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posted by on Monday January 16 2017, @07:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the indispensible-employee dept.

When Stuart Nomimizu relocated from Birmingham, England, to Tokyo his friends and family in the UK started to worry. Not only did they rarely hear from him, but he seemed to always be at the office from early morning until very late at night. His working hours seemed so extreme, that they didn't always believe he was working as hard as he said.

To convince them, he documented one week of his life as a so-called "salaryman" in Tokyo's financial-services industry and posted it online so they could understand his new lifestyle.

The resulting video went viral on YouTube, racking up more than one million views. It depicts a hectic week in 2015 during the financial sector's busy season — from January to March — when Nomimizu clocked in 78 working hours and 35 sleeping hours between Monday and Saturday (before working another six hours that Sunday, which you don't see in the video).

[...] It got to the point where Nomimizu was putting in so many 80-hour work weeks that he fainted in his apartment one night and came-to right next to a TV stand, which he'd narrowly missed. When the rush period was finally over, he says the entire office got "horrendously sick."

While Nomimizu's excessive workload was somewhat temporary, he says "there are people working for companies in Tokyo that do that sort of workload and have that life day-in, day-out all year long." Indeed, marathon workdays are so entrenched in the culture that there's even a Japanese word, karoshi, that quite literally means "overwork death."

Source: If you want to earn more, work less


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  • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday January 16 2017, @08:45PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Monday January 16 2017, @08:45PM (#454502) Homepage Journal

    Bottom line : college is a negative investment, and it will ruin your life forever.

    Which is why people should pay for it themselves, by working, rather than it being paid for at the expense of everybody else.

    --
    ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @08:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @08:48PM (#454503)

    You're not understanding the message, you senile old coot. A college degree isn't worth paying for, not with anyone's money.

    • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday January 16 2017, @09:16PM

      by jdavidb (5690) on Monday January 16 2017, @09:16PM (#454519) Homepage Journal
      Apparently you're not understanding my message.
      --
      ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
  • (Score: 1) by NewNic on Monday January 16 2017, @09:33PM

    by NewNic (6420) on Monday January 16 2017, @09:33PM (#454532) Journal

    Which is why people should pay for it themselves, by working, rather than it being paid for at the expense of everybody else.

    Except that there is a net benefit to society from educating the population. So, should it be free? Probably not. Should it be subsidized? Almost certainly.

    --
    lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
    • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday January 16 2017, @09:51PM

      by jdavidb (5690) on Monday January 16 2017, @09:51PM (#454546) Homepage Journal

      Except that there is a net benefit to society from educating the population

      Not if the assumptions of the guy I was replying to are true.

      --
      ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:24PM (#454564)

        When your society values enthusiastic youthful ignorance above all else, sure, go ahead and waste your youth and spoil your ignorance by getting an education.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by NewNic on Monday January 16 2017, @11:07PM

        by NewNic (6420) on Monday January 16 2017, @11:07PM (#454589) Journal

        Not if the assumptions of the guy I was replying to are true.

        The AC is just another ignorant, uneducated idiot who is envious of those who have an education and are successful in life.

        --
        lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @11:38PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @11:38PM (#454604)

          The AC is just another bitter educated egghead who is envious of the uneducated who are successful in life.

          Get it straight, jackass.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:57PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:57PM (#454882) Homepage Journal

            It's never too late to learn to be a welder. You too could easily make $100K/year and have people kissing your ass instead of making less and being the ass-kisser if you have half a brain in your head.

            I have a friend who's a proper dipshit yet just paid cash for his new Mercedes. Which he then let his sister drive and ding with a concrete parking pole at the grocery store. See? Dipshit. And still makes more money a year than I ever have.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday January 16 2017, @11:54PM

        by butthurt (6141) on Monday January 16 2017, @11:54PM (#454614) Journal

        > Not if the assumptions of the guy I was replying to are true.

        The key assumption in that post is that college ought to lead to employment.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:51PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:51PM (#454881) Homepage Journal

      No, there is not. There is a net benefit to society in having people able to perform specific jobs that require specific education. There is zero benefit to society from having a bunch of chuckleheads with Gender Studies or Liberal Arts degrees.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:51PM

    by darnkitten (1912) on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:51PM (#454958)

    Which is why people should pay for it themselves, by working, rather than it being paid for at the expense of everybody else.

    When I started my first degree, I was able to attend with a full load and pay for school and expenses with a 3/4-time job.

    With tuition inflation (and regular inflation, but mostly the tuition), by the time I finished my second Bachelor's, I was unable to pay part-time tuition (1/3-1/2 load) plus expenses with 1 1/2 time employment (three part-time or one full- plus one half-time job), so I had to take loans to finish.

    Add three years of grad study, and I'm still paying for it over a decade-and-a-half later, with no end in sight.

    I don't regret the degrees, even though I'm not working in my degree field--the skills I learned at university serve me very well in my current career. I do resent the debt load.

    The assumption of universities (and those providing services to the university and students) that education will be paid for by loans (parental or otherwise) instead of by work disengages tuition costs from real-world costs; and the buy-in to the concept by the students themselves (who often take jobs only to pay for entertainment and amusement, as their basic tuition/expenses are paid for by borrowed funds) disengage pay in the local job market from real costs as well.

    The result is that jobs pay less than needed to pay expenses, while tuition and basic expenses balloon, which leads to a vicious circle where more money is borrowed to pay rising expenses and pay becomes less able to meet those expenses, leading to more loans, etc.