Office workers in Japan can now take a cat nap at work with 'Nap Box'. What is it? Basically, a windowless box that shuts out the light and the world for a while allowing a person to relax, de-stress, and get back to work recharged.
"In Japan, there are a lot of people who will lock themselves up in the bathroom for a while [to nap], which I don't think is healthy," Saeko Kawashima, communications director of furniture maker Itoki, told Bloomberg News.
"It's better to sleep in a comfortable location."
The device, which resembles a sleek water heater, will support occupants' heads, knees and rears so that they will not fall over, according to the outlet.
[...] "I think a lot of Japanese people tend to work continuously with no breaks," Kawashima said. "We are hoping that companies can use this as a more flexible approach to resting."
People took to Twitter on Friday to poke fun at the nap boxes, with one user joking, "This is how we get people back to the office."
"Capitalism always wins," another Twitter user said.
How are you supposed to sleep standing up?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Saturday July 30 2022, @02:38PM (2 children)
They probably expect you to spend 30 minutes in there then work 4 additional unpaid hours for slacking off.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:14PM (1 child)
Thirty minutes is too long. https://www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/power-naps-the-benefits-how-long-they-should-be-and-when-they-work-best/ [everydayhealth.com] 20 minutes is supposed to be the ideal power nap. 30 minutes or longer runs the risk that you fall into REM sleep, and being awakened out of REM just kinda sucks, leaving you feel more tired than when you started. In the long ago past when I took a nap, I found that 15 minutes was 'just right' for me.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 30 2022, @05:27PM
YUP!
I find even 5 mins can be great, but yeah, 15 at MOST would be alright.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by srobert on Saturday July 30 2022, @02:55PM (1 child)
"I think a lot of Japanese people tend to work continuously with no breaks,"
As a slacker, I find this to be highly unethical. I'm tired of advocates of the so-called "work ethic" telling us that "the problem is that everyone needs to work harder". When in reality, that is exactly what is making us so miserable, and preventing the world's economy from functioning as it should.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2022, @06:24PM
It's because they are psychopaths. The boss doesn't care if WFH is more productive, or less productive. That's just a word used to browbeat you. They want to hear you squeal like a pig. Louder. I SAID LOUDER!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtAkf0UMeLA [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 30 2022, @04:10PM
Have they just not taken the capsule boxes they use for capsule motels and flipped them around so now you stand up (so you can't really fall asleep -- or I guess there are some rare breed of people that can stand up and sleep; in this case the confined space might help so you don't fall over)? OK so it's substantially smaller then the hotel capsules (and it doesn't come with a TV and WiFi etc ... that will be the deluxe edition). Still from the images it looks kind of flimsy if you would manage to fall asleep or make a sudden movement that thing looks like it could topple over without to many problems.
Here we have a couch in the office instead. Nap at your own risk tho. Also god only knows what have happened on that couch over the years ...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday July 30 2022, @04:16PM (26 children)
When I lived in the US, I did a shitload of overtime for a few years. I was a "great" employee. At least that's what my employer said. I had no life, no hobbies and poor health. But boy! was I doing what the corporate brainwashing machine expected of me or what!
And then I had a heart attack, at the ripe old age of 25.
Since then, I moved to Europe and applied myself very hard at working as little as possible, with a view to making full use of the two most precious assets I have: a fixed number of hours of life on this rock, and a loving family.
Fuck the machine. Fuck the men who work for the machine. I'd like to say I'd rather be poorer and looked down on but healthy and happy, but the fact is, I'm not poor and I'm not looked down on here! I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm happy and looking forward to an even happier retirement in a few years, if the world doesn't go to shit before I can retire. And if I can't retire, no problem: I'll take it even slower and easier than I do now at work: it's not like I'm straining myself on the job.
I pity the Japanese for what they have to go through to be valued members of their society. I also pity the Americans, but THEY could very well do thing differently if they wanted to, unlike the Japanese who are totally slave to rigid work "ethics" that are extremely socially disabling for them and their family to abandon.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday July 30 2022, @05:34PM (11 children)
I know a guy who worked until he was 70, so he could collect the most in his CPP (Canada Pension Plan) and then retired and died 4 months later: never had a chance to enjoy his retirement.
I hope to retire at 63ish, so i can enjoy my wife and son more: now it just seems i work and come home. Retiring at 63ish means i get less 'pogey' year by year, but hoping i get it for a long time.
Hope to travel a bit, enjoy my gardens, swim with my son and just enjoy walking and exercising, etc... keep fit so i don't gain too much weight, lol.
YEah, fuck the machine and those shoving you into it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday July 30 2022, @06:05PM (1 child)
I do all that now. Been doing it since my cardiac mishap. Enjoy life while you can. After your retire is too late. And in this day and age, it's wise not to really count of retiring at all.
Personally, I'm on permanent semi-holiday / fun time by virtue of having found the laziest, easiest, best paid job and working as few hours as possible there - and my boss knowing full well I won't do a single hour of overtime if I can avoid it, so it's not like I'm slacking off or being deceptive. And I'll go to my grave knowing I'll have had all my fun in life while I was young enough to enjoy it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2022, @06:32PM
I want what ^^he's having.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2022, @06:30PM
> I hope to retire at 63ish
Brah, do that shit now.
The time to do something you want to do is when you want to do it. These things are time loaded. In 5 years you may not want to do it any more, and you'll not do it. Do it now while the energy and desire are aflame, tis the season.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:28AM (6 children)
He could have retired at 63 years, die 4 months later, and never have that chance to enjoy his retirement 7 years earlier. Some people just can't handle the change. Maybe earlier retirement would have been good for him, maybe not. All we know is what he chose to do.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:19PM (5 children)
This is why a work-life balance is important. You need to work a sensible amount to have a good living and to be able to support yourself in retirement, but you also need to realise that you are living your life and find some time on a daily basis to call your own, to do whatever you like, or to do nothing. Society can support that by some forms of wealth redistribution and by regulating working hours to make sure they get shared out fairly and that people are not exploited,
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @01:08PM (4 children)
Note that such a need is really modest and could be trivially satisfied for everything but the most egregious excesses of work loads.
That's not society's job nor do I consider that a worthy use of society's resources. Let us also keep in mind that society can aggressively hinder your stated goal through the very tools you suggest! For example, by distributing wealth from people who work to better their lives to people who choose not to. Now, the people trying to improve their lives have to work harder - and suffer more. You signaled that was important to you. Is it?
Similarly, labor regulation is notorious for making the problems it alleges to fix worse - by discouraging demand for labor (by raising the cost of employing people), by forcing people to live in high cost of living areas (one-size-fits-all minimum wage affects areas with low cost of living more), or by encouraging the growth of oligopolies (remember regulation compliance has strong economies of scale, it's not much more costly for a large business to comply with regulation than a small business).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:40PM (1 child)
Ah, here we go. You'd rather the genuinely needy and unfortunate went without than a few bad apples got something for nothing.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:24PM
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:41PM (1 child)
Several citations needed.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @11:32PM
First, it starts with supply and demand [wikipedia.org] (and yes, I don't buy into the fantasies of demand-side economics where somehow sabotaging the demand for labor becomes a growing economy). And I suggest your UK as a prime example of what happens when you harm demand for labor for more than half a century. I think the "Britannia Unchained" [soylentnews.org] government is one of many side effects of that approach. If supporters were working hard instead, they wouldn't be interested in the policies of that faction.
I have two US examples: Puerto Rico and Fresno, California. In the former, there's plenty wrong, but putting most of their jobs underwater when they had to adopt [nber.org] federal (US-wide) minimum wages (reaching parity in 1983). It has helped result in the peculiar phenomenon of more Puerto Ricans living off the island than on it. Fresno is an ongoing demonstration of the cluelessness of the California state-wide increase in minimum wage law to a present $15 per hour. A place like San Jose (which is only a couple hours away) sees almost no effect since few jobs are below $15 per hour. In Fresno, however half of jobs were below $15 per hour. My take is that if it weren't for the ongoing gentrification of Fresno from Silicon Valley commuters/telecommuters who are moving in, we'd already see a decline in population due to the ending of these low paying jobs. Even now, we're seeing an unprecedented slowdown in Fresno's population growth.
Both examples demonstrate one of the hidden effects of one-size-fits-all policy. The places most effected lose the most.
Here's some US examples: US car companies and broadcasting companies, industrial farms and food processing firms, AT&T's former monopoly, the military industrial complex - the whole thing, insurance companies and medical products companies - consider that a gamble on a completely new drug can cost over a billion dollars to go from multiple drug formulations to a viable, FDA-approved drug ready for sale. These all have immense economies of scale from exploiting subsidies or from minimizing the cost of adverse regulation. They're the only ones that can afford massive gambles on medical technology or high risk nuclear power. Or spend years overcoming regulatory and lawsuit obstructions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @10:56AM
When my wife was teaching, she had a friend who taught Maths and was several years past the retirement age. The reason she stayed on was that the school couldn't recruit enough new teachers and staff turnover was too high. She finally was going to retire at the age of 70, at the end of the school year in July but dropped dead during the Easter holidays. Public sector workers, essential to a properly functioning society, are treated very badly, over-worked and under compensated. People do these jobs, not out of personal greed, but because of a sense of duty. Politicians know this and exploit it. Paramedics, firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses and so on all get a very bad deal.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stretch611 on Saturday July 30 2022, @07:24PM (12 children)
No one on their death bed ever says, You know what, I should have spent more time at work...
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @01:19AM
Those that cannot afford a deathbed, however, would have worked a little more.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:31AM (10 children)
But I bet a bunch of them do appreciate what they did with that hard work - such as raise a family, for example.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @10:51AM (9 children)
No one can precisely define "hard" work. From my experience, it means working to the point of suffering. Am I correct?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @11:39AM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:01PM (7 children)
As human beings, I think we can aspire to better, more civillised ways of getting the things we want.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:10PM (3 children)
You'll still have to work hard to get that. There is no royal road to a better life.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:16PM (2 children)
Should we make ourselves ill and work into an early grave?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:21PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:43PM
People can choose to do what they like. I don't think that we humans should necessarily aspire to it in general, or expect or force people to do it. If people want to work extra, let them. If they're that motivated, I'm sure they'll find a way.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:54PM (2 children)
Here, you have repeatedly asserted that we should be able to get satisfy our wants without having to work hard. What I find bizarre about the assertion is that's already true - several people have noted that they do that right now.
So what really is your problem here? Let's review how we got here:
You implicitly acknowledge you don't have these better, more civilized ways. And it's something you think we should want tremendously. So how do we get it? Do we just not try? Or do we use the means at our disposal now? How much do you really want this?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:47PM
In one of my previous posts a week or two back I mentioned these better ways that we certainly used to have some of in the UK, but successively further-to-the-right governments have undone in recent decades. Now we have a Britannia Unchained (Unhinged) government, of whom I'm sure you'd approve. As I also said, this is why Scotland is seeking independence. We disagree with you. We have see a more sophisticated and civillised future. We don't want to be your cash cows to be milked to death.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:49PM
Please tell me the name of your company so that I never accidentally apply for a job there. I'd hate to work for you.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @01:29AM
This. I don't see the point of complaining that someone is doing rough stuff to themselves when that's what they want, be it working hard, crazy stunts, or snorting cocaine.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday July 30 2022, @07:22PM (1 child)
A 30-minute catnap will rest your brain. A 30-minute catnap with your body *lying flat* will allow your heart to chill out and pump blood horizontally for a while, instead of up and down while the rest of your body is trying to shut down.
But maybe I'm overthinking this. I mean, it's not like the Japanese have blood pressure symptoms [youtu.be] so prevalent that it's become a theme in their popular media.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday July 31 2022, @02:19AM
I had the thought that this kinda resembles those torture boxes where you're never quite allowed to relax.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stormreaver on Saturday July 30 2022, @09:23PM (1 child)
What an awesome idea for Japan. When they're too tired to work, they can sleep. When they die in their sleep from exhaustion, they're already in their coffin.*
----
* This catch-phrase Copyright 2022 by Stormreaver.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @12:19AM
A very fashionable one, looks like a giant suppository, or something else
(Score: 4, Informative) by mrpg on Saturday July 30 2022, @09:57PM
No Japan, no, normally people work till 5 and then go home. Try it for a month in any business, let's see what happens.
Which reminds me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi [wikipedia.org]
Karoshi (過労死, Karōshi), which can be translated into "overwork death", is a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death.[1]
The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and a starvation diet. Mental stress from the workplace can also cause karoshi through workers taking their own lives. People who commit suicide due to overwork are called karōjisatsu (過労自殺).[1]
The phenomenon of death by overwork is also widespread in other parts of Asia and can be considered a worldwide phenomenon.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2022, @11:08AM
In my experience, companies that are badly managed are the most stressful ones to work for. They are the ones where there is crisis after crisis to deal with, where all sorts of ludicrous hours have to be worked, holidays and weekends cancelled and so on. The root cause is usually management greed and an unwillingness to plan for the correct resources to be allocated to the project from the start, glibly ignoring feedback from the staff and telling stories to the customers.
The best places to work are where the projects are properly planned, resourced and executed, where the staff know precisely what to work on, where they can focus uninterrupted on the "execution" as the PHB-types like to call it, and have efficient feedback mechanisms for keeping their progress and barriers reported and having the management support to coordinate the removal of the barriers. Usually, that means redeploying resources, bringing in extra help from other disciplines, speaking to the customer to clarify requirements and so on.
Management has a responsibility. Management isn't just about drawing graphs and Powerpoint slides. Some actual work is involved to do it right. It's not just about assigning tasks to minions and collecting pay cheques, bonuses and stock options.
If you are running a company where people are always having to do long hours and work weekends and cancel holidays, you are doing it wrong. Your company is unsustainable. The staff will leave. Project will fail. Customers will not be happy. They won't give you repeat business. You might even be sued.
It has been known for many decades that about 8 hours of work a day is the most you can reasonably expect from human beings on a sustainable basis. If you can't work things out so that your staff are not being flogged to death, you are a bad manager and you should not be in charge. The shareholders demand and expect better care taken of their investment.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].