From what I’ve read, Japan’s work ethic has been more about presenteeism than productivity for a while. While long hours are the norm, it’s more important to be seen to be working than to be productive, so you don’t leave before the boss does, but you do spend a large amount of that time staring out the window or otherwise idling.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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I worked at a place where basically every other department would stand in the lobby at 4:58 PM, waiting for accounting (which was on the other side of the building) to leave. If you didn't wait, the CEO would likely see you from his office window and you'd be getting a "talking to" by your supervisor the next day. I have never before or since worked anywhere where I've seen so much collective time wasting, trying to keep up the appearance of being busy.
This was an American company. I don't miss that shit hole in the slightest.
America has a mentality of "I'm paying you for your time, not the quality of your work." Even if you complete the work assigned to you they will throw a hissy fit if you leave one minute early because that is one minute they are paying you that you arent available if something goes wrong.
It's all ass backwards because it is cheaper in the short term to pay for cheap labor with low reliability and high availability than for expensive labor with high reliability and medium to low availability. If you take the high availability away from the former you are left with nothing.
Which, as a salaried engineer, is the stupidest fucking thing ever, and something I’ve dealt with over the vast majority of my career. You pay me to solve problems, not warm a chair and look over my shoulder. If you give me stupid metrics to hit (coughRTO metricscough), I’m going to maliciously comply and hit them in a stupid way that you won’t like, but that still abides by the rules and regs. If you are the problem, I will solve you.
That's what I don't understand about all this RTO. If a company foces me to come to the office 5 days, I might comply, but I will for sure stop working hard when I am on the office, unless I really love what I am doing, and they pay me a shit ton of money.
If a company wastes my time, I'll waste theirs.
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Doing a good job is also self-defeating.
Managers want to see you grow every year. If you do your best early on in your career, you will hurt your ability to show growth that's visible to management. Therefore, the optimal solution is to do a better job by a barely perceptible amount every year, staying under your maximum quality output until you're retired/dead.
The reward for good work is more work
Which isn't a bad philosophy if the rewards match. If they don't, why would you do more than the minimum?
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That’s what happens when presenteeism is rewarded over productivity.
I always used to get from bosses, "Hicks! How come you're not working?"
I go, "There's nothing to do!"
And they go, "Well, you pretend like you're working."
Yeah, why don't you pretend I'm working? You get paid more than me, you fantasize, buddy! Hell, pretend I'm mopping! Knock yourself out! I'll pretend they're buying stuff, we can close up! Hey, I'm the boss, now you're fired! How's that for a fantasy, buddy?
- Bill Hicks
This is also going away (and it's less staring out the window and more pretending to be busy), but it's not going to happen overnight, particularly where the micro-managing dinosaurs are still in control. I've worked at two (fairly westernized) Japanese companies and have not seen this personally, but know many who have.
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The phrase "quiet quitting" really grinds my gears. Are you fulfilling the terms of your employment contract? Yes? Then you're working, and haven't quit.
I'm not quiet quitting, I'm doing exactly the work I am paid to do and no more of the extra stuff I'm not paid to do.
Japan has strong worker protections. It is very difficult to fire an employee in Japan, without showing that the employee committed a crime. Employees can do practically nothing at work and still get paid. Call in sick as much as they want and the only penalty is not getting paid sick days once they run out of paid sick leave and vacation days. If an employer does mass layoffs, they have to show that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy and they have tried everything else, including reducing the pay of executives or removing executive positions before firing employees. Elon Musk is in hot water in Japan for mass firing Twitter employees in Japan. He violated Japanese labor laws.
So when the CEO of Nintendo cut his salary due to the poor sales of the Wii U and every American tech writer praised him for it, that was just common practice in Japan?
They have to try reducing or eliminating the costs at the upper levels before trying to fire the wage slaves in Japan, so yes.
He voluntarily cut his salary in half. That's more along the lines of taking responsibility than shoring up the company. CEO pay is a tiny percentage of revenue, despite what lemmy thinks. To make a serious dent, pay would have to be cut across all the C suite, and much deeper.
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It's a different culture altogether, where a job is expected"for life", which also makes it difficult to quit a job. People are literally hiring other people to deliver their resignation notices because it's impossible to do in person.
No, not that I have seen. Job for life is some outdated Boomer generation shit. When people want to quit they just quit. But quitting on your own may mean no unemployment benefits. When an employer wants a worker to leave, for whatever reason, they come to ask the employee to resign and offer them some money for agreeing to quit. Usually about 3 months pay. The employee can also collect unemployment benefits for several months if the resignation is at the request of the employer. So if you want to quit, it's better to make your boss want you to leave, without committing any crimes. That way they ask you to resign. Much better than it was in the USA.
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Japan has strong worker protections
this doesn't apply to contractors and part-time employees, AFAIK
This is for full-time "permanent" employees known as 正社員 (seishain). There are cases where a long-term contract worker gains those same protections (I think after 5 years, but I'm not too up on that).
Various other types of employment have their own restrictions and freedoms to varying degrees on both sides, but I'm not super knowledgeable there.
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Yeah because they started to get fucked over
Good
Yea, every article using the term quiet quitting is getting a down vote. Doing what you're paid for is simply doing your job. This is basically akin to getting mad you didn't get a tip. A TIP IS OPTIONAL.
Doing just what you’re paid for and not one bit more is called “Work to Rule” and it’s just total bullshit that it’s an effective labour tactic of resistance, because it implies that exploitation is part of the expectation in capitalism.
People want to do a good job and employers milk that.
You're doing exactly as much as required? How rude of you.
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From the original reporting in the Japan Times:
Some 45% of full-time employees in Japan are “quiet quitters” — workers doing the bare minimum to meet their job requirements
Oh, no! People are doing their jobs! What a disaster!
I much prefer the term "acting your wage". I'm not doing the bare minimum - I'm doing what I'm paid for. You want me to do more? Guess what, there's one way to motivate me to do so...
Let me guess... pizza!
Office pizza parties on fridays and free water & fruits. Basically the benefits any start-up offers for your hard work...
so goes Japan, so goes the world!!! ive been quiet quitting since i entered the work force
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Goddamn I wish they'd stop using "quiet quitting"
Not listed in the article but, starting around corona, price increases started happening all over the place. Russia's attack on Ukraine also caused price increases here for a number of reasons. Rice is now around double what it was a year ago (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3949/ -- some general price increase, also shortages due to weather and shitty planning). The news keeps talking about price increases every month. Wages? Hardly budging. People are getting a lower quality of life for the same amount of work so of course the desire to put up with bullshit is dropping.
Now, if people would vote for anyone else, we might see something happen. Voter turnout is terrible in Japan. As a non-citizen, I can't vote so nothing I can do there. (Technically, there are some local elections that non-citizens can vote in (I think all requiring permanent residency permits) but nothing at an upper level).
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