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Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

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221–230 of 287 posts

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#221
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 comput…

>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. It is not as simple as that: in general, more developed countries tend to have higher labor productivity. Japan has been historically low for several decades. I'm no specialist of labor statistics, but note that Japan actaually…

The BBC also has an article on this topic of sleeping in the office.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190809-why-overtired-...

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#222

Covid might actually result in permanent changes. Sucks for a lot of commercial real estate companies. WeWork is probably 100% done

I also wonder the impact it'll have on retail and lunch places. A lot of small restaurants popped up around places with a lot of office workers. If those office workers are all WFH now, the previously desirable restaurant locations will become semi-worthless. On top of that, my guess is that WFH people will go out for lunch less often, so those restaurants won't just relocate to more residential areas, they (and thei…

Might be a chance for diners or other restaurants to offer meeting rooms. They could charge less than coworking spaces and make up the difference in food and drink sales.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#223

Can Japanese residents comment on how this works WRT office space in the home? Do people typically have space in their homes to have a proper home office setup? My wife and I are both WFH right now, and we had to buy a second desk and chair and repurpose what was previously our 2nd bedroom. The 3rd bedroom has always been a home office. If we lived in a downtown apartment, I'm not sure what we'd do, as we're both in…

Very ironic fact from the past (and an interesting explanation WHY kitchen areas are REALLY well lit in many (older) Japanese homes. After the war, Japanese USED TO work from home, since there was no other way, and that common area was usually the only one away from bedrooms etc. Then, after the infrastructure starting to recover, buildings coming up, offices etc. Culturally, ALL employees were required to return to…

It's also very interesting that this is where the whole mobile gaming gatcha market comes from. Your user base has no free time and tons of expendable income, so they'll gladly spend thousands of dollars a month on the games they play on their daily 2 hour commute.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess the ones earning that much are probably in metro areas like the bay area and Seattle.

I imagine those in the Bay area are making a lot more than 50k/year, or at least there are always SV devs chiming in saying they are making 300-600k/year (the OP said 100k for a couple). I make the equivalent of 100k USD in a tier 2 city in Scotland (a single income that is, not a couple combined). It's not outlandish for senior roles across much of the UK (with "normal" companies, not FAANG).

New CS grads start off at like 120k. New boot camp grads start off at like 100k. If you're experienced, you might get up to 200k. If you're experienced and good, you can hit 300k and beyond. Once FAANG sets the standard like this, then basically everyone else needs to offer similar salaries if they want to compete for that same quality of engineer.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#225
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (!)

HDMI, VGA, 3 USBs, ethernet, and apparently 20 hours battery life! What's not to like?

Well, the best it gets is an i7 (and most of the models are i5, or even i3), so that could be a real pain if the procuring manager is a cheapskate.

Also, the screens are 1920x1200 across the board for the Let's, which is the same pixel density as a 1080p 16:9 monitor.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#226

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 t…

I think it's even more difficult when you factor in kids at home. We've had to deal with that at our home which means our ability to get work done has been cut in half. It also puts a lot of burden on co-workers. The biggest issue with this has been people without kids wondering why coworkers WITH kids aren't getting as much done.

But once the situation with the coronavirus is over, the kids will be in school/daycare, so this won't be an issue.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#227
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a pendulum swing: these countries advanced a lot after WW2, then they believed they found the ideal way and got stuck there. In the meanwhile time flows linear, other countries were left behind but caught up and moved on. This way Japan and Germany still work well due to their excellent history, not recent trends.

I would say more like they found a local maxima and stayed there, never going even slightly less efficient in order to find a higher maxima than the one they had. Kind of reminds me of which countries have the fastest/cheapest Internet access now. The countries that had Internet first tend to have shitty copper infrastructure and expensive plans, while the newer countries are all up with the latest fibre infrastructu…

I don't think there is a need to go slightly less efficient in order to improve the current processes; they just got frozen in time and there are many such examples with companies and countries. Remember Japan is not the first time doing it, at the end of the shoguns era they were behind the rest of the world they were more advanced than.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#228
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…

They also care very much about their job title, and the job titles of the people they are dealing with. A few years ago my company (American) worked with a Japanese company and before we went into the meetings we had to establish new job titles for the people on our team that would be representing our company in the meeting. We couldn't go in there with just a bunch of senior engineers when they were sending their VP of Engineering. It wouldn't have gone over well.. We had to have a Director of Engineering, Senior Director of Mobile, VP of North American Engineering. Etc.

These were all just regular very good senior engineers. But it would have been insulting to go to the meeting without the inflated titles.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#229
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…

So you watched some hentai and now you're a Japan expert? Give me a break.

Re: Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

#230
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…

So you watched some hentai and now you're a Japan expert? Give me a break.
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