One of my favorite Japanese words is kinben (keen-ben), which means industrious, diligent, and studious. Just as America has always had the Protestant Work Ethic to serve as a model for what hardworking people should aspire to, Japan values diligence and hard work as excellent traits for a person to adopt. By and large, this diligence is usually measured in terms of time rather than raw effort. Doing an hour or two of overtime each day is probably the norm at most Japanese companies, where employees show their effort to their colleagues and boss in a unit that everyone can easily recognize, time. The pinnacle of the kinben concept of hard work is the tetsuya, which means working all night in order to get the important project finished. If an employee in Japan pulls an all-nighter to get his important work done, he'll probably gain a lot of respect from his boss and coworkers. This Japanese tradition of working and studying hard has rubbed off on my son, and I'm not surprised to see him cracking the books at his study desk until 11 pm or later, something that would have been unthinkable for me until I got to university
If you want to earn the respect of your co-workers, work all night long on a project.
2 comments:
I remember a few years back reading a blog post from a gaijin in Japan who worked for a Japanese company. he did a test once - on one day, he worked extra hard and got lots of work done, but came and went based on the official hours. On another day, he did nothing all day, but stayed very late. The long (non-productive) day was rewarded with positive comments, but the more effective, but short, day was frowned upon.
How do you handle this with the J-List offices?
Yes, if I were cynical I'd say that the appearance of kinben is what's important, but I'm an idealist. ^_^ People do a little overtime here and there at J-List, mainly depending on the season. Christmas is hell, and we all stay til 8 pm every day to get the stuff processed properly.
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