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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @05:45AM (5 children)
No karoshi for me. I get plenty of sleep. I have no job. I have no friends. I live in my mother's house but I haven't spoken to her in ten years. I only ever go out at night to buy nutrition bars and energy drinks. Tonight I saw a rabbit.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 06 2017, @05:49AM (3 children)
You're not a NEET because you are currently undergoing astronaut training.
Felon Musky has a special job for you on Mars.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @06:12AM
Mars as in 'the chocolate bar', right?
Otherwise Felon can stick his job somewhere, no nutrition bars on Mars as yet, night time or day time.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)
Hikki =/= NEET.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:43PM
There is obviously a huge overlap between the two groups.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @06:52AM
At the end of the article they had links for people in the UK who may feel themselves at risk of such things..
No, really..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @05:51AM (17 children)
Happend in July - a 31 days month.
2 days off - 29 days. An average of 5h28m/day of extra hours.
On top of 8h/day => 13.5 h/day. Not a walk in the park, but... at around 30yo, I had such months (even slightly higher load - around 15h/day, no free weekends. Fortunately, the compensation included paid-for taxi riding. Invaluable - takeaway in taxi, get home, have a shower, drop dead to sleep, wake up, have coffee while waiting for the taxi, about 7h/day of sleep. Repeat for about 40 days in a row. Project finished in time - holiday during which I was unreachable for office).
Likely:
1. she wasn't in good health to begin with
2. the must have been some days with load in excess of those 13 hours - some of these, chained, can indeed kill even a healthy person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 06 2017, @05:54AM (1 child)
Don't forget the trend of bringing your work home.
The streak of 13+ hour days could have come in the days leading up to the elections, plus the aftermath.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @06:16AM
Case at hand, I reckon this would translate in "bring the cameraman and maybe the rest of the crew with her".
Mmm... yeah, that would be somehow excessive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Friday October 06 2017, @06:24AM (11 children)
I think the problem was probably that this was not an unusual month for her. As you point out, it's possible to handle this for short bursts at a time, but if you are doing these sorts of hours for months on end (with no end in sight) then it quickly gets nasty.
The tragedy is that, beyond short bursts, people working these sorts of hours are no more effective per-day than those who work a regular 8 hour day.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @07:01AM
When the metric is "number of news stories reported during election" (the case here), I reckon that unfortunately they are effective enough - not an act of creation, the quality of reporting is acceptable to be mediocre.
It's not like investigative journalism, it's more like "And now, to our reporter in X shopping mall. How do the people feel about the candidate Y? - Well, you see, some of them don't even know him and are still able to chase the latest Pokemons or whatever".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @07:01AM (3 children)
Dont kid yourself.
There are many Japanese who are super productive at much more than 40 hours/week.
How? They dont go home, and family time, watch some tv, relax over dinner, etc.
The 'sensible' ones still get 8 hours of sleep - however they live next to their work, and do very VERY little else.
24 hours - 8 = 16 hours/day
take another two hours for eating and washing = 14 hours a day.
Do that for 6 days/week and you have 72 hours/week, or 32 hours overtime (compared to 40 hours).
Over a standard 4 weeks thats an extra 128 hours..
The problem is this kind of behavior is also demanded from people whos jobs are not improved by additional hours - you just have to be there.
THIS is the broken part - letting people work more where it is productive, and rewarding them, is NOT a bad thing.
Requiring people to work such hours 'just because' is the disaster.
The secret to making those hours useful is a high sense of achievement in your work, and not wasting your live on tv, farcebook, and such.
Unfortunately most corperations, and most managers, do their very best to destroy any sense of achievement...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @07:13AM (2 children)
Just watch the documentary [wikipedia.org]
And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
...
Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
Hello Peter, whats happening? Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk... oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, mkay. We ahh lost some people this week and ah, we sorta need to play catch up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday October 06 2017, @08:44AM (1 child)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd4fj9Efl4s [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @11:57AM
I'm afraid you are jumping to conclusion [youtube.com]
Just remember, if you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @04:44PM
it also depends on whether you sit on your ass all day or not. your cardio goes to hell in a hand basket pretty quick so if you add stress to that, it could get bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @08:09AM (1 child)
I can see no reason to subject yourself to anything like this, whatever your age and health, other than immediate danger to life.
I.e. you're stuck in the mountains and winter is coming, you have to chop down as much fire wood as possible etc.
Or you're in a war.
Or something similar.
Otherwise, I would say you were either taken advantage of (because you didn't know any better), or you were stupidly refusing to take good advice other people were giving you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @11:20AM
I really liked what I did, I was well paid and it was a challenge - what more do you need at 30-ies.
It wasn't like it was going to keep forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @02:30PM
Not every work is the same. Some work can be much more stressful than other. Personally I find things more stressful when there are many uncertainties that determine if all the work will be successful (and get judged by my boss based on the success, not the amount of work performed). That's different than just a huge amount of pre-determined work that needs to be done (success is certain when it is done).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @07:16AM (1 child)
The constitutional right to vote should stop when people get killed. No elections, no death. Ban elections now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @07:27AM
Nani?!!!>>!>!???!?1
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Friday October 06 2017, @08:34AM (4 children)
What? I assume it's some kind of keyboard slippage but I can't really figure out what it is actually supposed to say -- unless it's actually supposed to say National Diet elections in which case I wonder what that is. Do they get together every 5th year and decide that it's going to be Rice and Tuna for the next five years again like it has been for the last few centuries?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @08:41AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday October 06 2017, @03:21PM (1 child)
Speaking of "House of Representatives", I read something weird the other day on the Guardian:
That Puerto Rico has a person in the US House of Representatives, but that person is not allowed to represent them (i.e. I mean has no power to vote).
Is'nt that odd?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @04:48PM
D.C. has the same. Their rep is Eleanor Holmes Norton.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday October 06 2017, @03:18PM
It's an old word, named after the Diet of Worms.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 06 2017, @09:43AM
R.I.P. Miwa Sado.
Me は sad よ!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Farmer Tim on Friday October 06 2017, @11:29AM (3 children)
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @11:39AM (2 children)
Old saying,
Work your fingers to the bone, what do you get?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 06 2017, @12:21PM (1 child)
If that's what you get, it shows you didn't work enough. So: "Long live the American Dream" (aka dust in your eyes, otherwise business as usual) vs MAGA [vice.com]
The linked - a fair YMMV warning is in order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @05:10PM
It's amusing (in a wry, bitter, wrist-slitting sort of way) that Obama sold his candidacy on Hope! and Change! And a healthy helping of Si, se puede! but the actual sum of what he achieved had basically nothing to do with his electoral platform.
Granted, his electoral platform was fuzzy, and when it wasn't it was kind of weird. Remember the idea to have every high schooler do some kind of community service as a graduation condition? Honestly, I don't think that that would have done much for anybody, but oh well.
Still, I guess he mostly didn't achieve much, but that's not incompatible with Hope!
Maybe Trump is hoping that other people will Make America Great Again while he works on his orange tan.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Friday October 06 2017, @01:17PM (1 child)
Here's a bullet I'll dodge for sure!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @04:50PM
No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re lazy, you won’t have to.