[DocTomoe]

Who can honestly say they did not ever flaunt worktime laws (where they exist)? IT people do 60-80 hours, in the liberal-democratic country where there is a strict limit of 48 hours/week (and the average being around 39h). People wear that as a misplaced badge of honour - and often complain behind closed doors.

Sounds similar.

[philliphaydon]

I've been living in Asia for 11 or 12 years now. There is definitely a strange culture of over-working.

Young people who live at home with their parents sometimes work late because they don't want to go home to their parents.

Alot of other people work late because they want to get noticed for promotions etc.

Some of it's self-inflicted. The first company I worked for in Singapore, the 'suits' as they are called (glorified sales people) would take requests from clients and commit at 6pm to deliverying the fixes by morning, then requesting the developers stay and do the work while they go home.

So there are definitely, 100% scenarios where it's not the company itself directly demanding employees to doing insane hours. But it does happen, China requires non-overtime hours to be capped at 36 hours. People are often not compensated for any extra hours they do.

[throwawaaay129]

Yeah, I think it's a scenario where you can probably sue and you can probably win - but then (just like in the US) you're known as the person that sues their employer and it's a black mark.

I haven't heard of people getting lawsuits about 996 thrown out in China - but to be fair I also haven't heard of people suing over that either.

[fyresala]

> but to be fair I also haven't heard of people suing over that either.

Guess why