One of the times I was visiting Tokyo I saw tons of people sleeping in upper floors of fast food restaurants at night. We're those people practicing inemuri or were they homeless?
I’ve seen this in a McDonald’s near Akihabara station, too. The people I saw sleeping were often in suits. I imagine the people in suits were business people who went for the free wifi (rarer in Japan than the US, I think) and fell asleep.
I've seen people do this at multiple small startups. I guess if an office is small enough for you to know everyone, then they know firsthand if you're lazy or not and don't have to make assumptions just because you're napping.
I did this at Microsoft for years (go underneath the desk in my cubical and take a 20-30 minute nap). It helps if you tell your cow-orkers "I take naps occasionally, if you see me under my desk I'm not dead, so don't panic". No bad political repercussions.
There was a nap room at Apple. I never used it. The room did not go well, and they closed it after some . . . incidents.
I lived in SE Asia for over 7 years, and it was customary to see construction workers, and managers asleep on benches or cardboard during what would be tea break time, or lunch. I have mild insomnia, and I cannot nap as much as I try. I have fell asleep on the subway before in the past, and I felt great after a 20 minute snooze; I had a friend seated next to me, so no fear of getting rolled (NYC subways in the 70s and 80s)!
I once gave a presentation to a board where one of its members was Japanese. That man nodded off about five minutes in, and I later was made to understand this was perfectly acceptable.
Still, quite harrowing if the presentation you're giving is important to you.
I find the study by the University of Michigan (cited at 1:09) interesting that Japanese workers slept less than 7:30 hours on average. That doesn't seem to be an outrageously low number. As a matter of fact, in the first year or so after my son was born, I regularly slept much less than that, and not just for some weeks.
I personally like sleeping, but I know at least two people who don't and try to minimize the amount of sleep they take. I'm sure one of them does quite a bit less than 7:30 a night on average.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 32.2 ms ] threadI really do wish more US companies encouraged power naps, they are provably good for productivity.
There was a nap room at Apple. I never used it. The room did not go well, and they closed it after some . . . incidents.
Still, quite harrowing if the presentation you're giving is important to you.
I personally like sleeping, but I know at least two people who don't and try to minimize the amount of sleep they take. I'm sure one of them does quite a bit less than 7:30 a night on average.