From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Why do Americans get so little vacation time?
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 23:31:22 GMT

In article <BtFFvE.A1x@jrd.dec.com> doi@jrd.dec.com (Hitoshi Doi) writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.162919.10306@Princeton.EDU>, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>
># The Wall Street Journal has documented how
># the Japanese confuse attendance at work with work and count as work time
># time spent reading the newspaper and playing games on the computer.
>
>If the employees are at the office, most of the time it is counted
>as "work", no matter what they are doing.

Hitoshi, my point is that this is wrong, for it is a "positivist"
definition of work.  Let me explain.  Legal "positivism" defines law as
nothing more and nothing less than the formalistic operation of legal
rules, with the absurd result that the operation of courts, even in a
Stalinist or Nazi society, is "law"; I would prefer a definition that
witheld the term "law" from such societies but legal positivism forces
me to say they have "law."

In a similar fashion, you seem to adhere to an (all too common)
definition of Work such that if one adheres to a certain set of
mechanisms or rules (showing up at nine, doing what the boss says, no
more and no less, loafing if permitted to do so explicitly or by
default, or conversely working so intensely that one has a coronary at
the age of 35 if THAT's what the boss wants) one is working.

I reject this "positivist" philosophy of Work.

Work is what I am doing when I interact with the recalcitrant world,
making it closer to my desires and changing myself for the better in the
process.  As such, if I tear apart my car on my day off even though part
of me would rather watch TV, I am Working; if I take my kids to the zoo
and teach them about nature even though part of me would rather play
computer games, I am Working; if instead of playing computer games on a
job where even the boss is playing computer games I elect to develop a
software tool that saves my company money, I am Working.

When am I not Working?  Whenever I am being Hegel's self-identical
Master, self-satisfied to the point of decadence; when I am watching TV,
when I am playing (many) computer games, when I am gambling, when I am
sitting in unproductive meetings; when I am saying No to my
subordinates.

>
># Although this behavior is not restricted to Japan, it is, according to
># the WSJ, especially marked in that country.  Also marked is the habit of
># Japanese workers to count time spent in company-sponsored recreation (
># for example, drinking with the boss) as work.
>
>This probably does not happen.  I have never heard of this,
>and I have never seen it in the companies I have worked for.

I have to accept your correction since you are from Japan.  I do know
that in many American business circles, drinking with the boss or with
clients is "marketing" and as such counted as work.

>
>Recently Japan has been trying to reduce the number of hours worked,
>to comply with the international demands:-)
>Many people are just not "truthfully" reporting all of the hours worked.
>People just write down that they worked a couple hours overtime (or
>even zero in many cases) when they actually worked a lot more.
>Many companies now have a cap on the number of hours one can work
>overtime.  There have been many TV reports and interviews where this
>is being shown.

In my opinion, this is wrong, Hitoshi.  I worked in the late Seventies
for a computer consulting firm which promised pay for every hour worked.
As the new father of a family I simultaneously wanted to earn enough to
buy a home and spend a decent amount of time with my wife and children,
so I carefully tracked and billed each hour I worked for a client.  It
now appears, however, that the "top performers" in this company were
doing what you describe; billing forty hour weeks and working eighty!
This made them Golden Children in the eyes of clients who of course did
not want to pay the full freight for systems development whereas
although my productivity was high, clients felt I was taking too much
time and, especially, money to complete my projects.  The apparent "top
performers", by the simple expedient of lying, got far better ratings
from both clients and consulting management.

To me, this practice is as unethical as that of double dipping or
billing for hours you DON'T work.  Indeed, it is worse, for the
under-reporting consultants were so worn-down by their intense and
unpaid schedule that they managed to be both sanctimonious and nasty.
Their code was uniquely horrible, owing to their burnout; I rewrote one
spaghettilike monster of a telecom switch simulator completely using
finite state automata theory in two weeks, whereas the original monster
had taken six months of underbilled eighty-hour weeks.

This company paid, or pretended to pay, for every hour worked, which
produced real damage when people lied about their real hours.  Normally,
salaried employees aren't paid for overtime.  My point is the damage
caused by such "harmless" dishonesty, a dishonesty akin to showing up
for work and not working.       



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