Japanese To Become Slackers

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]Yomiuri: 60% believe Japanese to lose taste for hard work
About 60 percent of the public believe the Japanese will stop being hardworking in the future, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey. According to a face-to-face interview survey, conducted on July 12-13, only 35 percent of respondents said Japanese would continue to exhibit a hardworking diligence, the kind that has helped sustain the country's economic development, while 61 percent said they would not. In a similar survey conducted in 1984, 59 percent said Japanese people would remain hardworking, while 33 percent said they would not...more...

[bolt_krank]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the majority of work I've done in Japanese companies, a lot of Japanese don't necessarily work hard - they work long.
The stay in the office for 12, 14hrs - but end up doing about 6,7 hours work.

[Greji]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the majority of work I've done in Japanese companies, a lot of Japanese don't necessarily work hard - they work long.
The stay in the office for 12, 14hrs - but end up doing about 6,7 hours work.

Here, here!

[gomichild]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the majority of work I've done in Japanese companies, a lot of Japanese don't necessarily work hard - they work long.
The stay in the office for 12, 14hrs - but end up doing about 6,7 hours work.

That's my experience as well.

[omae mona]

What are they doing the rest of the time they're in the office?

[amdg]

What are they doing the rest of the time they're in the office?

Busywork, smoking, chatting, napping, but mostly.... taking too long to decide on what action to take with regard to simple matters.

[Midwinter]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the majority of work I've done in Japanese companies, a lot of Japanese don't necessarily work hard - they work long.
The stay in the office for 12, 14hrs - but end up doing about 6,7 hours work.

I have never seen anyone so right! As foreigners in the office we would do double the work in 8 hours those lazy bastards would in 14. Yet we were the bad guys as we would go home at 5.30pm on the fucking dot and not a minute later.

[ghostunit]

During my daily commute in Tokyo I see many tired Japanese people.

In the morning, the lucky ones to get a seat just doze off. But more than napping, they look as if trying to make up for lost sleep. Later in the night, when returning home, they have a quite worrisome bloodshot look.

If they actually reduced the number of hours they work without being cynical about "becoming lazier" I think it would be great.

[plaid_knight]

>What do they do during the time they are supposed to be working?

Sometimes it's editing wikipedia articles on gundam (god damn) or watching stuff on youtube.

[ninjaboy]

They were like this 10 years ago. I used to work in local government (JET Programme as a CIR) and spent everyday phoning/chasing my Japanese colleagues up to complete their contribution to a project. Their laziness (and it IS laziness - nothing else) angered me to the point I wanted to march into their offices, point a gun to the back of their head, and demand they drop the bento and do some WORK!!!!
And I was the only one in the whole kencho who would arrive to meetings on time, properly dressed, and ready to go. None of them ever did.
The Japanese are (no disrespect intended) the laziest race I've ever met

[Behan]

During the summer vacation I had to go into my school for speech contest practice and almost all of the teachers came late. They should just have the summer off IMO but the tardiness was surprising.

[Mulboyne]

It's surprising to hear people's observations that their Japanese colleagues are often late. Perhaps tardiness is more a feature of certain public sector jobs in Japan rather than the private sector because Japanese office workers I've encountered are punctual. Usually more so than non-Japanese I've worked with. I'm also pretty certain that factory workers wouldn't get away with turning up late either, especially since a lot of them have to clock on.

[Behan]

When classes are in session the teachers are really punctual and being late is really frowned upon so it was really surprising that almost noone was there on time.
A lot of the teachers and staff have nothing to do so there is no harm done.

[Mike Oxlong]

Behan, I've been told that many years ago, public school teachers could easily take several weeks of nenkyu over the summer student break, and could also easily take "jitaku kenshu" to study/work at home over the same summer period. Over the years, other public servants complained that teachers had it easy, were lazy, and were not really using their home-study time for work. The old jealousy bug, and the regs became much tighter. So, now during the summer the teachers just go in a little late in the morning, and leave the office soon after official finishing time. They also have most weekends off, as opposed to constant Saturday and Sunday school activities during the regular study terms.

[IkemenTommy]

>What do they do during the time they are supposed to be working?

Sometimes it's editing wikipedia articles on gundam (god damn) or watching stuff on youtube.

2channel, Mixi, blogging, reading FuckedGaijin.

Oh wait, I do those at work too!

[American Oyaji]

At the big H, meetings almost NEVER start on time. In fact, TV conferences between US and Japan side are almost always late because Japan side is late to show up usually.

[bolt_krank]

I think you cant blame any particular group of Japanese - I think it's just and endless cycle. This person is expected to stay late, so they wait until later to do their work - otherwise they'll have nothing to do. As a result, this work gets passed on a little later that it would otherwise, giving someone else and excuse for it not ready to be on time, etc... a few more people down the track - and we have big delays.

I think this "leaving on time means you're doing no work" mentality is really costing productivity heavily, as well as having a direct impact on the family unit.

(my 2 cents...)