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Harsh Working Environment in Japan

Japan is well known for harsh working environment. I guarantee that it is true because I am Japanese and I worked in harsh working environment in decades ago. Worked all night for three days. I was depressed. It was natural. In Japan, a lot of people suffer because of job, harassment and suicide. I think we change this ridiculous environment. Probably, in the world, a lot of people face similar situation. Teach me your work environment.

rawgabbit 1y ago
Regarding my work experience. I have worked in the US for many years for large companies and small. I have never worked for a Japanese company. Some US companies pay lip service to the idea the company is one big family. I was never under illusion that management viewed me and other workers as nothing more than cogs in the machine. Early in my career I must have had a “kick me” sign strapped to me. I put up with a lot of nonsense. Working nights and weekends. As I worked in tech, I refused to stay late in the office but I was working remotely from home the whole time. I still remember my infant son wanting to sit in my lap while I was troubleshooting a Sev1 outage. I was also pressured to do unethical if not illegal things. One time I said no and my boss’ boss and his boss literally screamed at me for a week. Anyways. That is water under the bridge. Today I work from home. My boss also works from home in a different part of the country. We meet in person maybe three times a year. I refuse to manage anyone; being a manager IMO is trying to glue the executives unhinged view to reality. It is impossible. Today, I created a role for myself where I am like an internal solutions architect. I create working proofs of concepts with sanitized real data. After I show how it is done, I turn it over to the developers to implement and maintain. I still have to deal with politics and unhinged personalities. As I have some credibility, I get to back out of projects when I had my fill of political operatives. They then complain I am no longer on the project.
MayDay1997 1y ago
What about China? Our software developers often have to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. I think people working in East Asia share the same feeling.
nicbou 1y ago
I live in Germany. It's very relaxed. I help immigrants move here and I have to encourage them to take sick leave and ignore their emails outside of office hours.
cm2012 1y ago
Just to give the opposite experience from a different place: as a marketing professional in New York City, I've worked in small businesses, start ups, big businesses, as a freelancer, and owning my own ad agency. Ive basically never worked more than 40 hours in a week, or worked a weekend (beyond rarely answering an email). It hasn't impacted my ability to succeed, and I've earned a high income for a long time. I also get really good results for clients. So it can be much better elsewhere. Also, if you have to use English for work, you can use ChatGPT to help you translate to English. One of my employees in the Phillipines has become a lot more effective since she started using chatgpt to help her communications.
theGeatZhopa 1y ago
How do you want to change thinking towards those problems of a whole nation? It's not like "it's the company doing it" - it's japanese people doing this to their own people. So this would be were to start. .. uprising workers are needed here. New thinking towards well-being of employees must be adapted. Without a social overthrow, I think, it's impossible to change such system. Or, you found an company yourself and do it differently, addressing the very each problems and market yourself, so that everyone is fighting to be with your company and you as the boss. So you see, it's near to impossible. One can't wish for uprising, as it won't be happening. One can't wish for change of the Japanese society. It won't be happening as long traditional thinking is still state of the art. May be in 30y when there's a new generation of managers who think like you and are keen to to different. Good luck my friend from Japan! Greetings from Germany. In case you really want to know and still didn't Google it: On Germany/Europe, we have strong laws for employees. That's a big part of the working culture over here, as each of the employees know about and have the chance to exercise his/her rights given by law. For example , the working day is defined as 8h + 30mins of break. If you're about to work longer, then you get better money/compensation for it. There's a strong law for recreational times/vacation, where each one oughta get min. 24d of payed off-time. There are laws saving employees from mobbing, and if it happens, it's easy to sue because of the employees rights. And so on... So, urge your legislation to pass such laws as a start. With the time, everyone gets accommodated to this and everything will change for the good. Wish you success.
- blublblu 1y ago
  Japan is improving. Horror stories of horrible working conditions come mostly from the economic boom era. The situation has drastically changed since then and the last 5 years have also brought a lot of improvement. Only outliers are "black" companies that have gotten rarer and rarer. It's still not perfect but most people complaining about horrible conditions are people that are bad at finding good jobs and the same is true for Germany. Even though the workers protection laws are the only good thing Germany still has, there are still a lot of companies that can be worse to work for then average japanese ones. Also I don't think your Linke political opinion rants really fit here.
- wakuwakustudio 1y ago
haebom 1y ago
You haven't experienced Korea yet.
- wakuwakustudio 1y ago
  Are the working conditions in Korea terrible?
  - comprev 1y ago
    In the north yes, it's absolutely soeul destroying! /s
aristofun 1y ago
Not to sugarcoat or downplay the struggle, but on the bright side - i don't know other countries where "made in <...>" really mean something. Only Japan. Not even Germany anymore.
- paulcole 1y ago
  I will say that for clothing, Made in USA tends to be very high quality - at least for the kind of fashiony workwear that I buy.
  - aristofun 1y ago
    And pastries are great in Italy. I meant real, complex things, like cars, electronics, machinery.
    - paulcole 1y ago
      Was it pretty simple for you the last time you made thousands of pairs of jeans and sport coats?
      - aristofun 1y ago
        Yep. With enough effort and time I (or almost anyone) can if i want to make a decent jeans or cake at home. But i probably will never be able to create a car, or even a microscope.
        paulcole 1y ago
        I think this says more about how little you know about commercial production of jeans and cakes than how complex cakes and jeans are. This is the classic HN trope of: "things I like and think about a lot" = "real and complex things" and "things I don't like and don't think about a lot" = "simple things that anyone can do with a little time and effort" Kind of like how when anyone here says they can't get "serious work" done on an iPad they always mean development work. And that somehow executives, marketing professionals etc. who work effectively on an iPad aren't doing "serious work."
hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago
Well, I live in Finland, and I've only ever worked in software here. It's pretty much the opposite of Japan, and I think there are some good ways and some bad ways in which that happens. What I believe is that making more money buys more options. Japan's actual GDP per capita is surprisingly low for a country with such a strong and well educated population. Working conditions would probably improve significantly there if that number doubled or tripled overnight, because of the second order effects: A lot of people would be willing, at least now and then, to leave the extra money on the table in exchange for e.g. not working 80 hour weeks. Anyone who tells you the opposite has not thought hard enough about what making more money really means. Finland's GDP per capita is surprisingly strong by the same token for a country with such aggressive taxation policies, and no "game breaking" natural resources. (Norway has oil and they are absolutely loaded. Sweden doesn't, but they have neoliberalized a lot since the 1970s.) A few factors which really help this: Finnish people have sky high English proficiency, especially in engineering, and aiming from the start at an international or at the very least EU-wide market is the norm here for tech companies. The Finnish market is only 5 million people, and firms really do just make much more money and much better products when markets are large enough for them to specialize. I suspect Japanese companies might be caught in a strange middle-market-size trap where the ~100 million population is just large enough that few companies truly feel the need to aim internationally, but in practice it is actually a quite small economy in the modern world to have as your only home base.
creamyhorror 1y ago
I've said for many years that the language barrier is a major factor in keeping Japanese workers from earning pay in global markets that's more commensurate with their abilities. If more Japanese workers were more competitive for global jobs, there would be more pressure on Japanese companies to improve their working environments and compensation. But there was the Bubble and the domestic focus of Japanese companies to distract. Unfortunately, many other nations have become very competitive in English proficiency now. 1980s-2010s was the period to build an English-proficient workforce and enjoy the economic benefits (as my country Singapore did decades ago). Keep trying to apply for jobs in companies or countries with better working cultures.
zerr 1y ago
I've heard that in Japan it is appreciated to stay in the office long hours but not actually doing a productive work. Is this true?
- karthie_a 1y ago
  From my knowledge about Japan working environment, the culture is not to leave work before your superior. i.e - the people who works in C level can not leave until the CEO leaves workplace. This follows and trickle down till lowest i believe, not sure if this is true till date. Someone can verify.
  - blublblu 1y ago
    At this point it's a misconception. In the past it was true that people rarely left before their managers, but this has mostly changed. Most managers aren't strict about or care about it anymore. Working conditions drastically improved in the last 10-20 years. The horror stories of japanese work enviorments come from the time of the economic boom a few decades ago (Like OP said when he was working) and have been left behind. There still are companies, reffered to as "black" companies, that have very abusive work enviorments, but they are now rare. Even just in the last 5 years it has improved a lot. It's still not perfect and a lot of things can still be changed to help make workers life better and easier, but at least it's improving.

rawgabbit 1y ago

Regarding my work experience. I have worked in the US for many years for large companies and small. I have never worked for a Japanese company. Some US companies pay lip service to the idea the company is one big family. I was never under illusion that management viewed me and other workers as nothing more than cogs in the machine. Early in my career I must have had a “kick me” sign strapped to me. I put up with a lot of nonsense. Working nights and weekends. As I worked in tech, I refused to stay late in the office but I was working remotely from home the whole time. I still remember my infant son wanting to sit in my lap while I was troubleshooting a Sev1 outage. I was also pressured to do unethical if not illegal things. One time I said no and my boss’ boss and his boss literally screamed at me for a week. Anyways. That is water under the bridge. Today I work from home. My boss also works from home in a different part of the country. We meet in person maybe three times a year. I refuse to manage anyone; being a manager IMO is trying to glue the executives unhinged view to reality. It is impossible. Today, I created a role for myself where I am like an internal solutions architect. I create working proofs of concepts with sanitized real data. After I show how it is done, I turn it over to the developers to implement and maintain. I still have to deal with politics and unhinged personalities. As I have some credibility, I get to back out of projects when I had my fill of political operatives. They then complain I am no longer on the project.

MayDay1997 1y ago

What about China? Our software developers often have to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. I think people working in East Asia share the same feeling.

nicbou 1y ago

I live in Germany. It's very relaxed. I help immigrants move here and I have to encourage them to take sick leave and ignore their emails outside of office hours.

cm2012 1y ago

Just to give the opposite experience from a different place: as a marketing professional in New York City, I've worked in small businesses, start ups, big businesses, as a freelancer, and owning my own ad agency. Ive basically never worked more than 40 hours in a week, or worked a weekend (beyond rarely answering an email). It hasn't impacted my ability to succeed, and I've earned a high income for a long time. I also get really good results for clients. So it can be much better elsewhere. Also, if you have to use English for work, you can use ChatGPT to help you translate to English. One of my employees in the Phillipines has become a lot more effective since she started using chatgpt to help her communications.

theGeatZhopa 1y ago

How do you want to change thinking towards those problems of a whole nation? It's not like "it's the company doing it" - it's japanese people doing this to their own people. So this would be were to start. .. uprising workers are needed here. New thinking towards well-being of employees must be adapted. Without a social overthrow, I think, it's impossible to change such system. Or, you found an company yourself and do it differently, addressing the very each problems and market yourself, so that everyone is fighting to be with your company and you as the boss. So you see, it's near to impossible. One can't wish for uprising, as it won't be happening. One can't wish for change of the Japanese society. It won't be happening as long traditional thinking is still state of the art. May be in 30y when there's a new generation of managers who think like you and are keen to to different. Good luck my friend from Japan! Greetings from Germany. In case you really want to know and still didn't Google it: On Germany/Europe, we have strong laws for employees. That's a big part of the working culture over here, as each of the employees know about and have the chance to exercise his/her rights given by law. For example , the working day is defined as 8h + 30mins of break. If you're about to work longer, then you get better money/compensation for it. There's a strong law for recreational times/vacation, where each one oughta get min. 24d of payed off-time. There are laws saving employees from mobbing, and if it happens, it's easy to sue because of the employees rights. And so on... So, urge your legislation to pass such laws as a start. With the time, everyone gets accommodated to this and everything will change for the good. Wish you success.

blublblu 1y ago
Japan is improving. Horror stories of horrible working conditions come mostly from the economic boom era. The situation has drastically changed since then and the last 5 years have also brought a lot of improvement. Only outliers are "black" companies that have gotten rarer and rarer. It's still not perfect but most people complaining about horrible conditions are people that are bad at finding good jobs and the same is true for Germany. Even though the workers protection laws are the only good thing Germany still has, there are still a lot of companies that can be worse to work for then average japanese ones. Also I don't think your Linke political opinion rants really fit here.
wakuwakustudio 1y ago

haebom 1y ago

You haven't experienced Korea yet.

wakuwakustudio 1y ago
Are the working conditions in Korea terrible?
- comprev 1y ago
  In the north yes, it's absolutely soeul destroying! /s

aristofun 1y ago

Not to sugarcoat or downplay the struggle, but on the bright side - i don't know other countries where "made in <...>" really mean something. Only Japan. Not even Germany anymore.

paulcole 1y ago
I will say that for clothing, Made in USA tends to be very high quality - at least for the kind of fashiony workwear that I buy.
- aristofun 1y ago
  And pastries are great in Italy. I meant real, complex things, like cars, electronics, machinery.
  - paulcole 1y ago
    Was it pretty simple for you the last time you made thousands of pairs of jeans and sport coats?
    - aristofun 1y ago
      Yep. With enough effort and time I (or almost anyone) can if i want to make a decent jeans or cake at home. But i probably will never be able to create a car, or even a microscope.
      - paulcole 1y ago
        I think this says more about how little you know about commercial production of jeans and cakes than how complex cakes and jeans are. This is the classic HN trope of: "things I like and think about a lot" = "real and complex things" and "things I don't like and don't think about a lot" = "simple things that anyone can do with a little time and effort" Kind of like how when anyone here says they can't get "serious work" done on an iPad they always mean development work. And that somehow executives, marketing professionals etc. who work effectively on an iPad aren't doing "serious work."

hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago

Well, I live in Finland, and I've only ever worked in software here. It's pretty much the opposite of Japan, and I think there are some good ways and some bad ways in which that happens. What I believe is that making more money buys more options. Japan's actual GDP per capita is surprisingly low for a country with such a strong and well educated population. Working conditions would probably improve significantly there if that number doubled or tripled overnight, because of the second order effects: A lot of people would be willing, at least now and then, to leave the extra money on the table in exchange for e.g. not working 80 hour weeks. Anyone who tells you the opposite has not thought hard enough about what making more money really means. Finland's GDP per capita is surprisingly strong by the same token for a country with such aggressive taxation policies, and no "game breaking" natural resources. (Norway has oil and they are absolutely loaded. Sweden doesn't, but they have neoliberalized a lot since the 1970s.) A few factors which really help this: Finnish people have sky high English proficiency, especially in engineering, and aiming from the start at an international or at the very least EU-wide market is the norm here for tech companies. The Finnish market is only 5 million people, and firms really do just make much more money and much better products when markets are large enough for them to specialize. I suspect Japanese companies might be caught in a strange middle-market-size trap where the ~100 million population is just large enough that few companies truly feel the need to aim internationally, but in practice it is actually a quite small economy in the modern world to have as your only home base.

creamyhorror 1y ago

I've said for many years that the language barrier is a major factor in keeping Japanese workers from earning pay in global markets that's more commensurate with their abilities. If more Japanese workers were more competitive for global jobs, there would be more pressure on Japanese companies to improve their working environments and compensation. But there was the Bubble and the domestic focus of Japanese companies to distract. Unfortunately, many other nations have become very competitive in English proficiency now. 1980s-2010s was the period to build an English-proficient workforce and enjoy the economic benefits (as my country Singapore did decades ago). Keep trying to apply for jobs in companies or countries with better working cultures.

zerr 1y ago

I've heard that in Japan it is appreciated to stay in the office long hours but not actually doing a productive work. Is this true?

karthie_a 1y ago
From my knowledge about Japan working environment, the culture is not to leave work before your superior. i.e - the people who works in C level can not leave until the CEO leaves workplace. This follows and trickle down till lowest i believe, not sure if this is true till date. Someone can verify.
- blublblu 1y ago
  At this point it's a misconception. In the past it was true that people rarely left before their managers, but this has mostly changed. Most managers aren't strict about or care about it anymore. Working conditions drastically improved in the last 10-20 years. The horror stories of japanese work enviorments come from the time of the economic boom a few decades ago (Like OP said when he was working) and have been left behind. There still are companies, reffered to as "black" companies, that have very abusive work enviorments, but they are now rare. Even just in the last 5 years it has improved a lot. It's still not perfect and a lot of things can still be changed to help make workers life better and easier, but at least it's improving.