Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#71

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #40

vivekd wrote: post #5

If the Japanese are working so much that some a literally working themselves to death - why is their economy so bad? My guess is that a lot of that time is getting used up with unnecessary busy work rather than actual productive labor.

Consider a simple production function: === Y = zF(K,L) Output = Total Factor Productivity * Function of (Capital, Labor) === Think of TFP as all the environmental variables that make up "technological dynamism" or the economy's technological infrastructure (horse -> steam -> coal -> oil, human capital/education, etc.) that increase productivity in fundamental but intangible ways, and that can only be calculated indir…

Why the downvotes?

This is the economic explanation for the diminishing marginal returns of labor.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#72

Post by kilroy123 » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

rjeli wrote: post #16

Great blog post here recently on Japanese work culture: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ "Traditionally, salarymen (and they are, by the way, mostly men) are hired into a particular company late in university and stay at that company or its affiliates until they retire." "The employee hereby promises the company: Your first obligation, in all things, will be to your company. You will work…

I'm a bit conflicted by this...

My American brain tells me this is an insane way to live. No work life balance. It's horrible inefficient, as you can't downsize, or compete international like this. You're forced to hangout with coworkers.

However, having this long term stability with work is something that is sorely missed in the US. A pension? Job for life?

No one gets these things anymore.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#73

Post by swiley » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

joe563323 wrote: post #27

No wonder Japan's birth rate is falling. Who in their sane mind would want their children's to have a difficult life. High time for Universal Basic Income.

Japan has a serious problem that would prevent that: who would pay? They already don't have enough to pay for current subsidies.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#74

Post by fmueller » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

vivekd wrote: post #5

If the Japanese are working so much that some a literally working themselves to death - why is their economy so bad? My guess is that a lot of that time is getting used up with unnecessary busy work rather than actual productive labor.

People have no time to spend the money.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#75

Post by pdimitar » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:44 PM UTC

jeremiep wrote: post #32

pgz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people argue that working long hours will have a negative impact on productivity. For example if you look at EU countries, the ones with the economy in worse conditions are those with longer working hours (Greece, Italy).

I recently switched jobs and now work 35h/week instead of 40. I get a lot more done in those 35 hours now than I did previously in 40. The worst productivity I ever had was in frantic overtime rushes at the end of projects. There's definitely a link between working hours and productivity.

One of the most baffling mysteries of our time for me is the fact that this truth (more working hours = less productivity) is still being massively denied and the non-existent and strawman "arguments" against it have been beaten to death and debunked thousands of times... yet never fail to reappear in any discussion on the topic.

It seems the economic pressure for supporting this bullshit story is still too strong. Sigh.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#76

Post by flamedoge » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #38

gragas wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for appearance’s sake That's just stupid. It makes me wonder, though: is the work culture similar for ex-patriots working in Japan?

> > Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for appearance’s sake > That's just stupid. That's overtime. Almost all overtime, even in the US, is as much about the appearance of working hard rather than any real gains in productivity. I've lost count of the number of times I've been involved with or seen a startup that "crushes code 100 hours a week because we're out to win, man", with most of…

reddit. a few braver on 4chan

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#77

Post by pyromine » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #57

chipperyman573 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college nobody knows if you really do pull an all nighter

Just out of curiosity, how old are you/when did you attend college? I ask because "back in the day" everyone knew. If you were a cs student in 1995, you pretty much had to work in one of the basement labs. One of the profs liked to come to the lab at 3am before a deadline and laugh at us.

The crappy thing is that while this might be "back in the day", I still have to spend time cooped up in computer lab because software companies make the licenses way too expensive so we have nowhere else to do our homework.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#78

Post by flamedoge » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #68

maverick_iceman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation doesn't imply causation. Maybe people are forced to work more because the economy is bad.

There's already plenty of evidence that working beyond 40 hours a week translates into a reduction in productivity. This is not some new, revolutionary insight; it's old news yet so many people and organizations ignore it at the cost of efficiency. The 40 hour work week is not just for your sake, but it's in the company's interests as well. I could be wrong but a lot of the data from was from WWII. When your country'…

I would dangerously extrapolate that it's not just productivity that suffers, but also correctness. Anecdotally I made more mistakes and was off mark the longer I extended myself.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#79

Post by novembermike » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 9:51 PM UTC

vivekd wrote: post #5

If the Japanese are working so much that some a literally working themselves to death - why is their economy so bad? My guess is that a lot of that time is getting used up with unnecessary busy work rather than actual productive labor.

Hours worked doesn't differentiate between the time I spend pressing the button on the widget machine and the time I spend hitting the widget machine with a baseball bat. It's not really a measure of work.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#80

Post by __mbm__ » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #45

vtange wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of some college cultures actually. In architecture school you were almost expected to pull all-nighters for the sake of "being a dedicated architecture student". It is like hazing of some sort.

Never once pulled an all-nighter in college (ECE). I also never studied for more than 2-3 hours in succession. I always took a nice break between study sessions to let everything sink in. On the other hand, most of my peers consistently stayed up through the night during examinations. Most of my peers studied in groups. I sat in on a few sessions and discovered that for every hour of study, an hour was spent on petty…

Keep it up.

I had a similar experience. Even through my PhD at a top-tier school in applied math, I didn't do "all-nighters" or cram sessions. In fact, after my first 2 years of PhD (where I regularly put in 80 hours a week because of the course load), I toned it down to 40-50 hours. I also didn't use performance enhancing drugs meant to treat things like ADHD.

I did (and still do) use a lot of coffee in the mornings. I also recommend going out to bars to have those petty discussions, so that socializing is reliably separated study.