The Best of Kotaku, This Week

I’m in this unique position where I work both in the public and private sector simultaneously. My company is private. And honestly I don’t have too many complaints outside of some weird, arbitrary and contradicting rules. Nothing too serious. I suppose every company has issues regardless of country.

But the public sector? What a mess. Bureaucracy masters. How anything gets done at any level is beyond me. But I won’t get too into that. The comment about work loads and physical labor strikes a cord with me.

Now I’m lucky enough to not have to work the hours as my co-workers, nor do I have the same workload. But they are worked to the bone. They arrive at 5am, and don’t leave until 9, 10pm at night. And they do this 7 days a week, usually. 6 if they are lucky. They are utterly exhausted, forced—and I do mean forced—to stay and work these ridiculous hours even if there is no need. And I won’t even get into the needless activities, meetings and paperwork that needs to be done on a daily basis.

It’s the old Japanese way of doing things that still permeates, and is what I think is holding back these companies, cities, etc. Change doesn’t come easy here. People hate the way things are done; I hear complaints all the time. But nobody knows how to stop the terrible cycle.

There are many companies who are changing. Have changed. Internationalization has forced this change, in a way. But there is still a lot of old-schooler’s that are doing things like they did 40 years ago, and it is literally killing them.