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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

"Nearly a quarter of Japanese companies have employees working more than 80 hours overtime a month, often unpaid, a recent survey found. And 12% have employees breaking the 100 hours a month mark."

This is not uncommon in the US either, in the finance industry, at startups, at much bigger competitive companies, in medicine. I'm actually surprised there isn't more suicide, burnout, and depression from overwork in the US, or maybe the people just aren't as open about it in the US as they are in Japan.

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Working in Japan for a Japanese company I hope to give some insight.

I find most people in America that worked overtime felt that it was necessary to work because of all the tasks that needed to be completed. In Japan the overtime seems more "required" just to work overtime (not always the case of course). I think Americans get a lot more self-satisfaction when they finish their overtime shift (although they don't like it they know it was something that needed to be done).

I think there's a lot of stress and depression in the states from overwork (not as much depression from my group of friends), but not as much as Japan for a few reasons. One guess is that I find people in America more social than Japanese. Most of the "friends" relationships I see in Japan are more-so forced as they are coworkers who just go together and drink. I could be completely wrong here but I feel like they don't share their feelings and talk to reduce stress/depression as much as Americans.

One last thing about overtime is I feel most US companies have bursts of overtime when work needs to get done. Japanese companies often just have "permanent" overtime setting the mentality that they will be doing it forever.

What would happen if, as an American, I came into my job in Japan, worked my 40 hours a week, and went home each night at 5?

That's probably not a fair question, given that you're an American. There's immediately some difference in expectations.

A better question is what happens if a young college grad in Japan chooses work no unnecessary overtime?

Right! What happens in this scenario? How does this cycle get broken?

What happens in this scenario?

N=1 anecdote from a traditionally managed Japanese company.

If you (a twenty-something Japanese man) happen to say お先に失礼します。(announcing you're leaving) at 6:00 PM in front of the company's CEO during a site visit, and the CEO says, in a shocked voice, "I suppose you have somewhere more important to be right now.", and you say "Yes, I'm going on a date.", you can look forward to six months of nuclear-tipped ostracism from your colleagues and, when you complain to management about it, they will tell you "[Foreign employee] is more Japanese than you are; ask him."

The interesting thing is that this kind of scenario (young people wanting to leave early for $reason) happen more and more, and older people put that on the Yutori education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutori_education

Best case scenario: passed over for promotions, cut out of important work discussions, generally ostracized. Worst case scenario: outright abuse.

Just to give you a taste of this: In a previous job in Japan there was a work party on the weekend. I told my boss "I can't got, I have something to do" (A very normal way to refuse something in Japan. The expectation is that no one will ask what your vague reason is). This boss tries to pin me down on exactly why I won't be spending my day off on this event. This leads to 6 months of going over my work with a fine tooth comb, review periods and so on.

This sounds very similar to the work places I've seen in Japan, too. Essentially those who don't work as much unpaid, voluntary overtime as others don't get promotions, get shafted on bonuses, and very passive-aggressively "bullied."

I'm surprised your boss tried to pressure you for info. Usually the companies that are more traditional ('non-mandatory' aka mandatory outside activities) will follow cultural norms and just do the punishment without the asking.

Speaking as someone who spent a brief stint at a Japanese (but more recently multi-national) car company, I definitely felt that the foreign workers were given more leeway and almost expected to deviate from the traditional norms. My manager, who was a transplant from Britain, was much more willing to leave work right around 5:30, even when there were plenty of other workers (mostly Japanese) still around. It definitely won't be viewed favourably, but on the other hand, there is an attitude of "they're gaijin/not Japanese, so naturally they don't follow all our norms."

"they're gaijin/not Japanese, so naturally they don't follow all our norms."

This is kinda true but also kinda not. It glosses over that there are all kinds of "foreigners" and they aren't treated the same or thought of the same. You are using "foreigner" to mean (white) Americans/West Europeans.

I can assure you that Japanese don't feel that way about, say, Vietnamese or Malaysian foreigners. (I live in Vietnam, which has a fair number of Japanese companies. I have a Malaysian friend who left at 6pm one day and had a meeting with HR the next morning at 9am.)

My guess (based on admittedly little real evidence) is that they would also be less understanding of Asian-Americans who leave at 5pm than they are of white Americans who leave at 5pm.

One of the most surprising things I've found living in Asia is the large amount of racism pretty much everywhere. I've seen Chinese restaurants with signs saying "No Japanese allowed". I know a Vietnamese girl who puts in her online dating profile "Don't message me if you are Chinese". Heck, even regional "rivalries" are...rough. I was a cafe in South Vietnam where they refused to serve a group of customers from North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese asked, "Do you have tea?" The staff replied, "Yes, but only Southern tea" and walked away without taking their order.

My experience is very anecdotal, but I once heard about a teacher at a Japanese middle school that was like that. He got all his work done and was good at his job, but did typical 8-hour-days and left at 5.

The person telling me about him said while nobody showed any outward hostility towards him, he was kind ignored when it came to camaraderie between the staff, and perhaps even ostracized in a way. He seemed okay with not being too close with his coworkers though.

At the same time, I wasn't really there, so there could be more to it.

Foreign teachers often have a lot of leeway, particularly if they teach English. I taught English at first and all the Japanese were super friendly and kind (and I didn't work any overtime). If it's a Japanese teacher's example then I haven't seen the same. The preschool I taught at from 2-7pm had all the teacher's there at 7pm still. Everyday. School got out at 2pm.

I'm now working in a Japanese programming company (where no one speaks English) and the environment is completely different.

They do! The person telling me was a foreign teacher too.

I'll note that the man in this case was Japanese.

> This is not uncommon in the US either, in the finance industry, at startups, at much bigger competitive companies, in medicine.

Is it anywhere near 25% of the US companies, though? I doubt it.

Finance and startups are high-risk, high-return endeavors. It's one thing to work 80 hours of overtime as a trader/VP/software engineer earning good money, having a sense of autonomy and accomplishment, etc. And if you quit or your startup fails, you can always get another job, change fields or even take a break. It won't be a black mark against you.

It's a very different thing to work 80 hours of unpaid overtime as a courier [0], with no autonomy and virtually no career progression. Sure, you can quit. But the perception is, "why would I quit if the alternative is just a different delivery sweatshop?".

FWIW professions/companies that have strong unions tend to have less problems with unpaid overtime, but they're a minority.

[0] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/04/business/corpora...

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