6 ms·

A few thoughts as a foreign worker in a Japanese startup: * Foreigners get more leeway. I have colleagues that do a strict 40 hours/week. * The overtime cultu

by guy_c 9y ago

A few thoughts as a foreign worker in a Japanese startup: * Foreigners get more leeway. I have colleagues that do a strict 40 hours/week. * The overtime culture isn't strictly enforced. It comes about organically. Your team agrees to deliver a task with a tight deadline. You can go home early, but your colleagues will unquestioningly pick up the slack. Instead of them leaving the office at 10pm, now they stay to midnight. It is easy to feel guilty about leaving at reasonable time. * There is a lot of praise and admiration for the employees that demonstrate hard work. * There seems to be an unwritten rule that you stay till your boss goes home. Teams where the boss works a reasonable schedule, also seem to work reasonable hours. If you have a workaholic boss with no personal life then you are in trouble. * For a lot of young Japanese it appears their colleagues are their only social circle. * There is a lot of after-work demands on your time. It is common to have work-related dinners and drinks.

mathattack 9y ago
I've experienced a lot of the same. Work and social life blend. And it's a loss of face to one's family to come home early every day. (Not important enough to work hard?)
- winter_blue 9y ago
  > Not important enough to work hard? That's a fascinating (but sad) cultural value. Normally (in most prosperous countries) if you cared about your family, you'd come home early to spend time with them. Your spouse and kids put far more value on the time you spend building your relationship with them, hanging out/chilling with them, over any extra material/monetary gain you could bring them. After a certain point, money doesn't bring you any happiness. If you have enough money to cover basic expenses, then your happiness is mostly going to be determined by the quality and depth of your human relationships, your social life, your community, etc. I feel that this line of thinking (excessively working for your family) is something that makes sense in poorer/developing countries like India and China, but it seems like a bad cultural artifact/holdover in relatively wealthy country Japan.
  - jcelerier 9y ago
    > After a certain point, money doesn't bring you any happiness. If you have enough money to cover basic expenses, then your happiness is mostly going to be determined by the quality and depth of your human relationships, your social life, your community, etc. In Japan I'd say your happiness is mostly determined by how your peers view you.
sdrothrock 9y ago
Also, a major lack of good planning/scheduling. Things are always flexible when someone with enough social clout decides to change a schedule -- the department head's friend had an idea? Suddenly you shoehorn it in. Boss's friend wants a demo? Suddenly you're rushing for a much closer deadline.
- threeseed 9y ago
  It's not about planning. It's about the work/life culture. For many people the long hours is all year around.
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    In my experience here, the lack of intelligent and sensible planning/scheduling is what, in many cases, causes the workload that drives the long hour problem all year round. If there's really nothing to do, broadly speaking, Japanese people are no more driven to stay at work than Americans. If there's work to do, then they feel obligated to put in the APPEARANCE of working hard, regardless of how much actual work is being done.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      Sounds like my co-workers here in the US. A minority leave exactly after their 8; the rest work a lot of free hours and blame their industry culture, office culture, etc.
threeseed 9y ago
Foreigners do get more leeway. But that is only because they think you are there just to have a bit of fun for a few years and then leave. If you ever wanted to move into roles with more responsibility then you would be expected to toe the line. Can definitely attest to everything else you've said. There is also an element of people not wanting to go home often because they have parents living with them (young and old) or their home life isn't all that appealing.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  > Can definitely attest to everything else you've said. There is also an element of people not wanting to go home often because they have parents living with them (young and old) or their home life isn't all that appealing. I always wondered why the overtime culture wouldn't slowly fade out as I imagined that top employees would certainly demand to work fair hours resulting in employers having to adjust in order to hire quality staff. The aspect you mentioned could explain why nobody, including employees who could afford to do so, is really pushing for sane work hours. On the other hand it's hard to understand that employers and employees alike aren't able to see that the current working conditions are neither healthy nor very productive - there's no way you're anywhere close to your full potential at the end of a 10 or 12 hour shift.
avar 9y ago
I had a chat with a westerner who was a middle-management boss for an international company in Tokyo overseeing Japanese workers. After he caught on to the fact that the reason his entire team was still there was because he was, he had a talk with them explaining that just because he had to finish something it was fine if they left early. He ultimately found that no amount of talking about it would work. He said that if he needed to stay late to finish something he'd pack up and go to a local café for half an hour, then come back after that to work late on whatever he needed to finish.

by guy_c 9y ago

mathattack 9y ago

I've experienced a lot of the same. Work and social life blend. And it's a loss of face to one's family to come home early every day. (Not important enough to work hard?)

winter_blue 9y ago
> Not important enough to work hard? That's a fascinating (but sad) cultural value. Normally (in most prosperous countries) if you cared about your family, you'd come home early to spend time with them. Your spouse and kids put far more value on the time you spend building your relationship with them, hanging out/chilling with them, over any extra material/monetary gain you could bring them. After a certain point, money doesn't bring you any happiness. If you have enough money to cover basic expenses, then your happiness is mostly going to be determined by the quality and depth of your human relationships, your social life, your community, etc. I feel that this line of thinking (excessively working for your family) is something that makes sense in poorer/developing countries like India and China, but it seems like a bad cultural artifact/holdover in relatively wealthy country Japan.
- jcelerier 9y ago
  > After a certain point, money doesn't bring you any happiness. If you have enough money to cover basic expenses, then your happiness is mostly going to be determined by the quality and depth of your human relationships, your social life, your community, etc. In Japan I'd say your happiness is mostly determined by how your peers view you.

sdrothrock 9y ago

Also, a major lack of good planning/scheduling. Things are always flexible when someone with enough social clout decides to change a schedule -- the department head's friend had an idea? Suddenly you shoehorn it in. Boss's friend wants a demo? Suddenly you're rushing for a much closer deadline.

threeseed 9y ago
It's not about planning. It's about the work/life culture. For many people the long hours is all year around.
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  In my experience here, the lack of intelligent and sensible planning/scheduling is what, in many cases, causes the workload that drives the long hour problem all year round. If there's really nothing to do, broadly speaking, Japanese people are no more driven to stay at work than Americans. If there's work to do, then they feel obligated to put in the APPEARANCE of working hard, regardless of how much actual work is being done.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    Sounds like my co-workers here in the US. A minority leave exactly after their 8; the rest work a lot of free hours and blame their industry culture, office culture, etc.

threeseed 9y ago

Foreigners do get more leeway. But that is only because they think you are there just to have a bit of fun for a few years and then leave. If you ever wanted to move into roles with more responsibility then you would be expected to toe the line. Can definitely attest to everything else you've said. There is also an element of people not wanting to go home often because they have parents living with them (young and old) or their home life isn't all that appealing.

thirdsun 9y ago
> Can definitely attest to everything else you've said. There is also an element of people not wanting to go home often because they have parents living with them (young and old) or their home life isn't all that appealing. I always wondered why the overtime culture wouldn't slowly fade out as I imagined that top employees would certainly demand to work fair hours resulting in employers having to adjust in order to hire quality staff. The aspect you mentioned could explain why nobody, including employees who could afford to do so, is really pushing for sane work hours. On the other hand it's hard to understand that employers and employees alike aren't able to see that the current working conditions are neither healthy nor very productive - there's no way you're anywhere close to your full potential at the end of a 10 or 12 hour shift.

avar 9y ago

I had a chat with a westerner who was a middle-management boss for an international company in Tokyo overseeing Japanese workers. After he caught on to the fact that the reason his entire team was still there was because he was, he had a talk with them explaining that just because he had to finish something it was fine if they left early. He ultimately found that no amount of talking about it would work. He said that if he needed to stay late to finish something he'd pack up and go to a local café for half an hour, then come back after that to work late on whatever he needed to finish.