
In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time? - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/business/japan-work-overtime-tv-show.html
======
komali2
>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said,
some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the
longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often
depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity.

Agggh hits to home. Arrogant American me rolled into a Taiwanese job expecting
to skyrocket up the ladder on results alone. Nope, because I left at 5 sharp
to enjoy the beautiful mountains, I was a lazy shit. Never mind my 10x
increase in sales. Well, also I was an arrogant prick.

I chew on this issue a lot - it's bad to work so much. But, it's culturally
ingrained. Some people are trying to change it... but it's happening so
slowly. We have our own culturally ingrained things in America that I'd like
to change as well, and that are changing, but so slowly. How do you implement
change?

I guess that's the plot of any good fantasy or political drama, how do leaders
convince people that change can be good?

~~~
derefr
Is there any way you could just make it physiologically untenable for _anyone_
to stay in your office past 5PM?

Right around 6PM at my apartment, the downstairs tenants light up with the
most awful, stanky skunk-weed. You literally cannot keep the windows open; and
yet, in the middle of summer and no central AC, you can't afford to be there
with them closed, either. So, in effect, my neighbour forces me to ensure I'm
not home at that hour.

Anyone you could bribe to do the same near your office? :P

~~~
komali2
Some towns in Japan and Taiwan started playing music over city loudspeakers at
6pm that basically means "it's go-home time now."

~~~
gwilkes
? They do that in my Japanese town of Kumagaya but that is for the kids to go
home because it is getting dark. It changes to 4 or 5pm depending on the time
of year. Are you sure that music is to remind adults that it is time to go
home?

~~~
komali2
I dunno, they did it in hachioji when I lived there several years back. I
remember it being at 6 and I remember my coworkers telling me that was the
reason for it but I could be mistaken.

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justaguyhere
In a place I worked, if someone left at 5:30 pm, the CTO used to joke "half
day today?", even though the person came in at 9 am.

In many places I worked in the US, it is somewhat of a badge of honor to spend
long hours at work (how many of those are actually productive, is a different
story). And these aren't even startups.

This can't continue - an entire generation of people have been brainwashed
that hard work = good, costs be damned. It has to change.

IMHO, the only reasons to work long hours are - _real_ emergencies (like the
kind doctors and cops deal with, not the kind when some photo sharing app goes
down for 15 mins), or you're working on your own business. It is ridiculous to
work 70 hours a week bringing someone else's dreams to life, especially while
getting paid for only 40 out of that 70. This is even more annoying when the
said job adds no value or negative value to society.

~~~
reymus
> In a place I worked, if someone left at 5:30 pm, the CTO used to joke "half
> day today?", even though the person came in at 9 am.

In both the places I've worked, it's a common joke anyone says when somebody
leaves. everybody laughs and nobody gets offended. It doesn't mean anything.

~~~
GuiA
That’s a very toxic attitude to have, especially as a manager. You don’t know
that “nobody gets offended”. All you know is that “no one chose to express
their discomfort”, a very different thing.

~~~
rubber_duck
It's pretty easy to make sure nobody gets offended - you communicate (in a
serious setting) that you value results over hours worked and you demonstrate
this in practice. At that point irony and sarcasm is safe territory
(appropriate or tasteful is another matter). Being afraid to joke about this
because it could be missunderstood tells me you are failing at that which is
far more important than worrying about what are potential interpretations of
your jokes.

I would say this applies to any value.

~~~
GuiA
It’s not being afraid to joke, it’s making sure that employees do not feel
like they are receiving mixed signals (“he says results are what matters but
he’s always joking about me leaving early when I’m leaving at a reasonable
hour and getting my work done?”). This is particularly important when
considering employees who might not have English as their first language, or
come from a culture where joking is perceived differently.

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lliamander
I once heard it said that employee overtime was like morphine for employers,
because it masks the pain of organizational dysfunction. It's important to let
your employer feel that pain so that they can become aware of what is wrong
and fix it.

~~~
stronglikedan
_It 's important to let your employer feel that pain_

Unless you're hourly.

~~~
komali2
Give it enough time and your hourly wages will amortize to cover this - what
should now be a 75/hr tier will have remained at 60/hr because everyone gets
paid that, working overtime, to get some job done that probably doesn't _need_
overtime to get done.

Saw this in Oil and Gas industry among Engineers and Designers (the
pipeline/wiring kind, not the UX kind), not sure if it's true for other
industries though. Haven't worked contract in software yet to see for myself.

~~~
DanTheManPR
More hourly people need to realize this, that what seems as a marginal benefit
of time and a half pay from constant overtime hours eventually just gets
priced in as lower base wages. I think a source is thinking too much about
gross pay vs effective hourly compensation. It doesn't "feel right" to switch
jobs and take an effective pay cut, even if your effective hourly compensation
in terms of benefits and wages is higher.

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CannisterFlux
An interesting take on this in Spain recently was that unpaid overtime was
effectively "robbing from state taxes", because those extra hours should have
been paid and so contribute to the government coffers. This resulted in a law
(mostly defanged, self reports and no real punishment) that companies must
track the time employees spend at work.

~~~
Arcsech
Why is "unpaid overtime is robbing from state taxes" a better argument than
"unpaid overtime is robbing from workers"?

~~~
phkahler
To get someone (the government in this case) to care (change rules) it
sometimes helps to frame a problem in a way that affects them. Maybe?

~~~
merpnderp
That's sad that a government wouldn't see its citizens being robbed as a
problem that affects them, as governments are directly responsible for the
regulatory environment in which we all do business.

~~~
mars4rp
In US, government is more run like a business, could we collect more revenue?
yes? it's a good idea!!!

~~~
justaguyhere
To be fair to the US, it is the same in many other countries too.

------
snaky
There were J-Drama actually, ハケンの品格 ("The Pride of the Temp") about the
contractor who is so brilliant that she gives conditions to the staffing
company.

> The conditions are that her contract term is for 3 months only, working time
> is from 9am to 6pm on weekdays only and no extra work or work expected on
> holidays.

[http://asianwiki.com/The_Pride_of_the_Temp](http://asianwiki.com/The_Pride_of_the_Temp)

------
40acres
Anyone with expertise care to chime in regarding possible causes? I recently
finished a WWII documentary and the first few installments of Hardcore
History's look into Imperial Japan. The Japanese seem like an "intense" (for
lack of a better word) culture, which seems like it can be a pro or a con
depending on what that "intensity" is targeted towards.

~~~
CapricornNoble
I always like to say that Japan is basically a feudal militaristic society
that just shifted their focus of effort from warfare to business. Japanese
introductions and pleasantries are in some ways eerily similar with Marine
Corps "customs & courtesies". There was a Youtube documentary I watched where
they pointed out that most of the central bankers and other high-ranking
economic staff, post-war, were still hardcore fascists. So Japan keeping the
structure that had been imposed by centuries of rule under a warrior caste
should be less surprising.

~~~
thrwo3123123
The documentary you're referring to is 'The Princes of Yen'.

Contrary to all the Western BS about "samurai caste" etc. (it's always some
dim-witted "academically proven" stereotype with you folk), the Samurai
completely lost their power during the Tokugawa period due to inflation.

Meiji broke this completely, and gave power to an oligarchy consisting of rich
merchants/farmers (and some their samurai co-conspirators who helped with the
restoring Meiji to power.). In fact, this transition was helped by the
British, which might explain why Meiji was so anti-Asia to begin with - there
was an incomplete purge of Buddhism and conscious playdown of Chinese culture.

~~~
CapricornNoble
A. Who is "you folk"?

B. Sure, the samurai lost their _political_ power by the Meji period. That
doesn't mean their social and cultural influence disappeared overnight,
especially since the country spent decades more or less under the thumb of the
Imperial Japanese Army....who saw themselves as carrying on the samurai
legacy, well within living memory for some Japanese. In the 30's and 40's it
permeated the school system, so generations of Japanese grew up with that same
military discipline, inherited from the IJA, who inherited it from the
samurai.

They sure as hell didn't get rigid selflessness and tolerance for suffering
from rich merchants. Plus they still form up for morning PT sessions at
corporate jobs! They just have the intensity dialed down to.....1/10\. Do you
ever see this in any culture that hasn't had a strong military tradition?

[https://youtu.be/taHYsmLpWDY](https://youtu.be/taHYsmLpWDY)

Couldn't find a decent video of Marines doing company-level PT for comparison,
but here's Army Basic Training at "Relaxin' Jackson" (everyone pokes fun at
graduates of this base for producing the softest Soldiers):
[https://youtu.be/cIVWU8hyuI0](https://youtu.be/cIVWU8hyuI0)

------
guardiangod
When I was in Japan a few months ago, the TV channels were hyping up the show.
One of the segments had the very well-respected lead actress (Yuriko
Yoshitaka) going to OL (office lady) bars after work hour and had her talk to
the OLs there.

All the OLs there immediately recognized her and showed her more respect than
a what a typical Japanese celebrity would receive in similar situation. My
guess was that the actress was older, and was known for her strong personality
and work ethic, and the OLs respected her for it.

Anyway they started sharing their war stories and asked the actress for
suggestions. It's quite an enlightening experience for me as I wasn't very
familiar with Japanese OL culture. Some of the stories were startling.

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hrktb
Was the actual series linked anywhere in the article ?

I might have missed it, for anyone else looking for it:
[https://www.tbs.co.jp/watatei/](https://www.tbs.co.jp/watatei/)

~~~
tantalor
In general, how do you link to a TV show? They don't have websites per se.

~~~
snaky
Actually they do have websites in Japan. And they don't remove it after - this
is "The Pride of the Temp" website, created in 2007
[http://www.ntv.co.jp/haken/](http://www.ntv.co.jp/haken/)

------
totaldude87
One question i am asking repeatedly is what is exactly the work they do for 5
extended hours? i have seen people barely work 4 out of 8 hours and being
super productive!

~~~
apsdsm
Either almost literally nothing, or the work that should have been covered by
hiring more staff. It’s either of those extremes and as far as I’ve seen
(working in various Japanese offices for almost a decade now) rarely anything
between those.

------
swanson
As a fan of office-based dry comedies (The Office, Dreamland, W1A, etc), I'm
curious if anyone has watched the show? If so, would you recommend it?

~~~
hrktb
Finished the show (last episode aired two days ago).

It was as good as it could get I think. No stone were left unturned, they
didn’t shy out from most themes (sexual harassment, moral harassment,
generation gap, sub contracting, bribes, actual death by overwork, heroism
etc).

The take on the subjects is honest and decent, they manage to push well
thought arguments without making too much ennemies or pushing the ball too
far. The ending is a very soft landing without ruffling too many feathers.

I hope some other series will fill the gap left open and have a more
aggressive take, but this series was good enough I think.

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totaldude87
I remember a dialogue from The Cleveland show (yeah, that spin off which
lasted few seasons" )

Cleveland as Japanese: " I am going to work 12 hours overtime, on top of the
10 hour daily work so that i can bring honor to my family"

Laughed really hard wondering who works like that, but guess the joke is on me
:(

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otakucode
I do not understand why in this article it is permitted to only be mentioned
in passing that the creators of the TV show are completely and fundamentally
changing the core message of the novel it is based upon. In the novel, the
characters decision to overwork ruins her life. In the TV show, they're going
to have it do the opposite. So while they toy with the idea of leaving on
time, they're just going to feed more into the social disease of overwork.

I realize that the change from a manufacturing-oriented economy to a
knowledge-work-oriented economy is going to take decades, and there are going
to be a lot of bumps along the way and likely a good bit of bloodshed, but it
doesn't make it any more pleasant to watch.

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pseudolus
Death by overtime "karoshi" is not unique to Japan but is also an issue in
other Asian countries [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi)

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imnotlost
>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said,
some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the
longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often
depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity.

The US game industry - except you don't get overtime pay (maybe pizza).

------
throw0101a
> _We have our own culturally ingrained things in America that I 'd like to
> change as well, and that are changing, but so slowly. How do you implement
> change?_

Out of curiosity, what would you like to change in the US?

~~~
zanny
Systemic racism and sexism (bigotry in general, and America to this day is
overflowing with it - for Muslims, LGBT, Hispanics, Africans, Chinese, etc..),
historical revisionism / fantasy, American exceptionalism, ideological
imperialism, cults around jobs and work, corporate personification, the
pervasive and toxic "I got mine, screw you" mindset, idolization of the rich,
anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and anti-expertise cultures.

~~~
kortilla
Nice gish gallop.

Those aren’t culturally ingrained in the US on any wide scale. It’s not the
expectation to be racist to move up in the corporate ladder in the US. We’re
talking about common culture across the majority of the group.

Not even American exceptionalism is common in workplaces (e.g. see every big
tech company). About the only thing that is common is that people think the
country is fucked up because of “the other political party”.

~~~
orpep90nxkfo
You made connections between things and the workplace that the parent did not
imply to my eye.

It was an array and you started making a dict, assuming whatever connections
you wanted.

See Americans are trained to not be so gaudy but quietly believe in these
things. I see it all the time when I actually push people to share their
political views. Democrats and liberal minded folks totally ok with bombing
the Middle East and making life cheaper and easier for America.

So I guess it’s something of a ymmv, depending on whether you actively dig or
just idly observe.

I think what the internet has shown is we all have wildly varying ideas of
what being free means at an individual scale but at a macro social like scale
pretty much just follow the corporate drum beat.

