Japanese? Overwork? No way.
Here’s a great article from The Age(Aussie newspaper), about Japanese overtime work:
Overworked Japanese feel the strain
By Deborah Cameron, Tokyo
March 6, 2006IT’S not green tea and sushi that power Japan, but dyspepsia medicine.
Terrible bosses, lack of sleep, bad work habits, salty food and stomach ulcers are why.
When Australian Nobel laureate Dr Barry Marshall arrives next week, it will be as though a saint has touched down in Tokyo. It was Dr Marshall whose Perth laboratory drew the link between a common stomach germ and ulcers. He proved the cure by drinking a beaker of bacteria.
For about half of Japan’s population, the cocktail was unnecessary — they already had the bug and close to 1 million have ulcers. The cure — a short course of antibiotics — is now standard treatment.
Still, all is not well with the national stomach. Japan remains awash with antacid concoctions and spending on non-prescription and herbal remedies topped 1.2 billion yen ($A13.7 million) in 2004. Stress at work is blamed.
Here’s a snapshot: fewer than half of workers take their paid annual leave; there is a mountainous 7.2 billion yen of unpaid overtime; paternity leave remains frowned upon; 41 per cent get less than six hours sleep; and working yourself to death is so ingrained that it is recognised by the courts and honoured with a special word, karoshi.
Official Japanese statistics and OECD figures showing a slight decrease in overall work hours are viewed sceptically by labour experts.
The passenger cars of Tokyo’s subway trains are an excellent study of the consequences of stress, overwork and exhaustion.
Yesterday there was a kerfuffle in this reporter’s carriage when a young woman went to sleep while standing up and lost her grip on a strap. She stumbled on to a seated passenger who was also asleep and whose startled cry woke others. After much bowing and apology, everyone resumed their positions.
Although flexible and part-time work is more available, it is mainly for low-skilled workers. A secure job still involves superhuman dedication and with it, stress. Japan’s companies seem to want change and have looked to outsiders for solutions.
Foreigners now run Sony and Nissan, and a woman has been put in charge at Sanyo. All of them are charged with forging a new corporate culture.
Brian Martin, a management consultant who teaches leadership skills to executives, said outside help was needed to undo ingrained attitudes.
Poor organisation, reluctance to delegate, failure to set clear goals or to communicate a purpose — all typical shortcomings among managers — caused inefficiency, office stress and problems at home, Mr Martin said.
The resurgent economy and the more modern management strategy of competitors might be the needed incentive, he thinks.
But the evidence points in the opposite direction. A study published in 2003 in Japan’s Journal of Occupational Health found a fatal connection between economic prosperity, stockmarket performance and death rates.
As share prices went up between 1985 and 1990 and unemployment fell, death rates among workers rose. And the busier they got, the more they died.
The sad thing is, a great deal of Japanese workers overwork for no reason. I know of many Japanese who stay at work many hours overtime each day, doing “volunteer” work until their coworkers go home. If someone only works for the 8 hour work day, leaving at 4:30 or 5:00pm every day, they are often considered lazy by their coworkers. Sometimes it seems like Japanese office workers try to do their work in the most inefficient way possible, so as ensure they will work overtime. Does Japanese office culture revolve around a system of self-punishment in the name of working “hard”? If you finish your work quickly and efficiently, does that mean you didn’t show your “ganbaru” spirit?
