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An NHK employee died at age 31 after logging 159 hours of overtime and taking just two days off in the month before her death due to heart failure:
Japan has again been forced to confront its work culture after labour inspectors ruled that the death of a 31-year-old employee of the country's public broadcaster, NHK, had been caused by overwork.
Miwa Sado, who worked at the broadcaster's headquarters in Tokyo, logged 159 hours of overtime and took only two days off in the month leading up to her death from heart failure in July 2013.
A labour standards office in Tokyo later attributed her death to karoshi (death from overwork) but her case was only made public by her former employer this week. Sado's death is expected to increase pressure on Japanese authorities to address the large number of deaths attributed to the punishingly long hours expected of many employees.
The article mentions other instances of "karoshi", which can lead to heart failure, stroke, or suicide.
Miwa Sado was a political reporter for Japan's national public broadcaster NHK covering Tokyo and National Diet elections prior to her death. Japan, and particularly Tokyo, has been noted for the apathy of its voters.
Also at CNN and the Asahi Shimbun.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 06 2017, @08:50AM (4 children)
The Japanese don't work harder than anyone else. They stay at the office longer. Meaningful work stops around 5:30-6pm. Then they shuffle papers for another 5 hours until the boss decides to go home to make the boss and everyone else think they're working hard "for the team." The boss only stays that late because he (it's always a he) wants everyone else to think he's working hard "for the team." Then they go out to a Snack, drink themselves silly until 2am, ride the train home to catch a couple hours of shut-eye, and do the same again the next day. The people who drop dead from "overwork" there drop dead from stress, and the stress is purely social, as in stressing about what the rest of the "team" is thinking about them, and losing sleep over it.
The real suckers are Americans, Koreans, and Chinese who work for FoxConn. They do work those hours.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday October 06 2017, @03:55PM (1 child)
My boss must be an undercover Japanese spy disguised as a tall Irish-descent Californian...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 06 2017, @05:09PM
Irish... [youtube.com]
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday October 06 2017, @05:49PM (1 child)
I hear you about the not really working but rather just pretending in order to look good. At one of my first tech jobs, long ago, there was a dedicated group of people who were widely admired as go-getters by the powers that be.
I later found out all they did was clean the aquariums in their offices and bullshit with each other, all day long on Saturdays. Every Saturday because they were hard slackers. They never did a lick of work but they sure received the praise and, I presume, the money :)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 06 2017, @06:15PM
Well, yeah. The ones who praise the PHB for how smart and bold he is are clearly the most intelligent and capable people in the company and should get most of the reward.
Washington DC delenda est.