
Japan's Rail Workers Pointing at Things (2017) - ColinWright
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains
======
Dangeranger
When I worked on a large historical sailing ship that required a dozen crew to
perform tasks like raising sails, tacking, or reefing, we followed a call-and-
response verbal command system for many of the same reasons.

When the helmsman would yell out "Ready about!", we would check the
surroundings and respond "Ready!", then we would listen for "Helms Alee!" and
prepare to switch sides and trim the sails. This process made sure that all of
the crew were synchronized as to the current step in the process.[0]

[0]
[http://lrsailingcenter.com/posts/tacking/](http://lrsailingcenter.com/posts/tacking/)

~~~
toomanybeersies
When I used to do manual labour, I used to do this when told to do tasks. e.g.
if someone said "Go and sweep the leaves and put them in the bin", I'd clarify
and say "So I'm sweeping those leaves and putting them in the bin?".

It worked well in making sure everyone was on the same page about what I was
actually supposed to be doing. I eventually stopped doing it though because
people got annoyed and thought I was stupid or just not listening to them,
which was ironic because that's exactly the opposite of what was happening.

It's a shame really, because it did minimise errors. There's nothing more
annoying for everyone then when someone spends hours doing the wrong task
because of poor communication.

~~~
zrobotics
Whereas at the automotive shop I used to work at, everyone else picked that
habit up from me. I'd picked it up from experience in aviation line service
during high school. My coworkers acted annoyed for the first week, but they
quickly realized I didn't expect a response and it made communication in a
noisy shop clearer.

Especially after the day that a coworker got confused about which truck was
which, and drilled a 3.5" hole in the bed of a brand new truck (thinking it
was getting a gooseneck hitch). After that, everyone else started repeating
verbal instructions as well.

~~~
rhacker
OUCH, what happened, did your shop end up going through insurance to get the
bed replaced?

I am only curious because this almost happened to me... and I was so glad when
I found out they didn't put in the holes yet.

~~~
zrobotics
We ended up giving the customer a free gooseneck hitch. Thankfully he had
intended to install one eventually, but it wasn't a pleasant day.

------
kartan
> While some workers point-and-call more enthusiastically than others

Yes, I have seen this. Rail workers are great at it, but in other places, it
can get worse. I saw a guy pointing to both sides of the sidewalk - to assure
that it was free of people - before letting a truck get into a parking lot.
His colleague will barely move the hands. It looked slightly awkward.

> Japanese commentators have theorized that Western employees feel “silly”
> performing the requisite gestures and calls.

I guess that this is what humans are bad at. We overvalue our awareness, and
we put a lot of much weight on any act with social implications.

While I was at Fuji, I saw what it seemed a guy training alongside the train
driver. He laughed time to time at his own movements. They both had a great
time. So, even for Japanese, seems that the situation is slightly awkward.

~~~
newsbinator
I wonder why we evolved to feel silly. You'd think the safety aspect of
looking silly would outweigh the social aspect of doing things that cause
mocking in others.

~~~
jplayer01
We evolved to overvalue the opinion of our peers. Back when we lived in tribes
of 20-50, it was incredibly important to fit in and be accepted. It's
maladaptive when the same mechanism is at work when doing something modern
that is silly on an individual social level but incredibly
important/beneficial on a rational one.

------
Netcob
I would be prepared to completely ignore (and definitely not laugh at) rail
personnel performing a naked rain dance if it meant that the trains would
arrive on time more often. Hell, I'd join in if that helped.

~~~
crooked-v
That sounds like a Shadowrun plot hook.

------
nullandvoid
The book I'm reading currently 'modular habits' uses the Japanese train
conductors usage of this finger pointing an example of how to reinforce habits
- the accident reduction noted with this technique was quite significant.

On another note - how strange is it when you learn something new of which you
haven't known about your whole life only to several days later see it appear
on hn.. is there a name for this sort of thing?

~~~
pfooti
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader%E2%80%93Meinhof_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader%E2%80%93Meinhof_effect)

~~~
JimboOmega
A subset of that I've noticed is whatever type of vehicle I'm driving seems
way more common the road. Whether that's a motorcycle, a convertible, or a
bland rented sedan.

~~~
jchw
I believe as a running gag, in some of the Grand Theft Auto games, whatever
vehicle you are driving in will appear significantly more often. Not sure if
this is still the case, but I always found it amusing, since yeah, I also
noticed this effect in real life (even if it's just fallacious.)

~~~
stordoff
I have read, though I'm struggling to find an original source, that it was due
to memory constraints - it was easier to spawn a vehicle if it was already
loaded than to keep paging between them.

~~~
jchw
That sounds like it is probably true. I have never heard any official
confirmation that it was a gag, so I think this explanation must be the
correct one.

------
gnom69
I do something similiar with my keys: "I'm putting my keys on the sideboard".

Before that I occasionally "lost" my keys because the location was never safed
to my long term memory. At least that's reproducably the error why I sometimes
just couldn't remember.

~~~
smcl
Having been locked out at annoying, inconvenient times of day I started follow
the same process a few years back. I feel like I'm going mad when I'm doing it
though, stepping out of my flat stopping, staring at my keys and consciously
placing them into my pocket. I'm so glad someone else does the same.

~~~
oska
I always lock my front door _from the outside_ when I leave the house. This
requires using my keys (unlike locking it from the inside). This means I never
leave my keys behind. It does require remembering to lock the front door but I
don't have any problem remembering to do that.

~~~
Tor3
My front door can only be locked with a key.. that effectively prevents me
from forgetting my keys inside.

------
martinkus
I use a similar system when deploying builds to production. The deployment
itself is a multi-step process where I have to pick out two artifacts, verify
that their git commit hashes are correct, then pick out the correct jenkins
jobs and run them in a specific order (providing artifact numbers as input).
At every stage I point to my screen, read out the information and only click
on things that I'm pointing at. This may be anecdotal but multiple times I
have stopped myself from clicking on the wrong thing only after saying its
name out loud.

~~~
tantalor
Er isn't that what scripting is for?

~~~
ColinWright
Not everything can be scripted, automation doesn't always repay the work
expended in creating and maintaining it[0][1], and sometimes it's just worth
having a human in the loop to know what's going on.

So, no, it isn't.

[0] [https://xkcd.com/1205/](https://xkcd.com/1205/)

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1319/](https://xkcd.com/1319/)

~~~
russdill
The process described is not only easily scriptable, but are things for which
a human could very commonly make a mistake. You can add things in to include a
human in the loop, maybe hitting return at each step, or hitting y, but
deploying to production should never depend on a series of manual steps except
when absolutely necessary

~~~
ColinWright
martinkus> _... I have to pick out two artifacts ... pick out the correct
jenkins jobs and run them in a specific order ..._

russdill> _The process described is not only easily scriptable, ..._

From the description given you can't know that.

russdill> _... deploying to production should never depend on a series of
manual steps except when absolutely necessary._

So you, without knowing exactly what this person is doing, are declaring that
it's not absolutely necessary? That's very bold of you.

~~~
russdill
They listed exactly what they are doing. The artifacts they are picking out
should already be tagged with the release. The script to push those to
production can use those tags to know what to push and what git commit hashes
to check.

ETA: I'll add that when pushing production, the amount not just you can waste,
but everyone down the line from users, developers, testers, etc, etc, can be
huge. Calculating how much time _you_ would save isn't useful.

~~~
BrowncoatShadow
I don't want to say you are wrong, because there are a lot of situations
(most?) where deployment automation can greatly reduce errors.

However, there can also be a number of reasons why builds and deployments
could not be automated safely:

\- "Production" is not a single environment, but multiple customer
environments with multiple deployment version targets based on need/contract.
Customer environments might not even be accessible from same network as
build/deploy machines.

\- Code is for industrial/embedded/non-networked equipment.

\- Policies dictated by own company or regulatory body require builds are
manually checked and deployed by a human who can validate and sign off.

There really is no way of knowing. Automation can save hundreds and thousands
of man-hours and reduce margin of error; but it is not applicable to every
scenario. Sometimes manual work reinforced by good habits and processes are
the tool for the job. As much as it pains be to say, as my job is automation.

------
woodruffw
NYC's conductors do a similar thing when they pull into stations[1].

The urban myth that I grew up with was that they were pointing at a hidden
camera to show the dispatcher that they're awake, but the article I linked
below suggests that it was taken directly from the Japanese railway.

[1]: [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-
st...](https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mta-conductors-point-stopping-
subway-station-article-1.3502286)

~~~
CoolGuySteve
They point at a horizontally narrow sign board with diagonal black and white
strips on it. In any station, you can find the exact middle of the platform by
standing under this sign.

[https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/12133255/N...](https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/12133255/NYC-subway-zebra-signs-2.jpg)

So if you want, you can meet someone on a specific train car if you stand
somewhere in relation to the board.

I used to meet up with my wife who worked 2 stations north of me using this
technique without either of us disembarking. It was pretty handy.

~~~
Danieru
Does that mean the train cars and doors are not numbered? On Tokyo subways one
can say "I'm at door A of car 12" to arrange meetings.

~~~
untog
They aren't. Well, they are numbered but they're basically car serial numbers,
not anything all that useful in terms of standing in the right place when
waiting for the train.

~~~
Tor3
In Tokyo (and elsewhere in Japan) there are signs indicating where your car
(e.g. car 4) will be when the train has stopped, so you just wait there. And
when the train stops, the door is right in front of you..

------
Animats
Hand signals are common for many blue-collar team jobs. Cranes, aircraft ramp
operations, marine work, military - where getting it wrong is deadly or at
least expensive. It's only rare to white-collar types.

It's the opposite of "move fast and break things". Heavy-lift companies and
marine salvage companies (there's overlap) are in the business of "move slowly
and don't break things". Mammoet, Titan, and Smit all have videos on line of
some of their jobs. They are way into overpreparing. They have more gear on
site than you'd think was needed, they prepare for as much as a year for some
operations, there are detailed, written plans and backup plans which have been
rehearsed and talked through by the people involved, and then on the big day,
everything goes so smoothly it's dull. Watch some of those videos and you'll
see some explicit hand signals.

~~~
jacquesm
Long ago I spent a good bit of time in Rotterdam Harbor. What I distinctly
remember is that when I first got there it was all a huge mystery to me, some
kind of machine that moved by itself without any indication of what was going
on and what would happen next. Then, over time I started to learn how to
'read' the dockside, and a good part of that was learning how to interpret the
handsignals of the various crews to know when it was ok to pass and when it
definitely wasn't.

------
GauntletWizard
When I was at Google, my team and other SRE teams around us adopted a similar
approach to sensitive operations - deploys and data migrations and the like.
We'd have one of us on the keyboard operating, and another looking over our
shoulder. The operator would type a command and they verbally confirm the
action they were going to take. Their partner would look it over and give
verbal acknowledgement. We certainly still had mistakes, but I found that
environment very helpful - and it was an almost necessary part of zero-blame
postmortems, because every action was not one person, but equally shared
between two.

~~~
walshemj
I used to use check lists for this sort of critical tasks obvisly much smaller
systems back then a 16 machine cluster was a big deal

------
JackFr
Many basketball players, after shooting a free throw for a technical or
flagrant foul (where they are alone at the free throw line and no one else is
lined up on the key) will reach out and slap the hands of their imaginary
teammates like they would after a normal free throw. I always wondered if it
was superstition, unconscious habit, or a developed habit.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Makes me wonder if they practice that way. They probably don't break form and
high-five a teammate when they're practicing...

------
sixhobbits
(2017).

Previous discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14011793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14011793)

------
Medraut
It's effective for more than just safety. I suffer from mild anxiety over
whether I have taken certain actions in a variety of every day scenarios. This
behavior (pointing and verbally acknowledging) helps me cope with that sense
of unease.

~~~
themodelplumber
That makes sense to me. Logging and measurement are also used for this purpose
--increasing productive control over a (human in this case) system.

------
Thorrez
I came up with a new phishing avoidance scheme based on this, point at the url
bar before typing your password.

------
johan_larson
"I'm reading an article on HN about Japanese rail workers pointing at things."
"Done."

"I'm composing a snarky comment about Japanese rail workers pointing at
things." "Done."

"I'm pressing 'add comment' to post a snarky comment about Japanese rail
workers pointing at things." Wait, what? No. I know better than that. Abort.

------
they_live
It’s kind of strange to see a country as dilligent as it is, and obsessed with
flawless execution as one finds its citizenry to be (Japan really does make
some of the best stuff) that there’s some sort of emotional toll that leads to
a high suicide rate and low birth rate.

Which is really a bummer, because on some level you tend to think, to buy into
a stereotype, that the Japanese have their shit together, and you admire that,
but the negative space of these qualities is that they never step out of line,
and when they do, it’s the end of the world.

~~~
Tor3
It's.. not really that. The step-out-of-line thing, I mean. But the pressure
on young people is extremely hard, it's literally passing an exam to enter
every step of your education (exam when finishing a step, a new one to enter)
from kindergarden and up (and even earlier, for really obsessed/concerned
parents). Extremely long hours (and a lot of that comes from culture, so yes
that's also a part) for students and workers alike. The moment you feel unable
to handle the pressure things will fall apart quickly.

------
benbristow
One of the most interesting things I saw on the rails when I was in Japan this
year was on the Shinkansen (Bullet train) from Kyoto to Tokyo (and back
again).

Every time the train guard went through, when he got to the front of the door
he'd turn around, do a 180 spin to face the passengers and give them a salute
before 180 spinning back and going to the next carriage in front. I know it's
a cultural thing but it's a nice touch.

~~~
Tor3
Yes, it is nice, isn't it? I remember the first time I came to Japan. From the
airplane I could see three of the baggage crew -- white gloves, and all three
of them did a bow to the airplane before they started working.

------
yborg
This is interesting, I remember watching "Carrier" and noticing that the
'shooters' at the catapult controls followed the same process of pointing at
their board (and even out the window at the plane) as they went through their
launch checklist.

~~~
neurotech1
All aircraft handlers use hand signals, such as the crew who direct the plane
on deck after landing, the crew that directs the jets onto the catapult, the
catapult deck crew, and the pilots.

------
genericone
Similarly for climbers:
[https://opp.uoregon.edu/climbing/topics/signals.html](https://opp.uoregon.edu/climbing/topics/signals.html)

~~~
carlmr
True, didn't even think of it, I don't like climbing with people that don't do
this.

------
Havoc
This also works for stuff like switching off the stove or locking the front
door. If you find yourself second guessing whether you did it...just narrate
the activity as you do it. Sticks much better

------
zeeZ
Why drop the "why" from the title? Without it I assumed this was about
behavior they carried over from what is otherwise just another mandatory
workplace policy.

~~~
ColinWright
I used the marklet to submit this directly, so it got lost somewhere in the
automated process - it wasn't deliberately omitted.

------
DoctorOetker
I am not sure I understand how it works, but if I had to take a guess it is
because normally your thoughts and attention are invisible to others, but if
policy mandates you to use body language to indicate your attention, then the
employee realizes any lapse in attention will be visible from afar, so the
employee who doesn't want to be seen losing attention it becomes mandatory to
constantly show that yes you are in fact still paying attention...

------
hondish
'Shooters' in a US aircraift carrier doing 'point and call', showing you can
have fun and be safe at the same time:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqlwAWuMTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqlwAWuMTg)
It's a choreographed checklist, which is great because others can notice if
you miss anything.

------
amyjess
I've learned that the best way to make sure I don't forget to put my phone
charger in my purse when I go to work in the morning is to point at the outlet
and say "Charger, set!".

I got the idea after the last time an article about this phenomenon was
posted, and it's worked beautifully since.

------
interfixus
If Japanese rail does x, x is probably worth looking into.

~~~
achamayou
Best start wearing white gloves then!

~~~
bmer
Wouldn't be surprised if maintaining a crisp uniform is part of keeping up a
sense of attention to detail, which again, would feed back into
safety/efficiency.

~~~
snvzz
I was at an arcade recently that had these "denshade" train driving
simulators. The cabinet had an uniform to put on.

It sure helped get into the role.

------
bitwize
I think it's neat. It visually and auditorily confirms to others that you are
checking what needs to be checked, and reinforces the check in your own mind,
letting you think about whether _you_ are doing it properly.

Similarly, Japanese sysadmins must write down -- and get approval for -- every
single shell command they intend to execute on prod before actually issuing
the command, specifically to reduce the number of 'rm -rf /' oopses (and other
breaking changes).

It may look unusual, but I wouldn't call such a thing silly. I've noticed that
Japanese workers do just about everything so patently deliberately that there
must always be a reason for it being that way.

------
autokad
I do this in every day life, it makes sure I don't forget things and gives me
assurance that I did it. no more "did I turn off the oven?"

------
linkmotif
I see this all the time on the New York Subway too when conductors lean out
and point. Must be the same thing?

~~~
ColinWright
Yes, and it's been mentioned both here in this thread[0] and in the article
itself[1].

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955029](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955029)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955102)

------
matthewfelgate
If I point at my code will I make fewer mistakes. :-)

