Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo, WAS: Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

["Philip Lee" <philchlee@example.com>]

inefficiency .... the japanese companies will however pride themselves in their efficiency to get all their reports and work perfectly done. To them, that's what worth working for. Foreign companies to them, face the risk of producing bad quality work and on pursuing half hearted and incomplete work through lots of short cuts. Even if the Japanese companies do not prioritize enough, they pride themselves in their good work ethic and in establishing work processes that do not emphasize short cuts. Its a cruel way to separate the zombies and those who could understand work life balance and reward the zombies. To justify this, the zombies will question top management if top management would instead shoulder the risk to apologise to their clients should an approach to prioritize work result in errors and bad quality work. most of the time, top management will say - lets stick to the good Old japanese work processes and not cause any trouble.

 

So how do you get around to convince the top management that you can do a better job than those zombies? Even before showing results, you are not allowed to do it differently and spoil order. Thats the Japanese work order paradox....

 

On 7/21/08, jim grisanzio <Jim.Grisanzio@example.com> wrote:

David Shanahan wrote:

I've seen people killing themselves here for astoundingly low salaries.
It might explain a little bit the rise of the freeters.
   

And literally dying. This was in the news yesterday.

http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0717/TKY200807170270.html
http://www.skylark.co.jp/news/080718_pdf/080718.pdf
(in Japanese)

The article is about the labour inspection office confirming that
Takayuki Maezawa died from a stroke caused by overwork.
He was working as a manager of a Skylark restaurant, but
was only part-time or "contract" worker.
 

This is really sad. But I know quite a few people in the U.S. who have worked themselves to death in one way or another (mostly in New York where I used to live), so the Japanese don't have a corner on the stupidity market with their 100 hour work weeks. To me the notion of extreme "hard work" is necessary for short term and extraordinary circumstances, like wars and disasters and such. That's where it makes sense. But under normal life circumstances, extreme hard work (as defined by 100 hour work weeks, destroyed families, suicides, drug use, etc) is little more than an obvious demonstration of inefficiency.

Jim
--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/

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