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I have difficulty telling if your salaryman example is facetious. Though, admittedly, as an American, even if I worked for a Japanese company, they would likel
by josephschmoe 12y ago
I have difficulty telling if your salaryman example is facetious.
Though, admittedly, as an American, even if I worked for a Japanese company, they would likely not treat me like that.
I do 40 hours. In crunch time, I work hard 100% of that - and I might work 45 hours tops. Then, I go home exhausted and sleep.
- wikwocket 12y agoI applaud your conviction to work your 40 at 100% and then go home, and in many places this is absolutely achievable and I absolutely recommend it. Japan is (largely) not yet one of these places. There is a culture there related to work and life that is very very different. The short version is that you can get lifetime guaranteed employment without risk of termination, but at the cost of the company owning your time. For the longer version, you can search Patrick's posts for "salaryman." It's very interesting to learn about how these conditions came about. It's also interesting to see how things may change there as software continues to eat the world, crossing many previously-untouchable boundaries.
- tptacek 12y agoYou're assuming people at Megacorps are working hard. They go home exhausted, but not because they exerted 100% of their mental capacity on solving problems for the company.
- wglb 12y agoI am quite sure that it is not facetious. A very interesting bit of history of work ethic is discussed in David Halberstam's book The Reckoning in which when the auto industry began to take hold in Japan, the workers there could not understand how hard the Americans worked--three shifts? Working in the middle of the night? Now, it might seem reversed.