japanese work culture

Japanese overtime work culture captured in new dice collection

Roll the dice with employees apologising in the windows of office tower blocks late at night.

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Tokyo capsule hotel renovates to become a convenient capsule coworking space

Desperate times call for innovative measures.

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Japanese office worker gets fired, retaliates by making sushi out of business suit and iPhone

Satisfying stop-motion video shows familiar sushi dishes made with some very unusual objects.

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Japanese Father’s Day present features business daifuku sweets on a crowded train

A little something to let dad know you understand what he goes through on his daily commute to work everyday.

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Despite their hardworking image, are the Japanese really just as lazy as the rest of us?

Workers in Japan are often perceived by the rest of the world as possessing an extremely strong work ethic, which drives them to daily acts of unpaid overtime, selfless sacrifice of rightfully accrued holiday time, and occasionally even to karoushi, or death by overwork. So pervasive is this perception that the image of the exhausted salaryman splayed out across train carriage floors after a hard day’s work has become a sort of unofficial symbol of Japanese working life.

But what people who have actually worked in Japanese offices will tell you is that, while simply existing in the strict hierarchical system of a Japanese workplace can be an exhausting feat in and of itself, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody’s getting loads of work done. In fact, Japanese workers may be just as lazy as the rest of us. So how come everybody still thinks they work so hard?

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