
The young Japanese working themselves to death - pmoriarty
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39981997
======
guy_c
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.

~~~
threeseed
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
> 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.

------
peterburkimsher
This happens in New York as well. What if we could hear from the people
suffering from this directly?

We can. Earlier today, a post showed up here about John. It was flagged. I
expect my comment to also be moderated, which will reinforce my feelings of
being ignored by the world.

[https://github.com/yeukhon/suicide](https://github.com/yeukhon/suicide)

I investigated what's happening to him, and empathise with a lot of his
struggles. We're overworked, underpaid, ignored, and rejected by the
government.

[https://twitter.com/y3ukhon](https://twitter.com/y3ukhon)

He's got excellent work experience for Mozilla, and a good degree. Working for
a tech company in New York. What's bad about that?

\- He's still asking for a second job on weekends just to make ends meet.

May 22: "What part time job would allow me to work on Friday - Sunday with
some rest in between? Need one so I can make up some cash."

\- He can't afford anything more than a tiny room:

Apr 13: "if only @LifeOnPurple can release a full size mattress tonight I'd be
able to purchase >_< my bedroom can't take a Queen size. #mattress"

\- He cares about the world, but it makes him poor (me too - refusing to work
for weapons manufacturers or oil companies has seriously limited my scope of
potential jobs)

Apr 5: "I'd be interested in working at places where I can exercise social
responsibility and making industry standard salary. Too hard."

\- He's bored at work, probably because managers don't give him enough to do,
or don't care enough to simply talk to him. ]

Mar 28: "When I don't seem to do much or making huge progress at work I wonder
am I the new fossil at work? At age of 25? Really?"

\- He can't get insurance (me too) because of systematic mistreatment of
foreigners by the government (me too):

Mar 5: I write software so I am denied for vision coverage. I am Chinese so I
am denied for liver coverage. #preexistingconditions

~~~
jackgolding
From recent personal discussions, I think part of the solution choosing
another place to live. The "hubs" of the world are becoming way too expensive
for people who don't purely chase money as an objective (or are born into it.)

~~~
peterburkimsher
Where?

I currently live in Taiwan. It costs me 3 months savings to buy a plane ticket
to visit family. I can afford to do that once or twice a year. That doesn't
matter much though, because I only get 8 days of annual leave anyway.

I'm a British citizen by descent (born in Switzerland to parents resident in
France). My future children cannot be British. I cannot become Taiwanese
without giving up my previous nationality. I would also have to do military
service, and learn how to kill foreigners. There is a conflict of interest
here, because I am a foreigner.

I have a Masters of Engineering from Lancaster University, UK. I started Ph.D.
at KAIST in Korea, but dropped out when they refused to pay my scholarship.

I wanted to move to Canada for the Express Entry programme, but now they got
too many applications from the US. They changed the rules, and now they
require me to be a senior manager.

I wanted to move to New Zealand for the Skilled Migrant Category visa. They
asked for 2 years work experience. During my 2nd year here, they increased
that to 3 years. Now they require 75,000 NZD per year salary (4x my current
salary). I don't think any company will pay that.

It is extremely difficult, and getting harder, to take a foreign spouse to the
UK.

The US "asked me to leave" (one step short of deportation) when my exchange
student visa petition was denied, because I didn't have $25,000 cash in the
bank. Thankfully the process was so slow that I finished a whole year at UCSB
before they kicked me out. I can't go back any more though.

I also don't think I can afford to get married, because it's just too
expensive (300,000 NTD would take me one year to save up).

The politics and finance problems means I don't think I can marry my Taiwanese
girlfriend. I believe in chastity, so this probably means that I'll die a
virgin.

I've decided that rather than ending my own life, and having no voice, I can
at least speak on behalf of those who struggle. The older generation are rich
(owning cars and houses, having children). Most people I know who are my age
are not able to afford such luxuries. Why should I pay for pensions to support
these rich old people? Why should I pay for insurance to extend my life, when
I'm not even satisfied with the situation I'm in? I expect that there will be
a war soon. I refuse to fight in it, but I hope that here in Taiwan, I'll be
on the front lines, and it'll be over for me soon.

~~~
arkh
I'll be blunt. It reads like you love your misery.

You have an easy solution: get some work in the UK. If your girlfriend loves
you she'll manage to follow you. If not I guess she's not really marriage
material.

~~~
peterburkimsher
"not really marriage material" should not be the decision of a government.

She's not super rich, and she works in fashion design. That's not on a skill-
shortage list. My salary isn't super high.

I worked in the UK before, as an unpaid missionary. I quit because of serious
cultural differences (I wasn't allowed to cook dinner for a female friend -
not romantic - in my free time). I studied there in university, and was
shocked at how racist people were towards immigrants. They didn't realise that
I've always been an immigrant. Just because I look British should force me to
live in that country. The British government won't ever let me upgrade my
citizenship to let children born overseas become British, no matter how long I
live there. That country rejected me, so I'm trying to find another place
where I belong.

Many people have problems moving to the UK, some of whom write about it here:

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/139807999382936/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/139807999382936/)

~~~
arkh
I take it you are the kind of people who want others to pat you on the back
while you complain but don't care about solutions.

Why do you want to live and adhere to the customs of your current country? Do
you really need to get married? If the UK is a problem what would be the
problem with forfeiting your UK citizenship to acquire the one of you future
wife?

There is a moment when you have to commit to a choice and stop living "le cul
entre deux chaises" (the ass between two chairs).

------
zhemao
All of the government's attempts to address this excessive overwork just seems
lackluster.

> Earlier this year the government introduced 'Premium Fridays', encouraging
> firms to let their employees out early, at 3pm, on the last Friday each
> month. They also want Japanese workers to take more holiday.

That's a single digit number of hours every month. It's meaningless if workers
are still doing massive amounts of unpaid overtime.

> Earlier this year the government proposed limiting average overtime to 60
> hours a month though firms would be allowed to up this to 100 hours during
> "busy periods" \- well into the karoshi red zone.

And suddenly every period is a "busy period".

> Critics say the government is prioritizing business and economic interests
> at the expense of the welfare of workers.

Not even. I'm sure they could actually be more productive if they weren't
literally working their employees to death.

Here's an idea. Make companies pay extra compensation if employees work
overtime. I guarantee you companies will be literally pushing their employees
out the door at 6 PM then.

~~~
patio11
_Make companies pay extra compensation if employees work overtime._

This is the standard practice at many (but not all) Japanese companies with an
overtime culture. "Service overtime" (サービス残業) -- uncompensated overtime -- is
widely perceived to be abusive, and the abusiveness of this practice is
deployed by defenders of the status quo as "We're not abusive; we paid every
one of those 80 hours at time and a quarter."

It's priced into the expectations, literally -- my offer letter from my
previous employer in Japan had two columns in it, the "formal offer" and the
"offer assuming overtime pay[+]", with the number quoted at me being the total
salary inclusive of their estimate of overtime. (30 hours of compensated
overtime a month.)

(This was... ahem... an optimistic estimate.)

~~~
zhemao
So then why do they do it? Why would you pay 1.25x per hour worked when you
could hire more employees and have everyone work normal hours. It's one thing
to have crunch time. It's another for excessive overtime to be the normal way
of doing things.

~~~
watwut
As far as they are concerned, this is normal hours.

------
malydok
Personal anecdote. Last month my japanese friend in his late 30's collapsed
from a stroke. He is a freelance (!) Web developer I collaborated with and I
didn't know that before the accident but he used to work overnight without any
sleep. Given his chain-smoking, drinking hectoliters of coffee and a sedentary
lifestyle it's hard to miss the causes but still I wonder if just getting
sleep could have prevented it to some degree. Now after 3 weeks of induced
coma he's slowly regaining consciousness, though how much he will be able to
is still unknown.

~~~
foota
I'm sorry about your friend, I wish for them a good recovery.

------
pmoriarty
_" Nearly a quarter of Japanese companies have employees working more than 80
hours overtime a month, often unpaid, a recent survey found. And 12% have
employees breaking the 100 hours a month mark."_

This is not uncommon in the US either, in the finance industry, at startups,
at much bigger competitive companies, in medicine. I'm actually surprised
there isn't more suicide, burnout, and depression from overwork in the US, or
maybe the people just aren't as open about it in the US as they are in Japan.

~~~
wapz
Working in Japan for a Japanese company I hope to give some insight.

I find most people in America that worked overtime felt that it was
_necessary_ to work because of all the tasks that needed to be completed. In
Japan the overtime seems more "required" just to work overtime ( _not always
the case of course_ ). I think Americans get a lot more self-satisfaction when
they finish their overtime shift (although they don't like it they know it was
something that needed to be done).

I think there's a lot of stress and depression in the states from overwork
(not as much depression from my group of friends), but not as much as Japan
for a few reasons. One guess is that I find people in America more social than
Japanese. Most of the "friends" relationships I see in Japan are more-so
forced as they are coworkers who just go together and drink. I could be
completely wrong here but I feel like they don't share their feelings and talk
to reduce stress/depression as much as Americans.

One last thing about overtime is I feel most US companies have bursts of
overtime when work needs to get done. Japanese companies often just have
"permanent" overtime setting the mentality that they will be doing it forever.

~~~
toomuchtodo
What would happen if, as an American, I came into my job in Japan, worked my
40 hours a week, and went home each night at 5?

~~~
bruxis
That's probably not a fair question, given that you're an American. There's
immediately some difference in expectations.

A better question is what happens if a young college grad in Japan chooses
work no _unnecessary_ overtime?

~~~
laurieg
Best case scenario: passed over for promotions, cut out of important work
discussions, generally ostracized. Worst case scenario: outright abuse.

Just to give you a taste of this: In a previous job in Japan there was a work
party on the weekend. I told my boss "I can't got, I have something to do" (A
very normal way to refuse something in Japan. The expectation is that no one
will ask what your vague reason is). This boss tries to pin me down on exactly
why I won't be spending my day off on this event. This leads to 6 months of
going over my work with a fine tooth comb, review periods and so on.

~~~
wapz
This sounds very similar to the work places I've seen in Japan, too.
Essentially those who don't work as much unpaid, voluntary overtime as others
don't get promotions, get shafted on bonuses, and very passive-aggressively
"bullied."

I'm surprised your boss tried to pressure you for info. Usually the companies
that are more traditional ('non-mandatory' aka _mandatory_ outside activities)
will follow cultural norms and just do the punishment without the asking.

------
charia
Obligatory posting of the best piece of writing discussing Japanese workplace
culture anywhere on the internet.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-
japan/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/)

~~~
patio11
Thanks for the praise, though I think that might oversell my blog a bit.

~~~
pcthrowaway
Not in the least, that piece has really stuck with me over the years. Thank
you for writing it and thanks to OP for sharing it again.

------
a_imho
I don't understand people working overtime. You sign a contract of typically
40 hours/week. Anything over that timeframe you can reject. Trying to force
you or threaten firing you over it is not particularly legal. Showing up in
court with a few emails demanding overtime goes a long way I would wager.

Further, I would really like people sticking up more for themselves, putting
up with this nonsense normalizes exploitation and makes it worse for
_everyone_.

~~~
zhemao
No company would be stupid enough to explicitly tell its employees that they
must work overtime or be fired. Instead, they create an environment in which
you feel social pressure to put in more hours. People choose to work long
hours because they get affirmation for it from their managers and colleagues.
It's a cultural problem.

~~~
a_imho
Until it is given in written form, you can go home after clocked in your
agreed worktime. Yes, social pressure can be toxic, still, it is entirely up
to you whether you want to participate.

------
vatotemking
> "If you don't quit you have to work 100 hours. If you quit you just can't
> live."

Perhaps the root of the problem is the high cost of living, no?

~~~
Paulods
Rarely as a Japanese businessman can you quit a job and find another job at
either the same or higher pay grade.

The market here revolves around hiring university graduates up to a year
before they graduate and then training them from the start in whatever
position you want them to do. Very few people change jobs and if you jump from
jobs every 3-5 years its seen a negative sign on your CV.

------
tlear
So many dark experiences and I heard more. But I contract right now at a
Japanese company. 8 hour days, flexible time.. I work remotely from a
different city, I come to office once in 2 weeks for two days staying at
hotel. Many guys show up at office at 10-11am. Actually annoying since I
prefer to work early in the morning.

Also talked to couple other startups that have normal NA hours, their pay was
crap though. Also some big web companies have some pretty reasonable hours.

Having said that in lots of other places it is hell.

Last data point I usually work from collaboration space. Heading home around
5-6pm. It is massive traffic jam around that time.. people heading back home.
Maybe to drink? Last train is always hilarious experience, but nobody is mean
drunk which is nice.

------
shubhamjain
To give a perspective, a Japanese corporation, as a part of country-wide
effort to address the work pressure problem, had to give bonuses to _make
their employees leave early_ [1]. I don't know what drives the Japanese
Salarymen but I believe they are insanely committed towards their job. It
doesn't seem most of the Japanese salarymen even complain about the overwork.

[1]: [http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170413-we-had-to-give-
the...](http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170413-we-had-to-give-them-bonuses-
to-leave-early)

~~~
laurieg
It's a bit of a stereotype but: Unhappy home-lives.

If you're going back to an abusive spouse, a crowded house with inlaws and
kids, no privacy at all or other problems, I can see why some people might
hide at work.

~~~
zhemao
Your spouse hates you because you work all the time. You work all the time to
avoid your spouse.

------
wrp
What is described in the article and comments is the Japan I knew in the
1980s. Starting from the mid 1990s, I've heard a lot about how the changed
economy caused business culture to shift significantly toward patterns of the
West. Has Japanese business culture really not changed all that much?

------
iharhajster
I read somewhere on HN another article about how time management kills
productivity, and conclusion was that the best companies integrate idle time
in their schedule. The idea is that time is used for processing interrupts.

------
euske
The story is doubly sad because a) the family often couldn't prevent their
children's death, and b) the companies don't want to admit how bad Japanese
productivity is and keep resisting the changes.

