17% of all J-slaves have 'Service ZANGYO'

[Taro Toporific]

Unpaid Overtime Surging in Japan
Mon, Jul. 07, 2003 Associated Press
... The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's leading business newspaper, saidthe number of violations was the highest since 1971 ... A total of 17,000 companies, or 13 percent of those labor officials inspected, admitted to failing to pay overtime or nighttime allowances last year

[Captain Japan]

Most of the violators involved small- and medium-sized firms, which are hit hard by Japan's more than a decade-long slump.

At my office when you work overtime you enter it into a log. There is a maximum amount of hours each day (as I remember it is only a few hours) that can be claimed. So everyone working til midnight just puts down the maximum.

I think, though it is hard to tell, that this story is pointing out companies that don't pay overtime of any kind. Is that right?

But really, this has nothing to do with companies being hit hard with anything other than stupidity. There is an obligation to work late that is inherent. As business gets worse and worse, the creativity that one goes through to pretend to be busy (to justify the resulting need to work late) gets more and more desperate. I foresee outright (intentional) sabatoge of business operations coming soon.

[Shibuya Me]

Hello!

I currently work at an employment agency in Tokyo. I can tell you from my 2.5 years of experience that 90% of the people I interview tell me that they work over-time and do not get paid for their efforts. They work from 9am to 11 or 12pm every night!

These people are tired. They are sad. They are just plain bored with their lives to the point that they are ready to commit...you know.

Anyway, I wonder why they put up with it? They don't like to do it...you know work longer hours...but they defend the fact that they work harder because they work longer hours. Is working longer hours working harder?

Brain-washing at it's finest? I think this may be the case. I for one work for money. Why do the Japanese work such long hours for? They are only making the owners rich... while they become very stressed and begin to drink much tooooo much! 600 people in Japan are killing themselves every week...due to depression of not being able to locate a job- or just working much tooooo much! And recently internet suicide is becoming the norm! The norm?!

I hope someone in Japan "who is Japanese"...starts a revolution. That is the only way to help themselves. Well, not the only way. I am sure we can think of other ways to make this society better....?

[Taro Toporific]

...when you work overtime you enter it into a log. There is a maximum amount of hours each day (as I remember it is only a few hours) that can be claimed... As business gets worse and worse, the creativity that one goes through to pretend to be busy (to justify the resulting need to work late) gets more and more desperate. I foresee outright (intentional) sabatoge of business operations coming soon.

Computer service people have reported a HUGE 500% increase are lost data and crashes on the official "No Overtime Weds" here at Maybe-the-Largest Inc.

Anyone with a system crash that could result in the loss of valuable/sensitive data is required to stay overtime until the service person makes a repair or provides a shoporder and receipt to take the hard disk to Elves Workshop for further examination.

[Taro Toporific]

I currently work at an employment agency in Tokyo. I can tell you from my 2.5 years of experience that 90% of the people I interview tell me that they work over-time and do not get paid for their efforts. . .

I will take a wild guess and say only 17% are willing to report unpaid over-time but 90% of the people do it. Hell, I'm doing it right now. I have to "make up" for the lack of any real work all day I've been here since before 8am.

[Neo-Rio]

For anyone who hasn't even worked in a Japanese company, I can voice my opinion on it.

Overwork is indeed brainwashing. There is nobody forcing you to stay longer than normal. Nothing at all. It is almost the Tao of mind-control going on here. Rather than voice and rigourously punish those who don't stay, you soon begin to notice that trying to leave early gets a weird reaction from people around you.... they start to get sad,... and then confused,... and wonder why you are leaving them..... just like that clingy/stalker-like J-girl you dated that just wouldn't stop calling you after you had finished your business with her.

That is to say, they want to control you by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what people would normally do if they wanted to control you (like get pissed off, throw a tantrum, etc). People who don't catch onto this are thrown for a loop, because it seems like an obvious contradiction of a way to control someone, so they are suckered into overworking as so not to make the boss and co-workers break down and cry (or hate them later).
It reminds me VERY much like the kind of stunt you'd expect a 5 year old to pull when they don't get their way.

All very well to say "Fuck you are the rules! I don't care what my other workers think!", except when you realise that japanese society makes it very hard to have friends and a social support network out in public (everybody wants to know your job so they can judge yourimportace to them). PLUS if you're Japanese, all the friends you have are all AT work...
Let's not also forget than in most big companies, human and interpersonal relationships are the pits anyway because all the bosses superiors run around like their office is feudal Japan, and they are shogun.
There's little to no escape for the average salary man or OL.

Hence this vicious circle of overworking perpetuates itself. Nobody gets time to have a life outside the company, and they spend all their life sleeping, on a train, or at a desk. And when you consider the lack of mental activity required for all three of these activities... it's not hard to see why some people just go over the edge.

Then before I entered my company, the boss told me a "little story" about some Chinese guy (who may or may not have existed as far as I know), who always went home on time. And he ALWAYS left his coworkers behind, and it was sad, because they all needed him to be around... just in case they had a problem which only he could solve... and if he was gone they couldn't solve it. So he didn't me to be like the Chinese guy that couldn't hack it.

(It was then that I sussed that everyone in my office, and probably all the rest of the company workers all over Japan, had been brainwashed to staying around... and it was going to be a race to see who would be the first to leave, the first insecure soul who would throw the office equivalent of "the first punch")

The thing that really pisses me off about the double standards in Japan is this.... They are totally anal about being on time for work, but as far as going home "on time" is concerned, they are totally disorganised.

I see this as an area of leverage for my office.......

Even thought the labor law states that workers cannot work over certain hours without extra pay, Japanese firms circumnavigate this by getting their salarymen on "Yearly contracts" (Think JET program) where they get guaranteed a certain amount of pay for the year. That way it doesn't matter how much overwork you do, they don't have to pay you for it as you signed for a yearly flat-rate wage. Don't sign? No Job!
Even when the yearly wage it flat-rate, there's the feeling of being socially ostracised if you don't overwork - which most socially inept Japanese workers fall into the trap of.

The problem is, is that the Japanese people are just too civil to make a fuss about it. But like Freud once propositioned, who benefits the most from civilizing society?

[gomichild]

When we were pushing a deadline I'd stay overtime (unpaid of course) - but when there wasn't I was outta that door by 6pm.

My shacho started to check the amount of work I did each day - he was amazed at the volume - I was making up things to do because I didn't have enough given to me. He was also amazed to discover that I had taken over part of someone else's job because he was overloaded and I was able to do it.

After a week of checking and then some secret ones later on he soon learned not to raise an eyebrow at my leaving on time.

[Big Booger]

I work overtime, if I feel like it.. sometimes I just use the company internet cause it used to be faster

I think overtime is horseshit, and if you work it, you should be reimbursed for your effort..

AFAIK, many employees in Japan get bonuses. Is this not why they work overtime?

[Jack]

I have never worked in Japan but I have known many people who have. In my observation, they work overtime uselessly. They could finish their work by 5 p.m. but since the boss is still hanging around, all his staff hangs around doing who know what? I had a girl who works at Docomo till midnight almost every night. I scolded her once for not telling her boss that she needs to go home earlier. She never got paid overtime but she did get extra vacation days. She is paid 3 million yen a year and company dorm and works from 9 a.m. to midnight 5 days a week and often goes to the office on Saturdays. Frankly, she deserve whatever happens to her because she has no balls to stand up for herself. She hates her job and hates her boss but she is hanging on to the job nonetheless.

[kamome]

I have never worked in Japan but I have known many people who have. In my observation, they work overtime uselessly. They could finish their work by 5 p.m. but since the boss is still hanging around, all his staff hangs around doing who know what? I had a girl who works at Docomo till midnight almost every night. I scolded her once for not telling her boss that she needs to go home earlier. She never got paid overtime but she did get extra vacation days. She is paid 3 million yen a year and company dorm and works from 9 a.m. to midnight 5 days a week and often goes to the office on Saturdays. Frankly, she deserve whatever happens to her because she has no balls to stand up for herself. She hates her job and hates her boss but she is hanging on to the job nonetheless.

Yo ushould have been nicer to her, Jack. There is a very good reason why she "didn't have the balls" to stand up for herself. In Japan, the person who stands up for him or herself will be ostracised by co-workers and bosses and develop a reputation for being "selfish". I agree that it's pathetic, but those are the cultural expectations heaped upon workers in Japan.

I'd like to add that it's also pathetic how some Japanese wear their long hours like a badge of honor on their sleeve. They feel it's a bragging right if they pull an 18 hour work day. But it just means they've fulfilled cultural expectations and didn't necessarily work harder than their peers.

[DJEB]

Hello!

I currently work at an employment agency in Tokyo. I can tell you from my 2.5 years of experience that 90% of the people I interview tell me that they work over-time and do not get paid for their efforts. They work from 9am to 11 or 12pm every night!

These people are tired. They are sad. They are just plain bored with their lives to the point that they are ready to commit...you know.

Anyway, I wonder why they put up with it? They don't like to do it...you know work longer hours...but they defend the fact that they work harder because they work longer hours. Is working longer hours working harder?

Brain-washing at it's finest? I think this may be the case. I for one work for money. Why do the Japanese work such long hours for? They are only making the owners rich... while they become very stressed and begin to drink much tooooo much! 600 people in Japan are killing themselves every week...due to depression of not being able to locate a job- or just working much tooooo much! And recently internet suicide is becoming the norm! The norm?!

I hope someone in Japan "who is Japanese"...starts a revolution. That is the only way to help themselves. Well, not the only way. I am sure we can think of other ways to make this society better....?

Time for a J-Strike. Or better, a J-General Strike.