career? Especially when other countries don't do this? It's also got to be ... suboptimal for the spirit to work for a decade knowing that you're not accomplishing anything that affects the real world, at least compared to other countries where young people accomplish real things and get positive self-reinforcing feedback starting at the beginning of their career. (Even if your company doesn't succeed, you've still produced something, or at least tried to and hopefully learned some lessons along the way.)
      - mechanical_fish 17y ago
        Japan is very short on young people; how easily can it afford to waste a decade of their career? Productivity growth. Which literally means "every year, fewer people are able to produce more stuff". There's also the problem of the global economic slump. Which literally means "we have lots of things that could be done, like fixing hundred-year-old pipes and buildings. And we have lots of extra workers who could be doing things. But they are compelled to sit around twiddling their thumbs in their Japanese corporate cubicles, or their American parents' basements, or whatever, watching stuff crumble, because the economic equilibrium is stuck in low gear".
  - jbm 17y ago
    It isn't exaggerated, at least not for traditionally managed companies. Here's something that would shock you. Talk to a Japanese businessman who likes you and does business in Japan. Ask him what he thinks about Japan. 100% of answers (no exaggeration) have been some version of "Japan is finished.". It's hard for anyone to imagine how utterly and completely negative the Japanese self-image is, at least among the business men I've talked to.
- gommm 17y ago
  This made me laugh, I didn't completely experience it first hand because I was working in a small 12 people company (and my boss was 31, so rather atypical for japan). But, from what I heard from my friends working in big multinational companies, it's exactly like this. Of course, though as foreigners they could get away with a lot because of their inherent quirkiness (I'm definitely sure it's much nicer to be a young foreigner working at a japanese company than a young japanese employee... ) What also surprised me is the low level of computer science education given by japanese universities (compared to the level in electronics for example...)

patio11 17y ago

How to explain this... when you're in your twenties, you're expected to do a lot of work to prove your dedication to the company, but it isn't really expected that that work will be productive work. For example, I am 27. We have other 27 year old engineers who cannot, in fact, program Java above the level of a CS101 student. They majored in e.g. library sciences, not engineering. This is not considered bad because they're Japanese salarymen and as such will be at this company for the forty years. If it takes us most of a decade to get them up to speed on the whole Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps thing, well, that's just an investment in their future worth to the company. We'll have employees senior to them review everything they do and rip out much of it. In the engineering track, we'd assume that by 30 ~ 35 you've demonstrated whether you're going to be a net-productive software engineer or whether you should be moved into e.g. requirements analysis or producing documentation. If you're net-productive, you will start making stuff which directly affects the shipping products without getting exhaustively rewritten -- hence, socially productive. But nobody calls a 27 year old flailing away at his first for-loop non-productive. Of course he is being productive: he is training up an asset that the company will be able to tap in a decade. (And if he doesn't have a for-loop to flail away on he better find something to flail away on because insufficient utilization of him would reflect poorly on his team.) I have a quirky relationship to these norms because I'm a foreigner, so if e.g. I can be reliably tasked with building a system and getting it to production without needing line-by-line guidance by my superiors, well, everyone knows foreigners are quirky.

heresy 17y ago
That's insane. How much are you exaggerating for effect? I have a hard time believing software engineers in the mid-20s can be so unproductive, or that any culture could be so accepting of such a thing. It doesn't mesh with my foreigners take on Japan, but then I have never lived or worked there.
- patio11 17y ago
  Are you familiar with the significance of the word "FizzBuzz" as it relates to programming skill levels? Tolerating non-productive programmers for long stretches of time is not a trait unique to Japanese corporations. We expect ours to eventually grow out of it, though.
  - hga 17y ago
    This sounds like institutionalizing on company/sector wide scales non-productive programmers for something like a decade, instead of some programming teams being dysfunctional. Japan is very short on young people; how easily can it afford to waste a decade of their career? Especially when other countries don't do this? It's also got to be ... suboptimal for the spirit to work for a decade knowing that you're not accomplishing anything that affects the real world, at least compared to other countries where young people accomplish real things and get positive self-reinforcing feedback starting at the beginning of their career. (Even if your company doesn't succeed, you've still produced something, or at least tried to and hopefully learned some lessons along the way.)
    - mechanical_fish 17y ago
      Japan is very short on young people; how easily can it afford to waste a decade of their career? Productivity growth. Which literally means "every year, fewer people are able to produce more stuff". There's also the problem of the global economic slump. Which literally means "we have lots of things that could be done, like fixing hundred-year-old pipes and buildings. And we have lots of extra workers who could be doing things. But they are compelled to sit around twiddling their thumbs in their Japanese corporate cubicles, or their American parents' basements, or whatever, watching stuff crumble, because the economic equilibrium is stuck in low gear".
- jbm 17y ago
  It isn't exaggerated, at least not for traditionally managed companies. Here's something that would shock you. Talk to a Japanese businessman who likes you and does business in Japan. Ask him what he thinks about Japan. 100% of answers (no exaggeration) have been some version of "Japan is finished.". It's hard for anyone to imagine how utterly and completely negative the Japanese self-image is, at least among the business men I've talked to.
gommm 17y ago
This made me laugh, I didn't completely experience it first hand because I was working in a small 12 people company (and my boss was 31, so rather atypical for japan). But, from what I heard from my friends working in big multinational companies, it's exactly like this. Of course, though as foreigners they could get away with a lot because of their inherent quirkiness (I'm definitely sure it's much nicer to be a young foreigner working at a japanese company than a young japanese employee... ) What also surprised me is the low level of computer science education given by japanese universities (compared to the level in electronics for example...)