Japan, Selected Columns..[ 1813 ]

Japan, give us a break!

Commuters crowd Nishitetsu Fukuoka Station in Fukuoka on Aug. 17, after the end of the obon holiday. (Mainichi)

(Mainichi Japan) September 16, 2010

Last week my partner came home and said that she may no longer be able to take a lunch break at work.

Apparently, there is resentment among her co-workers that she leaves the office, while they have to stay and eat "bento."

Why can't they leave too? -- Because someone has to answer the phones during the break.

So why not set up a daily rotation system, allowing most to go out while one person stays behind?

Well, that won't work either because everyone is trying to prove how hard they work.

There isn't the space in these columns to discuss issues in depth, so I'm afraid this will sound like a rant. But please Japan -- give me a break.

Time after time I've been in offices here where people feel under pressure not to take time off, for lunches or anything else.

According to a report by Harris Interactive this year, Japanese workers took off an average of 9.3 of their 16.6 legally mandated vacation days.

As anyone who works here knows, even that remarkable statistic hides a lot of pain. Most office workers contribute dozens of hours per month in unpaid overtime. Many don't get proper dinner breaks and toil away into the evening. More than once I've seen friends arrive at 9 p.m. and congratulate themselves on getting home early.

Is it because everyone is so busy they can't afford time off? Of course not -- productivity in Japanese offices is low. Most people could easily do the work they're assigned in half the time.

The really distressing thing is that bosses don't even have to demand this masochistic behavior from employees here -- workers police themselves.

In my partner's offices, as in many, there's a sort of discreet bullying that keeps everyone in line. A "nani-sama" -- who-does-she-think-she-is -- approach that pulls everyone down to the same miserable level.

It made me sad to walk through Tamachi Station in August after the obon holidays and see the grim faces of people who had managed to extract only three days of holiday from their firms before returning to work.

As the economy declines here, this phenomenon is worsening. And that's very unfortunate because decent breaks and holidays could help Japan.

Reformers in Britain and elsewhere discovered over a century ago that happy employees are motivated, productive employees.

Economists say one of Japan's biggest structural problems is chronic underconsumption, in part because millions of workers have so little opportunity to spend their hard-earned cash.

And one more thing: Giving reasonable working hours to men and women would give them more time to meet, fall in love and rescue Japan from its marriage and fertility crisis.

So what's the downside? If there is one, I can't see it. 

(By David McNeill)

(Profile)

David McNeill writes for The Independent and Irish Times newspapers and the weekly Chronicle of Higher Education. He has been in Japan since 2000 and previously spent two years here, from 1993-95 working on a doctoral thesis. He was raised in Ireland.