• GrymEdm@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I hear some countries in Asia are CRAZY bad for these kind of expectations and have been for a long time.

    • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Oh absolutely. In Japan for example if you are unable to work or you get removed from your career, it is socially understandable for you to consider suicide. Lots of Japanese citizens put their job before even their families or the potential of having a family.

      It’s actually pretty fuckin crazy what Japanese work culture does to their citizens.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I’ve been reading Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs and evidently they don’t fire people in Japan. If they want rid of you, they just give you less and less to do until you’re sitting in the office all day getting paid to do nothing, and the cultural expectation is that you quit out of shame rather than just accepting money for nothing.

          • lightnegative@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It only works for cultures where individuals have to sepukku if they bring shame on family.

            In the USA, bringing shame upon family is considered a rite of passage so it doesn’t quite have the same effect

            • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Heh. I already am that, but I do have to work. It’s not as hard as when I was digging ditches for a living, but it’s definitely still work. Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes there’s a million things to do.

              • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I have to work. I do, because I like the work and I like the company I work for a lot, but I’m fairly confident that I could just show up to meetings twice a week and fudge paperwork for quite a while before anyone caught on that I’m just a hole they’re dumping money into.

        • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 months ago

          I wonder if this also has something to do with the company itself avoiding shame too. Like firing an employee is a sign of weakness, that you hired someone like that in the first place? Or potentially a difference in benefits or a pension that they have to pay?

          • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            That’s a thought I had as well, and based on my extremely limited knowledge and research I think it’s the conflict that’s being avoided. Rather than dealing with the person directly, you use indirect actions that signal the expected result when taken in that social context and then let the pressure of those expectations generate the result you need without you ever directly doing anything. My understanding is that the pressure is pretty enormous, your coworkers will basically shun you out of fear of being targeted themselves and resentment for all the work you’re not doing that they have to pick up instead.

    • Drusas@kbin.run
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      6 months ago

      Look up China’s 669 practice. South Korea is also known for having an especially brutal work culture. The two manage to make even Japan’s work culture look almost reasonable by comparison (Japan famously requiring long hours and lifelong dedication to your employer).