
Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide - wjossey
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/29/news/ceo-resign-employee-suicide-dentsu/index.html
======
rjeli
Great blog post here recently on Japanese work culture:
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-
japan/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/)

"Traditionally, salarymen (and they are, by the way, mostly men) are hired
into a particular company late in university and stay at that company or its
affiliates until they retire."

"The employee hereby promises the company: Your first obligation, in all
things, will be to your company. You will work incredibly hard (90+ hour weeks
barely even occasion comment) on their behalf."

"Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for
appearance’s sake rather than because it actually accomplishes more productive
work. Depending on one’s company, this overtime may be compensated or “service
overtime” — “service” in Japanese means “thrown in for free in the hopes of
gaining one’s further custom”, so your favorite restaurant might throw in a
“service” desert once in a while or you might do 8 hours of “service” overtime
six nights a week for 15 years."

The whole post is a great read that comes from a first-hand experience.

~~~
gragas
>Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for
appearance’s sake

That's just stupid. It makes me wonder, though: is the work culture similar
for ex-patriots working in Japan?

~~~
msbarnett
> > Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for
> appearance’s sake

> That's just stupid.

That's overtime. Almost all overtime, even in the US, is as much about the
_appearance_ of working hard rather than any real gains in productivity.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been involved with or seen a
startup that "crushes code 100 hours a week because we're out to win, man",
with most of those late nights spent with a room full of people online
shopping or on HN.

~~~
brianwawok
I worked at a door factory. We worked 20% overtime for 6 months. We made 20%
more doors.

Works great for manual labor.

~~~
toyg
That's the thing though, it's an old-school Fordist concept that doesn't
really apply to modern service/creative jobs. Time, like place, is not related
to productivity anymore, modern employers need better metrics.

~~~
brianwawok
True. OP said overtime NEVER works. I think it works. Just differently in
different fields.

I can code 80 hour weeks for a bit. Put out a ton of code. Can't do it for a
month straight. But I could do manual labor overtime for a month straight.

------
mikesickler
Dentsu is exhibit A for what's wrong with the Japanese work environment. This
isn't the first time they've been responsible for an employee's suicide
through overwork. This young woman's tweets before her death are pretty
revealing. References to her male superior telling her that she can't hack it
because she's a woman, the toxic seniority system where you can't question
those above you, 20+ hour days. Just awful.

~~~
Asooka
How long until people just start passively disobeying? I mean, if the choice
is death by overwork or loss of career (maybe ending in death due to
homelessness)...

~~~
labster
It's already happening. There's a large population of NEETs who have withdrawn
from the work force.

~~~
h1d
Doubt they withdrew after having undesired working conditions. Many just do
not actively seek jobs.

~~~
labster
There are lots of reasons people choose not to seek jobs. A person can just
look at their parents, decide they don't have the fortitude or attitude to
integrate into the sarariman lifestyle, and rationally opt out.

PROTIP: one can look for remote programming work in the U.S. or Europe, earn a
decent living, and still engage in a NEET lifestyle. I have a steady diet of
HN, anime, Perl, and reclusiveness and it works great for me.

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sologoub
For context, from the article: "Takahashi had clocked about 105 hours of
overtime in the month leading up to her death, authorities found."

Japan has a 40 hour work week and a max of overtime a person can volunteer
for. In a month this limit is an additional 45 hours. An employee can agree to
more overtime but the source refers to some labor safeguards that are supposed
to kick in:
[https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/invest/setting_up/laws/section4/p...](https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/invest/setting_up/laws/section4/page5.html)

So in essence, she worked more than double the allowed overtime (around 65
hours per week total work time).

~~~
arkitaip
Many Japanese companies pressure their employees to report significantly less
hours than they actually work. So not only will they work you to death, they
are stealing money from you along the way.

~~~
sologoub
Thanks! Article definitely fails to mention this and it's an important angle
to understand.

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vivekd
If the Japanese are working so much that some a literally working themselves
to death - why is their economy so bad? My guess is that a lot of that time is
getting used up with unnecessary busy work rather than actual productive
labor.

~~~
pgz
Several people argue that working long hours will have a negative impact on
productivity.

For example if you look at EU countries, the ones with the economy in worse
conditions are those with longer working hours (Greece, Italy).

~~~
maverick_iceman
Correlation doesn't imply causation. Maybe people are forced to work more
because the economy is bad.

~~~
chaostheory
There's already plenty of evidence that working beyond 40 hours a week
translates into a reduction in productivity. This is not some new,
revolutionary insight; it's old news yet so many people and organizations
ignore it at the cost of efficiency. The 40 hour work week is not just for
your sake, but it's in the company's interests as well. I could be wrong but a
lot of the data from was from WWII. When your country's survival is on the
line, most civilians will be very motivated to work as much as possible
producing municitions and war machines. Some researchers measured productivity
vs work hours during this time and they found a certain point where
productivity just plummets.

Unfortunately these are the only links I can find given 2 min and I don't
believe that they cite WWII research:

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/12/working-...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/12/working-
hours)

[https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-
history/](https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/)

[https://medium.com/building-asana/work-hard-live-well-
ead679...](https://medium.com/building-asana/work-hard-live-well-
ead679cb506d#.zijtmile4)

(What I like about Dustin's post is that he mentions that you can have a boost
in productivity if you work longer hours temporarily like say for two weeks.
Beyond that, there's no gain in productivity and most often there's actually a
net loss)

~~~
flamedoge
I would dangerously extrapolate that it's not just productivity that suffers,
but also correctness. Anecdotally I made more mistakes and was off mark the
longer I extended myself.

~~~
chaostheory
Yeah that's accounted for as part of productivity as defined by the
researchers. Still it's a good point since I didn't mention it.

------
markonen
I filmed this clip of the Dentsu HQ almost 10 years ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX6--
sQtsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX6--sQtsA)

In it, you see how all the lights automatically turn off at 10 PM. You can
judge how many offices still have workers in them by the lights being turned
back on.

~~~
hacker_9
Kind of sad people think they have to work past 10 PM, just to bump up their
company image and bosses bonuses. This is what slave labour looks like in the
21 century.

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WhitneyLand
How does this reconcile with the difficulty of firing people? I've heard they
have rooms where people just come in and watch tv all day because a company
doesn't want to fire them.

So how can people feel a need to work 100hrs?

~~~
unsignedint
Lack of career mobility has been cited nunerous times of why their is this
problem exists to begin with.

It is very difficult if not impossible to move one company to other mid-
career, especially past certain age (job listing in Japan may _can_ list upper
age limit), as Japanese hires are very focus on graduates on given year.

One reason is because it is not easy to fire people, one wouldn't find
opportinities elsewhere, so they are often forced to put up with their
situations without much controls.

People who get sent to those "do nothing" room (they call it many ways to
sounds politically correct, things like "career development department") are
those company wishes to fire. There are scandals on these time to time, but
instead of letting them watch TV all day it usually consists of meaningless
tasks or simply forbidding to do anything to force them quit voluntary, but
these are certainly newsworthy extremes.

I will omit reasons for long hours as these are discussed elsewhere in other
threads.

------
MichaelBurge
That's sad, especially since most of the extra hours are busywork and peer
pressure from what I've read.

What happens in Japan if you put in a simple 40-hour week, do good work, and
then leave at the end of the day? I also understand their government makes it
very difficult to fire employees. And I can't imagine they'd reassign you to
watch the paint dry if you're actually doing good work. Would you mainly miss
out on promotions?

Is it just a social thing, or is it economic? Since it's harder to fire people
in Japan, there's a lot of risk to hiring a new employee. So maybe the culture
helps weed out uncommitted people, which helps derisk hires? Or, to a certain
extent, lets you get more productive hours out of them.

~~~
vezycash
>Is it just a social thing

The little I know about Japan is from Anime, books, articles and online
comments.

In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful. Also, going home early
instead of socializing after work is frowned upon even by one's spouse.

I've also read that there's no job hopping. Employee for life is still a thing
there. And an ex-employer's comment is heavily weighted by prospective
employers.

Additionally, loyalty is highly valued, probably more than ability.

This Wikipedia article is a good summary of Japanese work environment -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment)

~~~
throwaway2016a
> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful

My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my
employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them
(within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first).

The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher
pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my team is
working their butt's off?

Edit: I realize this could be taken as a ploy from me to get the team to work
more hours. But I also don't shame employees for leaving before me. It's not a
contest. If they get their work done they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at
5:00.

~~~
jodrellblank
_If they get their work done they shouldn 't feel guilty leaving at 5:00._

If they get their work done, should they feel guilty leaving at 3:00?

~~~
freehunter
My experience is, there's always more work to be done if you finish your tasks
early.

~~~
prodmerc
Yeah, you can always do some of tomorrow's goals, and continue until you hit
some more difficult problem, at which point your work in advance will let you
spend more time working on that problem.

People who don't like what they do won't do this, of course.

------
keithpeter
I gather that Japan has an ageing population and therefore issues with
underemployment among older people. Spreading out the work among more people
seems logical.

In some ways, I admire the French approach to work/life balance.

------
joe563323
No wonder Japan's birth rate is falling. Who in their sane mind would want
their children's to have a difficult life. High time for Universal Basic
Income.

~~~
swiley
Japan has a serious problem that would prevent that: who would pay? They
already don't have enough to pay for current subsidies.

------
Ronin354
Looks like Japan might be the best place to start a company. People never
quit, work long hours, does not have life outside work.

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shard972
This is an interesting difference compared to Denstu Aegis (which I worked
for) which has been pushing from the top a lot of "Work-Life balance"
principles.

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binarymax
Do I read this right, 105 hours of _overtime_ implying a 145 hour work week
(if accounting for a regular 40 hour week)?

~~~
Asooka
Over one whole month, so that's more like 61 hours per week. Which, judging by
the rest of the comments in this thread, isn't unexpected for a Japanese white
collar worker.

~~~
noarchy
>Over one whole month, so that's more like 61 hours per week.

How many of us know people in North America who are putting in those kinds of
hours? You know, gotta "go the extra mile" for the startup, and all.

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padator
Suicide seems a bit extreme. Could she not just quit? Also everyday people
commit suicide. Why do we blame CEOs for that?

~~~
dylz
And never have another job again?

~~~
iopq
And? Is that any reason to kill yourself?

