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Well, I had an interesting experience as one of few westerners in a western branch of aJapanese company that had 200+ of Japanese staff. We westerners left ever
by Roark66 4y ago
Well, I had an interesting experience as one of few westerners in a western branch of aJapanese company that had 200+ of Japanese staff. We westerners left every single day at 5pm (unless there were real technical emergencies). All of the Japanese had to stay to approximately 8pm. Sometimes longer.
Despite the fact this is actually illegal in the "host country" they still did it with no overtime paid(or claimed)
. I had many Japanese friends in this company over the years and I knew they would much prefer to be off at 5pm as we were, but every time we talked about it it turned out they are 100% powerless to change it. The company not only provides a prestigious job (which was extremely important), but also provided housing in the host country, a visa, good schools for the kids etc. Additionally, every time we discussed it I got an impression they really have it easy here in comparison to how much they would have to work back in Japan. So all those people really didn't want to be sent back.
On the rare occasion when I had to work on a weekend and overnight, HR contacted me asking me to fill the overtime form :-o
I write this not as a complaint. I considered it one of my best jobs and if not that I wanted to be in a different role I would still be there, but even now years later I still remember having this weird feeling of there being a very real discrimination against other people on the basis of culture and not being able to do anything about it.
- LtWorf 4y agoDid anyone just try to leave at 5 and see what happened?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoAt my company (Japanese), the average ‘salaryman” workday was 8-6, or so, with 6-8 hours on Saturdays. The time was paid, though. It wasn’t “time and a half,” like in the US, but people were paid for the time. Managers weren’t paid for extra hours, but engineers were.
- ccbccccbbcccbb 4y agoModern self-slavery at its best.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- iconhacker 4y agoThe 90s success of Japan’s economy and technology was pretty much put to stop by the manipulations of US government. It is quite disgusting in terms of free trade and open economy.
- Our_Benefactors 4y agoCare to elaborate? Would like to understand this more.
- g8oz 4y agoI believe op is referring to the Plaza Accord. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/plaza-accord.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/plaza-accord.asp
- fomine3 4y agoThere were also trade war about car, TV, and semiconductor after plaza accord
- brigandish 4y agoThat link doesn't really give the full details. The Plaza Accord was agreed between 5 major economies (US, Germany, Japan, UK, France) to depreciate the dollar against those other currencies. If we take this statement in the link: > the intention of the Plaza Accord was to correct trade imbalances between the U.S. and Germany and the U.S. and Japan Then: a) Why were Britain and France interested and why are they completely omitted from the article? b) Why didn't Germany end up in the mire like Japan? It seems to me that Japan's officials agreed to something that either didn't suit its economy or the management of its economy was subsequently mishandled (not hard to believe given the ~25 years of finance scandals that are linked to the heart of government[1] - it's not hard to imagine things weren't any better in the preceding 15). As such, I'd also be very interested to know what OP was referring to because I'd find it hard to believe if it was the Plaza Accord. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/17/business/international-business-scandal-erodes-power-japan-s-bastion-fiscal-austerity.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/17/business/international-bu...