[lx3459683]

> I knew a person who wanted to quit, their boss said "no, you can't quit", and they stayed on for several more months

[...]

> I feel like the it's "me vs them" attitude I see so much on HN leads to worse outcomes

I think your anecdote there proves otherwise. That person was asked to act against their own interest and did it out of feebleness. They didn't gain anything in return, it was not a equitable exchange where e.g the boss paid out an additional bonus for the employee continuing to stay against their wish.

In a capitalist society, it is always workers vs employers. Do not mistake Japan's social cohesion for some kind of workplace utopia. It is one of the worst countries on earth in terms of work life balance - which is currently destroying their entire society as childbirth rates plummet. This is not hyperbole. By 2030 years ~85% of the population will be elderly people.

[mijamo]

Is 25 yo elderly for you?

Because by 2030 there will certainly NOT be 85% of the population as elderly (well except if some new sickness kills all the people below 65 obviously).

There might be 35% though, which is already quite high but not unmanageable.

[lx3459683]

My bad, it was meant to be 2080 but I can't edit the post anymore.

Either way, japan's population is not only ageing but declining at an exponential rate due to low childbirth - which has been directly attributed to the piss poor work life balance. The Japan as we know it today will not exist in a few decades. It will either be a far less populous country, or full of immigrants.

So I don't think we can take their 'not us vs them' attitude in the workplace as any kind of precursor for a successful or happy society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan#Effects

[emodendroket]

They're already letting in far more foreign workers.

[tokyodude]

I don't know where you got the idea I thought Japan was a workplace utopia. Yea I know it sucks. My point was the social cohesion has it's pluses. I didn't name any of them so I guess that makes my point poorly made.

Maybe this will make it clearer? Let's say you do a contract for $1000. As the contract progresses they promote you to fellow business people. "This guy's great. You should contract him for your needs". At the end of the contract you get paid the $1000. You're then asked, "hey, could you print 1 extra copy of that report"

Possible responses

1. Sure, That will be $50

2. Sure, on problem. Here you go.

Probably a bad example but I'd argue that (1) is the "me" attitude and (2) is the "us" attitude. They gave you free PR. I guess they should have been "Oh, you want me to tell me business contacts about you? Give me 10% for each successful contract".

I want to live in world (1) where people help each other unless it's total unreasonable.. Staying extra months at the company could arguably be unreasonable but it's also possible to feel obligation. You don't know how much training that employee received or what else they got from the relationship.

As another example, some company could hire you with zero experience (taking a chance). You'd applied to 25 places but everyone said "no experience no hire". You work at this company and mostly they get very little good work out of you because they're giving you so much training. Not only are you slower than the experienced people but those experienced people have to spend time explaining better ways to do things to you, time they could be spending directly on their other responsibilities.

At the end of year you now have "experience" so you ditch the company for another job. Some people would see that as close to theft. You just took a free paid education from them when they were hoping the deal was they'd train you, even paying you while you're being trained vs you having to pay a school to train you, and then they expected you to be a productive employee for at least a year or two after the training.

Would you seriously feel zero obligation?