Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#181

Post by 29athrowaway » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

cdavid wrote: post #97

I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that…

> Especially women are often relegated to menial work

I think this is the phenomenon you describe (Office ladies):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_lady

But not all women are like this. There are career oriented women that are not interested in menial work or becoming housewives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyaria%C5%ABman

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#182

Post by bserge » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #161

SenHeng wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what benmw333 is referring to. The Panasonic Let's. Despite how bulky it looks, it weighs about the same as the macbook air. It's basically used by anyone who isn't a manager, designer or software developer. You see them everywhere . https://biz.panasonic.com/jp-ja/products-services/letsnote/l...

Wow - look at this picture: https://content.biz.panasonic.com/jp-ja/fai/15800/raw This is not from a wayback machine copy of dynamism.com - this is a new, Windows 10 laptop in 2020 (!)

Those things have looked the same for at least 15 years.

I remember checking out new laptops from Japan and being amazed at how small they are... With zero change, they now look antiquated :D

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#183

Post by 29athrowaway » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #103

cdavid wrote: post #97

I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that…

How does this square with for example the Japanese car market, which I thought led the world in labour practices and efficiency? They've invented many labour practices that are considered the best we have today. And their cars are so cheap - how are they doing this if they aren't being efficient? For example are Toyota's engineering and factories running on wasted meeting time, fax machines, and hand-written letters?…

Many products in the Japanese market are well designed, durable, functional and cost-efficient, this is not something specific to cars.

When it comes to computer products, I am a fan of REALFORCE keyboards, which are manufactured in Japan. They have really made a difference in my day to day work.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#184

Post by pkaye » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

celim307 wrote: post #152

cdavid wrote: post #97

I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that…

This bleeds into their North American operations too. Nowhere else in my career have I seen a more wretched hive of incestual politicking, inefficiency, lack of respect for lower workers, and obsession with beaucracy at Panasonic’s American operations

Reminds me of when my past employer sent me to Japan to debug a firmware issue for a potential customer. Every day for a week I had to spend two hours talking to their engineers talking about my debug decision tree for debug work for the rest of the day. And that was with an English/Japanese translator to help communicate. Most people adapt their debug strategy as they collect more data but they wanted it all planned out ahead. A very different way of doing it.

The bug was very specific to their use case and they wouldn't help us replicate it in our labs so I never figured it out until a year later helping another customer. It was a bug in counter wraparound handling.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#185

Post by kozak » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

SenHeng wrote: post #139

benmw333 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What struck me was the seemingly 1995 era laptops people were working on in the trains.

This is what benmw333 is referring to. The Panasonic Let's. Despite how bulky it looks, it weighs about the same as the macbook air. It's basically used by anyone who isn't a manager, designer or software developer. You see them everywhere . https://biz.panasonic.com/jp-ja/products-services/letsnote/l...

Why are they emphasizing the optical disc drive so much?

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#186

Post by Barrin92 » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

cdavid wrote: post #97

I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that…

>There is a culture of overwork that begets a culture of inefficiency that boggles the mind. Few people know that Japan has a labor productivity lower than Italy, for example.

If you spent so much time at the workplace like the Japanese you end up with a low producivity on paper pretty much by definition, because it's simply output divided by amount of time worked.

But I wouldn't overestimate the importance of computerization on productivity which is actually extremely low. Here in Germany we have a similar paper culture (although not quite as extreme) but very high labour productivity. The Japanese could simply go home or work a day less and their productivity would go up, it's not really comparable to much of Italy. (except the north of italy which is actually also extremely productive).

In fact Microsoft in Japan actually did just that and introduced a 4 day week a while ago, and productivity went up 40% (https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say...)

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#187

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #57

kubatyszko wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually get a house for free in some areas, mostly central Japan. Many cities are becoming deserted and houses are left alone, governments offer incentives to take them over. Might come with a catch such as committing to maintenance of farming.

The main catch is that the "free" houses are usually in complete disrepair and require a lot of non-free work to make them livable. Building a new house in Japan is surprisingly affordable, but getting one built to Western standards (say, effective insulation and an expected lifespan of more than 20 years) is not. And I'm not even being facetious here: Japanese building codes assume that wooden houses last for 20 and…

[deleted]

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#188

Post by jon-wood » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #92

jon-wood wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people I suspect they come out on top even with the extra expense of needing a decent internet connection and some office space. Commuting (particularly into London, which is what I'm most familiar with) is expensive - I'm a 1.5 hour train ride out from London, and an annual season ticket costs £6,000-£7,000 per year, depending on the route and whether I want a travelcard for London as well.

Yes but you will get a pay cut its not like they are going to pay London /SF wages in the country.

Maybe, although I’m currently being paid top end London wages in the country. A lot will depend on supply and demand, what salaries people are willing to accept, and what more openness to remote employees does to the candidate pool.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#189

Post by Izkata » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #151

lnsru wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously!? I thought, Germany was unique with this fax machine thing.

A surprising amount of American personal business is still dependent on a fax machine. Especially in dealings with government, if you can't physically hand it in, it may need to be faxed. Always a terrifying feeling when you send a document containing all your personal identifying information to the fax nether, hopefully you dialed correctly.

One example from the US: Back in March, I was reading about people having trouble filing for unemployment because somehow faxes were deemed a secure communication method and they couldn't find a place to send a fax.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#190

Post by ericmcer » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

The one big downside I have noticed from WFH is that any efficiency I introduce in my own work becomes reclaimed time. If I can crank through a days work in 4 hours in the morning I can reasonably take it easy in the afternoon. This is great but it has created some stress around things like code reviews and impromptu mentoring etc.

If I am sitting in the office I may as well spend 20 minutes on a code review trying to figure out a cleaner solution, but at home its harder to do it. There is just a general feeling of racing towards that 'done' status which represents a good amount of completed work for the day. Before it was just 9-5 and a thorough code review was a welcome use of that time.