In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time? • Hacker News Board

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#101

Post by peteretep » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #43

komali2 wrote: post #7

>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said, some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity. Agggh hits to home. Arrogant American me rolled into a Taiwanese job expecting to skyrocket up the ladder on results alone. Nope, becau…

Is there any way you could just make it physiologically untenable for anyone to stay in your office past 5PM? Right around 6PM at my apartment, the downstairs tenants light up with the most awful, stanky skunk-weed. You literally cannot keep the windows open; and yet, in the middle of summer and no central AC, you can't afford to be there with them closed, either. So, in effect, my neighbour forces me to ensure I'm n…

Some offices in Thailand will nuke the aircon to save money at certain times

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#102

Post by roel_v » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #95

maxxxxx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connecting bad traits with the same term as unchangeable traits makes no sense to. I am male and therefore have masculinity. Why connect demanding overtime to masculinity? It's super unspecific and not helpful. And no way you could ever use the word "toxic femininity" or "toxic blackness". People would go crazy,.

Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though. You can dress, shave, act etc in different ways which affect how you express yourself which all results in how 'masculine' or 'feminine' your expression is. Toxic masculinity is an attempt to define how a man should look. If you get mocked for having long hair, shaving your face/body or wearing certain colors, that's toxic masculinity. Because you're not acting in a way…

"Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though"

Can't tell satire from serious arguments any more. Not sure if that's because I'm getting old or because the world is going nuts.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#103

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #95

maxxxxx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connecting bad traits with the same term as unchangeable traits makes no sense to. I am male and therefore have masculinity. Why connect demanding overtime to masculinity? It's super unspecific and not helpful. And no way you could ever use the word "toxic femininity" or "toxic blackness". People would go crazy,.

Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though. You can dress, shave, act etc in different ways which affect how you express yourself which all results in how 'masculine' or 'feminine' your expression is. Toxic masculinity is an attempt to define how a man should look. If you get mocked for having long hair, shaving your face/body or wearing certain colors, that's toxic masculinity. Because you're not acting in a way…

"Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though."

I am masculine. Can't change it unless I take hormones. I can wear a dress but that doesn't change anything.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#104

Post by oarabbus_ » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #7

>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said, some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity. Agggh hits to home. Arrogant American me rolled into a Taiwanese job expecting to skyrocket up the ladder on results alone. Nope, becau…

>Never mind my 10x increase in sales. Well, also I was an arrogant prick.

I never understood why "just results aren't enough" for working in some cultures.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#105

Post by ACow_Adonis » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

chris11 wrote: post #85

justaguyhere wrote: post #29

In a place I worked, if someone left at 5:30 pm, the CTO used to joke "half day today?", even though the person came in at 9 am. In many places I worked in the US, it is somewhat of a badge of honor to spend long hours at work (how many of those are actually productive, is a different story). And these aren't even startups. This can't continue - an entire generation of people have been brainwashed that hard work = go…

> IMHO, the only reasons to work long hours are - real emergencies (like the kind doctors and cops deal with, not the kind when some photo sharing app goes down for 15 mins) Even that doesn't make tech look great. Hours are bad for most doctors, but it seems like emergency medicine handles it a lot better. Doing some brief reading it looks like doctors can work 40 hours a week or under in the ER if they want to, and…

there's a real open question regarding app downtime. I know being 'on call' is a common occurrence in a number of tech positions, but if the thing really 'needs' to be responsive and up 24 hours VA day 7 days a week and something can explode and take it down, then one should probably look at what other sectors with that kind of need do and have rotating shift/ rosters...

course, that would probably result in lower wages for those shift

(that being said, in my country, doctors working hours in the likes of hospitals are notoriously unsafe/long/unreasonable/unethical as well, so your mileage may vary)

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#106

Post by kingkawn » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #7

>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said, some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity. Agggh hits to home. Arrogant American me rolled into a Taiwanese job expecting to skyrocket up the ladder on results alone. Nope, becau…

The same way that all social norms get changed applies here; publicly challenge them and then withstand the viciousness of the backlash without losing your conviction. Then other people will get the courage to agree and it will spread. Not being cowed by the initial furious attacks on you but also not getting dragged into a vengeful battle are the means of social transformation.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#107

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #103

fzeroracer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though. You can dress, shave, act etc in different ways which affect how you express yourself which all results in how 'masculine' or 'feminine' your expression is. Toxic masculinity is an attempt to define how a man should look. If you get mocked for having long hair, shaving your face/body or wearing certain colors, that's toxic masculinity. Because you're not acting in a way…

"Masculinity isn't an unchangeable trait though." I am masculine. Can't change it unless I take hormones. I can wear a dress but that doesn't change anything.

Please look up the definition of masculinity. It has everything to do with culture, it is not something you are 100% born with.

Do you have a beard? If no, then in some cultures you wouldn't be very masculine. Ergo, in those cultures you are not in fact masculine.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#108

Post by rosser » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

dijit27 wrote: post #99

fzeroracer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's the point? It's a well defined term. Toxic masculinity is connected to the masculine roles society forces on men and women. I'm not sure what else you'd call it, because the entire point is that it has everything to do with masculinity. Hence, toxic masculinity. But again, anyone can perpetuate it.

I think the point is the definition of toxic masculinity that you are using differs from that of some of the other posters. As I understand your definition toxic masculinity is the pressure society puts on people to conform to negative masculine roles. My personal definition would be people expressing there masculinity in a way that is hurtful and belittling of others. They both are part of the same problem where soc…

> As I understand your definition toxic masculinity is the pressure society puts on people to conform to negative masculine roles.

> My personal definition would be people expressing there masculinity in a way that is hurtful and belittling of others.

It's both. The cultural norms, and people expressing them are both definitive of toxic masculinity.

The belittling is often a product of people internalizing those norms. They then ostracize or punish others who either fail to meet them in the eyes of the belittler, or are evocative to the belittler of the ways in which they, themselves, fail to meet them.

In fact, that kind of behavior is what the term "virtue signaling" is actually about: behavior that is performed to signal affiliation with and enforce the norms of some group. It doesn't actually mean the "you're all talk" kind of thing that it's broadly become.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#109

Post by Analemma_ » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #104

komali2 wrote: post #7

>In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said, some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work the longer hours for the extra pay and to please the boss — promotions often depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity. Agggh hits to home. Arrogant American me rolled into a Taiwanese job expecting to skyrocket up the ladder on results alone. Nope, becau…

>Never mind my 10x increase in sales. Well, also I was an arrogant prick. I never understood why "just results aren't enough" for working in some cultures.

Because results are tricky are measure. "Butts-in-seats" is much easier for lazy and clueless managers to keep track of, so that's what they do.

Re: In Japan, It’s a Riveting TV Plot: Can a Worker Go Home on Time?

#110

Post by cmurphycode » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #29

In a place I worked, if someone left at 5:30 pm, the CTO used to joke "half day today?", even though the person came in at 9 am. In many places I worked in the US, it is somewhat of a badge of honor to spend long hours at work (how many of those are actually productive, is a different story). And these aren't even startups. This can't continue - an entire generation of people have been brainwashed that hard work = go…

Hours in front of screen are perhaps the easiest metric to check up on workers. Unfortunately, it's also not well correlated to productivity! Lazy managing, for sure.

Personally, I'm pessimistic that any metric about productivity can be useful in the long term, but I recognize that in this reality, there WILL be metrics used to judge you. So, what's the best way to handle this? Is there anything an individual contributor can do to guide towards better metrics, or even just the perception of such?