Holy moly! My browser has been loading that page for the past 2 minutes. Over 100 separate HTTP requests, nearly 15MB of data downloaded thus far and several dozen entries logged to the console.
Doesn't even load at all without first enabling JS hosted by a third party. And even now it loaded with a lot of broken images and styling. Can't be bothered to look what's causing it. The modern web sucks sometimes.
I personally enjoy what the article described work and life being mixed together. I do what's expected of me in a lot fewer hours than 8 and get to enjoy my day instead of being stuck to a desk pretending to do work.
>Many of us leave our 9-to-5s for freelancing with the expectation that it will give us back work-life balance
I think "many of us" don't know any small business owners.
>it didn’t take long before I gave up on professionalism and slipped into oversharing the messier parts of life that I usually don’t put on display for coworkers—being hungover, braless, binge-watching Terrace House.
This sort of "oversharing" is normal in pretty much any blue collar industry that provides housing for workers.
That looks totally different from what my mental image generator conjured up as I read the story. I was imagining a we-work with a dividing wall behind which people could nap.
Funny how 'front-loading' can shape expectations. You read the story which shaped a mental image. If you knew Japanese you'd recognize 'midori' (green, possibly ivy-covered) and 'so' (cottage, small inn) and probably wouldn't be surprised by the linked picture.
There's at least three locations - the Aobadai one is the one pictured in that spoon-tamago link, it's pretty ramshackle and basically converted apartment space, but the other two look a bit more standard working-space.
I'm pretty sure from the details in the story that she was at the Nagatacho GRID one.
Real estate is surprisingly cheap in Japan in general. My wife and I often look at listings when we are there and consider how many apartment buildings we could own if we just sold our one house in Sydney.
The Japanese generally don't view real estate as a speculative investment so capital gains are quite low.
> After this three-week experiment, I think that work-life balance—a balance that might not even exist in traditional workplaces anymore—might look more like leaving our work, physically or metaphorically, at our desks when we go home.
This is so important to me. Working from home sounds luxurious, but when I tried it it felt more like living at work. You need to be able to draw a hard line between the times and spaces where you work, and the ones where your time is your own.
Different people have different needs. Some certainly find structure to be important whether that means hard limits between work and personal life or any other type of separation of activities.
However, others (and I put myself in this category) are pretty good at setting informal limits while being flexible about it. I tend to work 9-5ish at home but I'll run a daytime errand if I need to and spend some time in the evening if it makes sense.
Before I went fully remote, I would always leave my laptop at work when I went home for the day (except for on call rotation). It always surprised my coworkers, almost all of whom took their machines home nearly daily. I won’t judge people for that, but can’t help but feel like an outsider with that kind of social pressure.
I haven't quite gone that far, I do pretend to take my laptop home each day (the company policy basically requires they be taken home, or locked up). It only makes it as far as the trunk of my car, though, and no exceptions unless dire emergency :)
I don't really have an opinion on whether or not you should take your laptop home, but I just wanted to point out this imaginary line between "work" and "home life" is a total modern construct.
Tell your distant great grandfather, you know the small farmer in rural europe in the 1700s, that the cows just escaped the pen and see if he says "But its saturday evening, I'm off the clock".
The farmer typically owns their business, which is different. As for the old farmers in Europe that were paying "rent" to a landlord to use their land, this was almost considered slavery according to modern standard.
As for the farm worker that is hired, you can be sure they don't bring the cows home with them.
> Tell your distant great grandfather, you know the small farmer in rural europe in the 1700s, that the cows just escaped the pen and see if he says "But its saturday evening, I'm off the clock".
He probably would if they were someone else's cows.
Maintaining healthy boundaries (whatever those are for you) is hard work no matter how you look at it. When the time you give to your employer ends and the time you give to yourself begins is one such boundary.
I think of it that way because work and life aren't two separate things—work exists within life—and neither do they balance equally. Work always demands a greater chunk of your time, whether it warrants it or not. If such a boundary is crossed and it is one that you find important, then you might recognise that much sooner than if you're thinking about balance, because you can start getting into specifics and where exactly you do draw the line instead of attempting to rationalise something you might not like.
At that point, it's not just work asking for longer hours, or flexibility on weekends; it's also stuff like your colleagues sending you messages and emails at 11pm or 2am, eating lunch at your desk, not taking holidays, hackathons (if those even happen any more!), being expected to be on call, leaving the office at 7pm instead of 5.30pm as the contract states, etc.
And after that, if you find work to becoming ever more intrusive, then the boundary system gives you enough info to recognise that this isn't really a 'work' problem, it's the same kind of shit you get in any unhealthy relationship and your working relationships are no exception.
One part of the article I'd like to point out is that people fall asleep at their desks in Japan's open-offices all the time and nobody says anything or cares. If you did that in one of America's new hipster code corrals, you'd most likely be fired.
Personally, I cannot handle Japan's stringent work culture on an emotional level. To paraphrase George Goebbels, I feel that Japan is a tuxedo and I'm a brown pair of shoes. However, I do respect the fact that in small ways, like inemuri (sleeping during work), Japan treats their employees like humans, rather than resources. They may suck in other areas, and do, but in this regard I think they have the right attitude.
used to do this in open space office in Beijing, not much reason to return to my rented room after dinner and drinks with colleagues, chatting with PM staying late until 22-23 and watching movies/tv shows on decent internet at my work computer, so why even bother going to sleep back home if i have sofa here
extremely work lunch break with drinking and not much work after lunch, not that bad for someone young and single, in other offices they even encouraged people to sleep on mats under their desks, at least they can work longer hours and start earlier than hours
though after buying computer and renting better room with better internet i stopped doing it, can't say it would change much about my work/life balance
43 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadI think "many of us" don't know any small business owners.
>it didn’t take long before I gave up on professionalism and slipped into oversharing the messier parts of life that I usually don’t put on display for coworkers—being hungover, braless, binge-watching Terrace House.
This sort of "oversharing" is normal in pretty much any blue collar industry that provides housing for workers.
http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2012/09/06/midoriso-collaborativ...
- if you have the fonts, in the original: 緑荘
I'm pretty sure from the details in the story that she was at the Nagatacho GRID one.
The Japanese generally don't view real estate as a speculative investment so capital gains are quite low.
This is so important to me. Working from home sounds luxurious, but when I tried it it felt more like living at work. You need to be able to draw a hard line between the times and spaces where you work, and the ones where your time is your own.
However, others (and I put myself in this category) are pretty good at setting informal limits while being flexible about it. I tend to work 9-5ish at home but I'll run a daytime errand if I need to and spend some time in the evening if it makes sense.
Tell your distant great grandfather, you know the small farmer in rural europe in the 1700s, that the cows just escaped the pen and see if he says "But its saturday evening, I'm off the clock".
As for the farm worker that is hired, you can be sure they don't bring the cows home with them.
He probably would if they were someone else's cows.
I think of it that way because work and life aren't two separate things—work exists within life—and neither do they balance equally. Work always demands a greater chunk of your time, whether it warrants it or not. If such a boundary is crossed and it is one that you find important, then you might recognise that much sooner than if you're thinking about balance, because you can start getting into specifics and where exactly you do draw the line instead of attempting to rationalise something you might not like.
At that point, it's not just work asking for longer hours, or flexibility on weekends; it's also stuff like your colleagues sending you messages and emails at 11pm or 2am, eating lunch at your desk, not taking holidays, hackathons (if those even happen any more!), being expected to be on call, leaving the office at 7pm instead of 5.30pm as the contract states, etc.
And after that, if you find work to becoming ever more intrusive, then the boundary system gives you enough info to recognise that this isn't really a 'work' problem, it's the same kind of shit you get in any unhealthy relationship and your working relationships are no exception.
Personally, I cannot handle Japan's stringent work culture on an emotional level. To paraphrase George Goebbels, I feel that Japan is a tuxedo and I'm a brown pair of shoes. However, I do respect the fact that in small ways, like inemuri (sleeping during work), Japan treats their employees like humans, rather than resources. They may suck in other areas, and do, but in this regard I think they have the right attitude.
Preferring that your employees be exhausted and asleep at work, rather than having a work-life balance, is treating your employees like humans?
At least they realize the employees are still human.
Japans work culture is completely toxic and dysfunctional. I have one rule that I stick to these days: "Never work in, with or for Japan."
extremely work lunch break with drinking and not much work after lunch, not that bad for someone young and single, in other offices they even encouraged people to sleep on mats under their desks, at least they can work longer hours and start earlier than hours
though after buying computer and renting better room with better internet i stopped doing it, can't say it would change much about my work/life balance