Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

money.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 157 posts

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#91

Post by brianwawok »

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…

I worked at a door factory. We worked 20% overtime for 6 months. We made 20% more doors.

Works great for manual labor.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#92

Post by huac »

jacalata wrote: post #82
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?

A friend told me about their time in a New York finance company, where people showed up to the office on Saturday and watched TV on their computer because even if there wasn't any work to do you had to be seen putting the time in.

Most banking analysts (read: first 2 years out of college) have similar need to have 'butts in seats' for ~ noon to maybe 4 pm. In the morning you have to finish the work you didn't finish last night or your boss wants redone, and you get more work around 4 or 5 when the older people start leaving. But there's a few hours midday where you have absolutely nothing to do except browse the internet or try to sneak off to the gym.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#93

Post by axtscz »

brianwawok wrote: post #91
msbarnett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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…

I worked at a door factory. We worked 20% overtime for 6 months. We made 20% more doors. Works great for manual labor.

Yeah, generally overtime in manual labor type jobs yield more production.

Source: woke in construction

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#94

Post by xamuel »

pdimitar wrote: post #75
jeremiep wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. S…

I have a toddler, so no rest at home. I'm either coding or babysitting.

Hence, for me currently, more hours is always more productivity.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#95

Post by czep »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #8
vezycash wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it just a social thing The little I know about Japan is from Anime, books, articles and online comments. In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful. Also, going home early instead of socializing after work is frowned upon even by one's spouse. I've also read that there's no job hopping. Employee for life is still a thing there. And an ex-employer's comment is heavily weighted by prospective employers. Addit…

> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them (within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first). The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my…

> If they get their work done they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at 5:00.

Close but not perfect. My correction would be "even if they don't get their work done, they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at 5:00."

The reason I say this is because one could easily argue that there's always more work to be done. That's always been the case for me anyway. But tomorrow is another day. When you've put in a full workday already, nobody should make you feel guilty for leaving just because there's more work to do. There's always more work to do!

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#96

Post by madeofpalk »

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…

I also never pulled an overnighter. I also never studied for more than 2-3 hours. In fact, I never studied for more than 15 minutes nor go to classes! (Semi) unrelated, I failed a lot of classes, dropped out and got a real job paying well doing something I love, ahead of many of my 'classmates'

Learning and study, along with their career path, is different for everyone.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#97

Post by madeofpalk »

kilroy123 wrote: post #72
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.

I'm young (24), so I guess I'm coming from a different mindset (entitled millennial here!), but the thought of working at a single place for life gives me nightmares.

Sure, companies 'evolve' (for better or worse) and theoretically your job changes as you climb the ladder, but surely you job learning and loving work if you do the same thing for 40+ years?

I guess this is the difference between people who see work as an obligation vs an opportunity.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#100

Post by tdumitrescu »

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.

I started my CS degree in 95, and did most of my coursework from my dorm, telnetting in to one of the Sparcs we were expected to write code on, eventually using X11 forwarding too. Wasn't any different resultswise than sitting with everyone else at terminals in the lab, though I guess I missed out on the social aspects of plowing through assignments in the same room together.
Post reply on HN