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

#471

Post by jstummbillig » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

dopidopHN wrote: post #446

jstummbillig wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crux here is, of course, that one week of your time is a lot more valuable than 5k to your employer if they pay you 3.7k per week, and probably a lot more than you would be willing to part with or find reasonable (think 20k+ a week) It's a pretty infuriating setup. From the employers perspective, the amount of money you lose by having someone not work is so obscene, so quickly, that you have to fight your monkey…

I would love to understand that better to negotiate my next job better on that specific issue. There is something that make me think something is fishy in that approach : why are more and more places switch to unlimited PTO if it’s that costly to give folks time off? I had unlimited PTO a couple of times, it can sucks ( pressure NOT to take any PTO for the company sake ) Or he just fine.

> There is something that make me think something is fishy in that approach : why are more and more places switch to unlimited PTO if it’s that costly to give folks time off

"Why do people get more time off now than ever before in human history (which they do)?"

There are now more forces than ever, that work against unlimited exploitation of human labor. For example, human beings in most countries have enforceable rights and they want time off, and the market that has to compete for those people. Humans are shitty machines. If you piss them off, they do shitty work. If you treat them poorly they leave. (In reality, "treating them poorly" translates to "treating them slightly less good then someone else") Since having someone quit working for you is pretty fucking expensive (assuming, of course, that they are actually being productive), you better make sure they do want to continue working for you and so you make it worth their while.

Another important example would be worker protection laws, that simply dictate certain amenities.

"Why is everyone doing unlimited PTO, specifically?"

Less clear on that one. Part of it is certainly it being a trend. If other people do it and employees want it, then you might have to go along, again, to not get pushed out of the market.

But since it clearly does not ever actually mean "unlimited PTO" (you'd be out of a job pretty quickly if you tried), an interesting followup question might be what the fuck it actually means and who benefits? Maybe employees are a little confused about how much time off to take and take less than before? Or maybe they feel pressured to underbid each other? Maybe it's also just that the flexibility it adds to the job leads to more loyal employers, which is pretty nifty in a market starved for workers.

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

#472

Post by tristor » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #433

tristor wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare / UBI ignores that one of the realities of the human condition is that we are social creatures that have a desire for purpose and utility to those around us, and having that purposes in a society that recognizes us helps give us dignity and a place in society. It's not important that all jobs are high value, it is important that we as a society have a way to create and recognize purpose for individuals to sup…

Standing there in place of a traffic cone is not much of a dignity IMO, but it certainly could be cultural.

There's definitely a cultural element. I made the point that these jobs must be recognized as valuable by society for a reason.

You say they're standing there in place of a traffic cone, Japanese society instead says that they're there to provide a friendly face ensuring safety of passersby around the dangers of construction work. A traffic cone cannot assist someone who has trouble walking to traverse rough ground because of the work being done. A traffic cone doesn't smile or acknowledge your presence.

That sociocultural element is what has value, and as long as it has value, the job is valuable.

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

#473

Post by kqr » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

hvidgaard wrote: post #364

AlbertoGP wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard recently (in a video that I don’t know how to find again) that that’s exactly what happened with the automotive industry’s chip shortage: Toyota was the only one that built a stock of chips in advance, and now are the only ones that can keep producing cars without being limited by the shortage. Edit: found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1JlYZQG3lI&t=804s At 13 min. 24 seconds: > Just in time i…

What is amazing about this is that it is a super simple game of "what if?". What if our current supply of chips are disrupted? It would mean production halts, there is a non negligible risk and we cannot source new chips in less than 6 months, so stockpile that to keep uninterrupted service. That conclusion probably take quite a while to get to, but the kick off question is really simple.

It's not that simple, though. "What if our supply chain of X is disrupted?" always leads to a problem where one of the most obvious solutions is "Stockpile huge inventories of X!"

That's what manufacturers had done ever since Ford tried to scale up his initial (very Toyota-esque) operation, and scaled it incorrectly but managed to inspire hordes of other manufacturers to repeat his mistakes.

The novelty of Toyota et al. was not that they asked the what if question, but that they answered it unconventionally: they worked on making the supply chains more reliable instead of adding buffers.

That's what makes this next move counter-intuitive to so many people: when Toyota encountered a supply chain that couldn't be made more reliable, they chose the previously-conventional response, apparently in defiance of their whole thing. Except it wasn't.

You're right in that it is simple, but in trying to show that you're making it too simple.

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

#474

Post by philwelch » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #429

kqr wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also that story from back when Toyoda was making sewing machines or whatever it was, and a competitor stole copies of the engineering drawings for their latest model. Toyoda shrugged and said something to the effect of "So what? The really valuable knowledge are the mistakes we made coming up with those drawings, and that's not in the drawings. By the time our competitors have managed to get their copy of our…

> None of that was stolen, so after this model, they will just keep repeating the mistakes we made. The competitor probably could have purchased a sewing machine and replicated the engineering drawings themselves. Teardowns of competitor products is common today, and I'm sure it was back then as well. I think Toyota's "helpful" attitude comes from the Western paranoia in the 70-90s that Japan was going to completely…

According to the book The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer by Jeffrey Liker, one of the motivations for Toyota was to repay the debt to American manufacturers who participated in the postwar rebuilding of Japan and taught American manufacturing techniques to Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers.

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

#475

Post by savingsPossible » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

someguy321 wrote: post #453

Workaccount2 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From NJ, wouldn't change it. No need to get out of your car and deal with a dirty pump. You can also get out to go in the store while they fill your tank, or some smaller places you can buy stuff right from the attendant. Gas doesn't cost any extra because of it either. We used to have some of the cheapest gas in the country before a recent tax hike. Basically a free service, no tipping either. One downside is that i…

You pay for that service whether you realize it or not.

Apparently not?

The cost can come from the margin for the gas station, not the consumer

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

#476

Post by xwdv » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

dukeyukey wrote: post #398

xwdv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, there’s a sort of Moneyball aspect here. Companies that can accurately pay out only for productive time instead of assuming all 40 hours of a work week are spent producing will make huge savings in payroll, increasing cost efficiency and making it feasible to hire larger cross functional teams. A software engineer probably only really works about 20 hours a week. That’s a 50% savings right there.

Equally speaking, if I realise how to fix that bug when I'm out with friends one night, should I present my employer with an extra bill for those hours spent drinking and relaxing, putting my mind in a state where it could fix the issue?

Should a factory worker be paid for resting their body to get ready for the next day of work?

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

#477

Post by nickff » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #276

egman_ekki wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if their time was 5 times as valuable to the company as their pay, it seems very unfair to pay someone 3.7k per week, but require 20k from them if they want to take a week off? That basically means that if you took 3 months sabbatical, and worked the rest of the year, you would actually pay your employer 100k for working those 9 months...

A system, where other people make more off your work than you do has pretty intrinsic problems.

Customers and clients of all sorts obtain consumer surpluses; if they were indifferent, they would not make purchases... Employers are just a different sort of customer.

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

#478

Post by ineedasername » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

JetSpiegel wrote: post #469

ineedasername wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly not sure what you mean by this comment. I used a real world example of businesses with high customer-facing labor costs relative to their net profit margins. If you're getting into the everyone-deserves-a-living-wage side of things, that's a different conversation, one I tend to agree with, but is much more complex than the current discussion about whether current business could manage this if they opera…

If the business is not sustainable without living wages, it doesn't deserve to exist, just like there's no more chattel slaves picking cotton. I'm sure the economics of paying for work on plantations also did not add up.

Then roughly 4,500,000 fast food workers lose their jobs and have no income. As relatively low-skilled workers flooding the labor market, their job prospects are not very good. Many go from poorly paid and over worked to penniless and homeless.

I think these are useful conversations to have, but this is not a problem that submits to easy one-size-fits-all solutions. I'm all for a living wage, but simply raising minimum wages without doing anything else is a short term solution that will bring things back to roughly where they are now over a period of time as prices for people with newly increased hourly pay rise to the point where it is, once again, no longer a living wage. Sure, go ahead and do that anyway, but only if you have other plans in the works to stop that cycle.

As a side not, emotional appeals to slavery do not help promote a reasonable conversation either. Having to work two jobs to make ends meet is a far cry from slavery. We don't need to look far in the world to find people living in conditions that are actually identical to or not far different from actual slavery. A person in the US working a low paying job 60 hours a week that can barely pay there rent or afford unexpected expenses is nowhere close to those conditions, especially when "barely getting by" in the US still mostly includes the bare bones amenities of living in a modern western country that are significantly better than conditions in many developing nations. Comparisons of this sort simply inflame tensions instead of conversation.

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

#479

Post by someguy321 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

savingsPossible wrote: post #475

someguy321 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay for that service whether you realize it or not.

Apparently not? The cost can come from the margin for the gas station, not the consumer

Gas stations are a notoriously low-margin business. Realistically costs get passed on to the consumer.

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

#480

Post by dlkmp » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #210

felipellrocha wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you give people the opportunity to work on things they like working on, and don’t make work about anything other than work, you get amazing results. That line started off well, but ended off terrible. I really don't want to be working in a place where I'm treated like a replaceable machine. You do you, man.

> I really don't want to be working in a place where I'm treated like a replaceable machine. This seems like a leap. Where did I insinuate that anyone is a cog in a machine? Just because I said work should be about work? Why does it have to be about anything else? If you need your job to provide a social aspect to your life that’s completely fine. It’s just not a part of the business I’m building. It’s why I think ha…

You're getting a lot of negative feedback so I just want to say I can relate a lot to the model you're proposing (and practicing).

I interview fairly often with potential employers, sometimes just for the experience and insights. Never once did I consider taking a job for other reasons than the type of work and its pay (commuting time and factors not directly in control of the company aside).

I'm not even the type of person who hates team events and the like, at least at the companies I have been working at these usually were a lot of fun. It's just nothing that keeps me from moving on from or motivates me to take some job.