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Japan and ... Overtime

pathetic...
overtime is more or less what people do here...
of course people should feel free to play their cards, so just kick it...
people who dont stick with the japanese work ethics dont really work here..
 
There would have to be an obscene amount of money involved to convince me to work for an actual comparable Japanese company. I once visited the Japanese arm of the company I work for to attend a workshop on process improvement (lol) and it was already kind of like stepping onto another planet. I could talk about that experience all day because it was actually really cool for the most part but the part that's relevant to the thread is this:

The salaried workers like me put in a shitload of extra hours and it's almost totally uneccesary. These dudes are duplicating work, doing tasks manually that we already spent a million dollars implementing computer systems to handle and take like a hundred smoke breaks while they're at it.

None of that was really a surprise though since my wife has been working for a Japanese firm for a while now even before I did that. She's hourly though but still gets subjected to all kinds of extra unpaid time doing shit. That pisses me off because even the cheapest Asian companies over here in the states will do one of three things: pay you the overtime, send you home on time to avoid paying the extra money or make you salaried so you can slave away legally, lol.
 
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Frenchy said:
I actually try to force my staff not to do overtime and to take all their vacations. Slowly they understand that I dont give a damn about the number of hours they stay at office , but about their results and overall behaviour. But it's hard to do that in a country where displaying "gaman" is seen as a virtue, even if most of the time it's BS.
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I'm with you Frenchy. But I take it a few steps further. I require that all managers make sure that their staff document overtime; hrs and what they were doing. I require that, at budget time, all managers agree that they have enough staff and manpower to meet their goals so there should be no reason for regular overtime. I have susequently pretty much eliminated all paid overtime. I myself set and example by being in the office only about 45 hrs a week. I tell managers that if they are in the office regularly after 5:30 to relax, bullshit with staff and kill time before going home, they are setting a bad example and need to stop it. Its a work place not a social club. It is bad bullshit Japanese culture. Anyone who can't get their work done or doesn't want to go home or to the bar or too the gym, is a fucking loser.

Weak Japanese people do this because they think that if they put in long hours it creates a sense of obligation with senior management: Hiroshi's dept missed its goals but he works long hours. He must be very dedicated so we can't ever lay him off. I call BS on that. We provide enough resources to get the job done. If it is not getting done then there is a problem with ability and efficiency.
 
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I've broken some barriers down in my time since I've been where I am now. I'm an extreme minority in a otherwise very Japanese and very large company.
We have a minimum number of hours we have to report each week and now we have a hard limit as to how much you can work with new strict overtime rules coming into play. Before, this I was already pushing people out of the office and go home or go do something else besides stay at work.

Once I got my own team years ago, I really groomed them to break out of the deadlock of staying in the office for appearances or getting them to balance assignments to where hours put in equaled an appropriate work product output. I had some guys that would put in 7-10 hours a day but the results they came up with on a weekly basis were dismal. I've cleaned house and refined teams and I think most people are happy.

Bottom line - I've cut overtime down to an acceptable level. At certain points in the year, we have to really push things but we balance it pretty well and no single team member feels overburdened with a certain task. (I do require some comments on job charges when team members exceed 8 hours in a day.)

Vacations... still working on that one. Even I have nearly two months of vacation stored up that I've barely touched. :(
 
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TAG Manager said:
Even I have nearly two months of vacation stored up that I've barely touched.
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I started the year with 40 days (20 for this year, 20 carried over from last). I currently have 39. :(
 
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Sudsy said:
I started the year with 40 days (20 for this year, 20 carried over from last). I currently have 39. :(
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Yup, that's close to what I've got. We also have a mandatory vacation requirement which is not counted in the regular PTO time bank.
I don't have real vacation plans on the board except Christmas and New Years, but most of those are already holidays so not much PTO will be used.
 
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Sudsy said:
I started the year with 40 days (20 for this year, 20 carried over from last). I currently have 39. :(
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No carry overs is a good rule. The purpose of vacation is to recharge the batteries. 20 days taken in a few week long vacations combined with holidays is more than enough to recharge. Anyone who can take 40 days off in a year is probably in a postion that can be eliminated...
 
You guys are crazy! Life is short! You can have paid vacations (a luxury in most countries and history), use them!
Ok I'm French , spare me the stereotypes about lazyness etc :)
 
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Frenchy said:
You guys are crazy! Life is short! You can have paid vacations (a luxury in most countries and history), use them!
Ok I'm French , spare me the stereotypes about lazyness etc :)
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Most French people I have met are miserable and always complaining about something. Why is that?
 
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warubuta said:
nyone who can take 40 days off in a year is probably in a postion that can be eliminated...
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Not true. :) In a normal year when things are under control, I spend two months of the year outside of Japan. I can delegate a number of things, but other stuff has to make it's way to me for review which I'll do from wherever I am in the world. It's really no different than being on an extended business trip with multiple stops. I'd say probably 2-4 weeks out of the year are true disconnects, but it's usually when we've hit bottom just after a busy closing period.
 
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warubuta said:
Most French people I have met are miserable and always complaining about something. Why is that?
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It's our God-given right. When He created humankind He decided "And there shall be a Tribe who lives in a great country with wonderful wines and food and paid holidays and free education and healthcare and all kinds of freedom and be considered (wrongly) the sexiest nation and yet bitch and moan all the time"
That's us. :D
 
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Ive worked for 2 Japanese companies. both were basically day-care for adults. nobody does very much all day, long meetings in the morning, long lunch breaks, cigarette breaks, more meetings. Then at 4pm everyone starts to get motivated to come up with things to do, and actually start working, and they remain busy until about 8 or 9pm, then they spend 30 mins to 1 hour going to a convenience store to get dinner and eating at their desks. then do some more work or chat to each other, then leave, claiming they have worked a 12-13 hour day when actually they've probably done 4-5 hours actual work. repeat x 5 then sleep all weekend. back in on Monday.
 
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TAG Manager said:
Not true. :) In a normal year when things are under control, I spend two months of the year outside of Japan. I can delegate a number of things, but other stuff has to make it's way to me for review which I'll do from wherever I am in the world. It's really no different than being on an extended business trip with multiple stops. I'd say probably 2-4 weeks out of the year are true disconnects, but it's usually when we've hit bottom just after a busy closing period.
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I was just trolling...different roles require different approaches.
 
Frenchy said:
It's our God-given right. When He created humankind He decided "And there shall be a Tribe who lives in a great country with wonderful wines and food and paid holidays and free education and healthcare and all kinds of freedom and be considered (wrongly) the sexiest nation and yet bitch and moan all the time"
That's us. :D
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So true.
 
Durg50 said:
Ive worked for 2 Japanese companies. both were basically day-care for adults. nobody does very much all day, long meetings in the morning, long lunch breaks, cigarette breaks, more meetings. Then at 4pm everyone starts to get motivated to come up with things to do, and actually start working, and they remain busy until about 8 or 9pm, then they spend 30 mins to 1 hour going to a convenience store to get dinner and eating at their desks. then do some more work or chat to each other, then leave, claiming they have worked a 12-13 hour day when actually they've probably done 4-5 hours actual work. repeat x 5 then sleep all weekend. back in on Monday.
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Wonderful country innit? :D
 
Warubuta-san, you have a tech issue with the reply button apparently.
But yes, so true. Sometimes when I hear other frenchies it makes me laugh how bitching and moaning we all are.
Then i find some reasons to do it as well coz I'm God-obedient. :D
 
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Frenchy said:
It's our God-given right. When He created humankind He decided "And there shall be a Tribe who lives in a great country with wonderful wines and food and paid holidays and free education and healthcare and all kinds of freedom and be considered (wrongly) the sexiest nation and yet bitch and moan all the time"
That's us. :D
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Caesar wrote about it, noting "veni, vidi, visa", didn't he?
 
Durg50 said:
Ive worked for 2 Japanese companies. both were basically day-care for adults. nobody does very much all day, long meetings in the morning, long lunch breaks, cigarette breaks, more meetings. Then at 4pm everyone starts to get motivated to come up with things to do, and actually start working, and they remain busy until about 8 or 9pm, then they spend 30 mins to 1 hour going to a convenience store to get dinner and eating at their desks. then do some more work or chat to each other, then leave, claiming they have worked a 12-13 hour day when actually they've probably done 4-5 hours actual work. repeat x 5 then sleep all weekend. back in on Monday.
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When I worked in Tokyo for a Japanese company, it was like that. The problem for me was continuous lengthy low-intensity work for which I had to stay in the office often till midnight. Even the intensity was low, it was stressful and pretty much energy draining.
 
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warubuta said:
Anyone who can take 40 days off in a year is probably in a postion that can be eliminated...
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In some countries that's actually the legally mandated amount of vacation for full time employees, and is required to be taken.
 
Ken1988 said:
Caesar wrote about it, noting "veni, vidi, visa", didn't he?
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It was "veni,vidi , vici" wasnt it?
Anyway Gaul (current France) was not even a country back then, just a bunch of Celts tribes eating wild boar and too busy to fight each other !
 
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