From what I’ve read, Japan’s work ethic has been more about presenteeism than productivity for a while. While long hours are the norm, it’s more important to be seen to be working than to be productive, so you don’t leave before the boss does, but you do spend a large amount of that time staring out the window or otherwise idling.
I always used to get from bosses, “Hicks! How come you’re not working?”
I go, “There’s nothing to do!”
And they go, “Well, you pretend like you’re working.”
Yeah, why don’t you pretend I’m working? You get paid more than me, you fantasize, buddy! Hell, pretend I’m mopping! Knock yourself out! I’ll pretend they’re buying stuff, we can close up! Hey, I’m the boss, now you’re fired! How’s that for a fantasy, buddy?
I worked at a place where basically every other department would stand in the lobby at 4:58 PM, waiting for accounting (which was on the other side of the building) to leave. If you didn’t wait, the CEO would likely see you from his office window and you’d be getting a “talking to” by your supervisor the next day. I have never before or since worked anywhere where I’ve seen so much collective time wasting, trying to keep up the appearance of being busy.
This was an American company. I don’t miss that shit hole in the slightest.
America has a mentality of “I’m paying you for your time, not the quality of your work.” Even if you complete the work assigned to you they will throw a hissy fit if you leave one minute early because that is one minute they are paying you that you arent available if something goes wrong.
It’s all ass backwards because it is cheaper in the short term to pay for cheap labor with low reliability and high availability than for expensive labor with high reliability and medium to low availability. If you take the high availability away from the former you are left with nothing.
Which, as a salaried engineer, is the stupidest fucking thing ever, and something I’ve dealt with over the vast majority of my career. You pay me to solve problems, not warm a chair and look over my shoulder. If you give me stupid metrics to hit (coughRTO metricscough), I’m going to maliciously comply and hit them in a stupid way that you won’t like, but that still abides by the rules and regs. If you are the problem, I will solve you.
That’s what I don’t understand about all this RTO. If a company foces me to come to the office 5 days, I might comply, but I will for sure stop working hard when I am on the office, unless I really love what I am doing, and they pay me a shit ton of money.
RTO metrics are more often than not about tax breaks, not that your boss wants to hover over you. By coming into the office you have a chance of stimulating the local economy and the government cuts taxes in return, but only if there are metrics showing that a certain percentage of your local staff are coming in. It is all really stupid, antiworker, and driven by money.
I am barely getting away with not returning to the office, but my company is cracking down on it. The moment they take my bonus or otherwise reprimand me is the moment I put in my notice.
Managers want to see you grow every year. If you do your best early on in your career, you will hurt your ability to show growth that’s visible to management. Therefore, the optimal solution is to do a better job by a barely perceptible amount every year, staying under your maximum quality output until you’re retired/dead.
depends on what you do. I’ve only seen that when working at a corporate grocery store as a teen. after that I’ve been surprised how it wasn’t that way at all even though I was always told in school it would be that way. every other workplace I’ve been in (office jobs) has treated everyone like an adult. get your work done and do it well and do what you need to do that. I’ve been pretty lucky I guess
This is also going away (and it’s less staring out the window and more pretending to be busy), but it’s not going to happen overnight, particularly where the micro-managing dinosaurs are still in control. I’ve worked at two (fairly westernized) Japanese companies and have not seen this personally, but know many who have.
I’ve been reading more about the job market in Spain lately and it sounds like they have a similar problem. Not nearly to the extent that Japan does, but similar attitudes about being at work for unnecessarily long hours even if there’s no real point. There doesn’t appear to be any reward, either. I don’t blame people for declining to participate.
From what I’ve read, Japan’s work ethic has been more about presenteeism than productivity for a while. While long hours are the norm, it’s more important to be seen to be working than to be productive, so you don’t leave before the boss does, but you do spend a large amount of that time staring out the window or otherwise idling.
Japan averages 31 hours a week.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-work-week-by-country
That’s what happens when presenteeism is rewarded over productivity.
I worked at a place where basically every other department would stand in the lobby at 4:58 PM, waiting for accounting (which was on the other side of the building) to leave. If you didn’t wait, the CEO would likely see you from his office window and you’d be getting a “talking to” by your supervisor the next day. I have never before or since worked anywhere where I’ve seen so much collective time wasting, trying to keep up the appearance of being busy.
This was an American company. I don’t miss that shit hole in the slightest.
America has a mentality of “I’m paying you for your time, not the quality of your work.” Even if you complete the work assigned to you they will throw a hissy fit if you leave one minute early because that is one minute they are paying you that you arent available if something goes wrong.
It’s all ass backwards because it is cheaper in the short term to pay for cheap labor with low reliability and high availability than for expensive labor with high reliability and medium to low availability. If you take the high availability away from the former you are left with nothing.
Which, as a salaried engineer, is the stupidest fucking thing ever, and something I’ve dealt with over the vast majority of my career. You pay me to solve problems, not warm a chair and look over my shoulder. If you give me stupid metrics to hit (coughRTO metricscough), I’m going to maliciously comply and hit them in a stupid way that you won’t like, but that still abides by the rules and regs. If you are the problem, I will solve you.
That’s what I don’t understand about all this RTO. If a company foces me to come to the office 5 days, I might comply, but I will for sure stop working hard when I am on the office, unless I really love what I am doing, and they pay me a shit ton of money.
If a company wastes my time, I’ll waste theirs.
RTO metrics are more often than not about tax breaks, not that your boss wants to hover over you. By coming into the office you have a chance of stimulating the local economy and the government cuts taxes in return, but only if there are metrics showing that a certain percentage of your local staff are coming in. It is all really stupid, antiworker, and driven by money.
I am barely getting away with not returning to the office, but my company is cracking down on it. The moment they take my bonus or otherwise reprimand me is the moment I put in my notice.
I know exactly what the RTO mandates are about.
My point is that I don’t care, and it’s not my problem, and I ca. elucidate specific ways in which it makes my job harder as a data pipeline engineer.
It’s a fucking dumb requirement, and it’s a particularly fucking dumb requirement for my particular job role.
Doing a good job is also self-defeating.
Managers want to see you grow every year. If you do your best early on in your career, you will hurt your ability to show growth that’s visible to management. Therefore, the optimal solution is to do a better job by a barely perceptible amount every year, staying under your maximum quality output until you’re retired/dead.
The reward for good work is more work
Which isn’t a bad philosophy if the rewards match. If they don’t, why would you do more than the minimum?
This is one reason I hope to never leave my sweet WFH gig
depends on what you do. I’ve only seen that when working at a corporate grocery store as a teen. after that I’ve been surprised how it wasn’t that way at all even though I was always told in school it would be that way. every other workplace I’ve been in (office jobs) has treated everyone like an adult. get your work done and do it well and do what you need to do that. I’ve been pretty lucky I guess
You are lucky. Office jobs with stack ranking are rife with backstabbers and politics.
til I’m Japanese
今こそ日本語の話し方を学ぶ、expatriadoさん。
Duolingoはもう選択肢にないようです
This is also going away (and it’s less staring out the window and more pretending to be busy), but it’s not going to happen overnight, particularly where the micro-managing dinosaurs are still in control. I’ve worked at two (fairly westernized) Japanese companies and have not seen this personally, but know many who have.
I’ve been reading more about the job market in Spain lately and it sounds like they have a similar problem. Not nearly to the extent that Japan does, but similar attitudes about being at work for unnecessarily long hours even if there’s no real point. There doesn’t appear to be any reward, either. I don’t blame people for declining to participate.
It is seen as a positive to fall asleep at work because it means you’re working hard 😂