Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#331

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:51 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #258

onion2k wrote: post #213

I think a lot of the replies in the thread so far have focused on tech (understandably, this is HN after all) but that's missing something obvious - the 4 day week would apply to everyone. In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers…

> The Japanese government isn't saying "Let's get rid of pointless meetings and busy work!" Maybe, but if you've worked in Japan, or even just living here, you know about the long, pointless meetings, desk warming and busy work. Thus, it's highly possible the government is saying "let's get rid of pointless meetings and busy work". Things are that top-down here that often companies won't do anything unless the govern…

> Western principles such as truth, innocence and self-reliance aren't foundational here

Then what is?

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#332

Post by mianas » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #293

adamlett wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it oversimplifying it to suggest that all “the market” rewards is low prices? Doesn’t the market also sometimes reward quality and timeliness?

I think you're right, I went through a E40m construction project once and the leaders kept saying how they have to chose the lowest bidder. But that was actually a convenient lie they did to avoid having to do due diligence on the bidders. Mid and long term cost actually turned out a lot higher than if they had chosen the better slightly more expensive bids.

I've seen this turn out the other way on a road contract near my house. (rural Ireland)

Some Italian construction company underbid, and slightly later went bankrupt after finishing some of the work. They just about missed the contract milestones for payment too, and got nothing out of it. Then, the contract went to someone else who bid, with expected costs adjusted. Think there was an 8-ish month delay.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#333

Post by akiselev » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:57 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #326

kqr wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think what passes for appropriately staffed in the West is actually understaffed. What's called optimal staffing in the West is just at capacity, which is a nice way of saying "with no spare capacity." Of course, with Japan being the land of just-in-time, one could argue that spare capacity is bad -- but that's an oversimplification. Necessary spare capacity is good. What's bad is not being able to addres…

From my experience visiting, there were lots of jobs that were "nice to have". Like the man making sure people don't fall in the hole, or the person standing by the carpark exit making sure the way is clear. You could probably do without them, but it's a nice thing to have. There's lots of examples of that, people doing things that you would see brutally optimized out of western city and those cities I feel are worse…

> From my experience visiting, there were lots of jobs that were "nice to have". Like the man making sure people don't fall in the hole, or the person standing by the carpark exit making sure the way is clear. You could probably do without them, but it's a nice thing to have.

How would liability play out for the construction company in a Japanese court? It's already a low margin competitive industry so passing risk management costs onto customers (the cost of the people monitoring the holes) is likely more practical than risking all profits evaporating and years of litigation, especially if insurance has anything to say about it.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#334

Post by NGRhodes » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #299

kqr wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think what passes for appropriately staffed in the West is actually understaffed. What's called optimal staffing in the West is just at capacity, which is a nice way of saying "with no spare capacity." Of course, with Japan being the land of just-in-time, one could argue that spare capacity is bad -- but that's an oversimplification. Necessary spare capacity is good. What's bad is not being able to addres…

My pet conspiracy theory is that Toyota's liberal knowledge sharing with competitors is really a psy-op to keep the competitors perpetually on the edge of ruin while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don't even have to be deceptive about it. Just in time is obviously about not having undue spare capacity, not about not having any spare capacity at all. But Toyota knows this nuance is going to be lost on buzzwo…

Toyota knows it competitive edge is its culture. Culture to change, to be retrospective, to improve. Lean, JIT, Kanban etc were derived from a culture of striving for perfection and to develop the optimal processes for a specific company is something that takes decades and is never ending, not something that can be read in a book, taught on a course in a short period of time.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#335

Post by ehnto » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #333

ehnto wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience visiting, there were lots of jobs that were "nice to have". Like the man making sure people don't fall in the hole, or the person standing by the carpark exit making sure the way is clear. You could probably do without them, but it's a nice thing to have. There's lots of examples of that, people doing things that you would see brutally optimized out of western city and those cities I feel are worse…

> From my experience visiting, there were lots of jobs that were "nice to have". Like the man making sure people don't fall in the hole, or the person standing by the carpark exit making sure the way is clear. You could probably do without them, but it's a nice thing to have. How would liability play out for the construction company in a Japanese court? It's already a low margin competitive industry so passing risk m…

I don't know the answer to that sorry, you're right to point it out though. Perhaps there is actually some prior court case that defined a liability to make those individuals necessary to be compliant.

In Australia we certainly don't have those people, construction companies just use a few signs, some cones and barricades and that's all that is required to be compliant. If someone falls in the hole they shouldn't have walked past the cones!

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#336

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #213

I think a lot of the replies in the thread so far have focused on tech (understandably, this is HN after all) but that's missing something obvious - the 4 day week would apply to everyone. In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers…

> In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers, factory workers, people who fill in the holes in roads, telephone support people, etc aren't contending with pointless meetings and busy work though. They can't do 40 hours of work in 32 hours by removing some of the hours they're not really working. What they do doesn't compress like that.

Indeed, but going to 4 day weeks will require employers to hire more people then to fulfill the same work.

It's absurd that even with all the gains in productivity we're still stuck since decades at the 5x8=40 week. Time to redistribute the producitvity profits towards the workers.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#337

Post by ForHackernews » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

gombosg wrote: post #284

Animats wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would treat devs like warehouse workers right now,all devs would run away. I mean force them to be 100% effective all the 8 hours and track every move they make. CleverControl employee monitoring pitch: "This software offers powerful features: keylogging, screen recording, live viewing, remote settings, clipboard control, Skype monitoring, and more. The software records time that was spent on this or that acti…

I heard about these tracking software and I sincerely hope they won't get any more prevalent. As I see they are somewhat present in the contracting world. I treat it as a total, humiliating devaluation of creative engineering work (and thus their identity!) to that of unskilled factory workers.

Eventually, maybe developers will realize that they have a lot more in common with those "unskilled" workers they disdain than they do with their capitalist owners.

Unions would be helpful for both, in my view.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#338

Post by corty » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:07 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #329

corty wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would do some nitpicking here: The market _rewards_ low prices. But the market _punishes_ low quality and untimeliness. Why do I phrase it this way? Because the only market mechanism is a sale, you either buy or you don't. Low price is visible before a sale, so a new sale is reward for the low price offered. Quality and timeliness are only apparent after a sale, so can only be punished retroactively by not buying a…

> Why do I phrase it this way? Because the only market mechanism is a sale, you either buy or you don't. That's not always true. When a rail network gets privatized, the argument is that the market will make sure it's a good service still. But they are usually paid by the government, not the patrons. The commuters vote becomes negligible, and the rail network has every incentive to optimize for a minimum viable netwo…

That railway example is just a plain market failure, and an uncorrectable one at that. Markets only work under certain conditions, very important among those: absence of monopoly, monopsony and limitations that work to the same effects. A privatized rail network is still the only rail network in the country or region, so still a monopoly. If you hack it to bits and split it up too much, it will be useless, connectivity is paramount in that business. If you leave it as a large network (or several large networks) it will be a national or regional monopoly. Having only the government pay is a monopsony. Limiting building new stations and tracks (which the government will have to do at some point, if real estate prices don't) will also prevent competition. So having a functioning rail market is impossible, therefore any argument about market mechanisms involving railways (or roads, water, gas and electricity distribution) is nonsense: Those can never be proper free markets.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#339

Post by varjag » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #247

franciscop wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with your comment overall, but as someone who lives in Japan I'd like to point out that specifically "people who fill in the holes in roads" is a running joke in Japan since small street constructions always seem way over-staffed. It's amazing because they do finish a lot faster than in western countries, but you can definitely remove 20% of the people in street-level construction and would see little d…

Sometimes I think what passes for appropriately staffed in the West is actually understaffed. What's called optimal staffing in the West is just at capacity, which is a nice way of saying "with no spare capacity." Of course, with Japan being the land of just-in-time, one could argue that spare capacity is bad -- but that's an oversimplification. Necessary spare capacity is good. What's bad is not being able to addres…

No it's not just that.

The minute we got off the plane in Tokyo we were met by a greeter pointing people to the escalator. Not that you could miss it, that was the only exit.

In the city you could see people guarding potholes. Bus stations (not particularly busy) would have a couple men at each station that would help arrange the passenger luggage: something usually helped by the driver in the West.

Once we took a night stroll in the city, meeting a roadwork on a deserted street. There were 3 men along the fenced dig basically showing us to walk around it.

Can't see any of that sustainable if you pay people full wages.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#340

Post by rjzzleep » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

mianas wrote: post #332

rjzzleep wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, I went through a E40m construction project once and the leaders kept saying how they have to chose the lowest bidder. But that was actually a convenient lie they did to avoid having to do due diligence on the bidders. Mid and long term cost actually turned out a lot higher than if they had chosen the better slightly more expensive bids.

I've seen this turn out the other way on a road contract near my house. (rural Ireland) Some Italian construction company underbid, and slightly later went bankrupt after finishing some of the work. They just about missed the contract milestones for payment too, and got nothing out of it. Then, the contract went to someone else who bid, with expected costs adjusted. Think there was an 8-ish month delay.

The way I see the successful low bids happen is usually the following:

1. Submit a low bid for EXACTLY what's written in the RFP

2. Submit contract delay notifications with contract amendment offers, explaining that the original bid was incorrect and therefore if the amendment is not accepted the project can't continue.

3. rinse and repeat

No. 2 is basically legal speak to make sure you get paid(or win a lawsuit in the event that you don't) even though you can't continue construction.

It's basically saying, you made a mistake in your original RFP, therefore nobody could have continued the construction anyway and therefore you have to accept my amendment.

Good bidders will actually tell you that your RFP was wrong. As an example in the construction project I was in the main architect requested custom spliced decades outdated Fiber wiring, when I finally got a hold of the wiring company and asked them why didn't just do MTP, they mentioned that a) they mentioned to the architect that the request wiring makes no sense and b) they were not allowed to talk to us(the engineering department) directly. Same happened with the fire protection rules from anything like stair handles to the garage.

That's also why I don't think the Airport delays in Berlin were engineering mistakes but rather gross mismanagement.

Also, while in this whole project there is a lot of physical work that you can't optimize away, a lot of the physical work delays and do-overs were also due to gross mismanagement, which is something the toplevel comment completely ignores in his assessment of the 4 day workweek.