[w1ntermute]

> I can't, nevertheless, help to feel very sorry for my old California associates who I know, even now today twenty years later, still spend a really inordinate amount of time on the freeway.

You should feel more sorry for your Japanese associates, who spend 12-14 hours at the office every day and never see their families, even though they probably could've gotten their work done in half that time.

[ibisum]

> You should feel more sorry for your Japanese associates, who spend 12-14 hours at the office every day and never see their families, even though they probably could've gotten their work done in half that time.

I don't know about that .. they spent more time doing things that mattered to them - like, work, or associating with work colleagues/blowing off steam - and less time doing things that were highly destructive to their health on an immediate basis, like .. sitting in traffic for hours, being very un-social, breathing in smog.

EDIT: Is it a 'cultural downvote', or something else I said? Because my Japanese friends still don't 'get' why Americans think its so vital to have so much private time being spent 'on the road'. This is very definitely a cultural artifact, people ..

[unsignedint]

The truth is, majority of worker stay very long hours in the office, because leaving on-time gives you the notion that you are not getting enough work; hence you would be treated as you are slacking off.

Also, there's often unspoken rules, for example, someone leaving earlier than their boss being rude.

When they were in growth (back prior to 1980) where lifetime employment and salary increase by age were common, there was at least some incentive to put up with that, but they are now gone as the thing in the past, they are just getting the short end of the stick, as losing your current job might mean that there aren't any other jobs. (Getting hired in Japan outside of new hire -- that's something other than right after graduating, can be very tough.)

Now, having said that, of course, there are people out there who have more liberty in deciding how much they should work each day, and doing it as their choice, but considering this being nationwide issue, I wouldn't think that's a majority.

Note: If you are someone from outside of Japan, you will get some perk as a foreigner, that you are not expected to go along with the above. Merely appearing like the Japanese would lock me into same expectation as Japanese. (Which I envy "foreigners" every time I visit Japan, as my mindset is as foreign from Japanese.) Japanese people usually don't really discriminate foreigners, but they do have different social expectations. (Just you never can be "one of them.")

[capisce]

Maybe a daily walk in a park and/or 30 minutes of meditation could be better for their health than spending 12 hours in the office with a break of having a few beers each day. Seems like you're posing a false dilemma between spending the full day in the office and having a two hour commute each day - it's possible to choose neither of those. Are you sure your colleagues are so happy about their situation?

[ibisum]

Oh, I missed that part out - certainly, my Japanese associates at the time got a lot more walk in the parks than you might think. For many of them it was a vital part of the way home.

I just don't think the city planners of America in the 20th Century were as sensitive to these issues as they should have been. We cannot deny that the automobile-economy made America very unhealthy, and it wasn't until the era of the gym that this became lesser of a health issue. Even still today, though, by direct personal (thus: anecdotal) evidence, I can say without a doubt that my American friends are far, far less healthy than the Japanese side. Alas, its just a fact - even if we factor in the binge-work and alcoholism. Not a popular perspective, but I think Americans need to get some humility about this factor and stop building such monstrous cities with such dependencies.. okay, this is now outside the scope of the original article, which was fundamentally about the differences between cultures and how it affects technical deployment decisions, but - after all - this is fundamentally an Architectural problem as much as it is a cultural one (and the two cannot be dissociated, really..) In the end, could the Twitter difference really boil down to just how well the space of the two countries is utilized? I think it does, ultimately, play a role in this discussion.

[capisce]

I absolutely agree that long commutes are bad, but I still don't think that excuses Japan's overwork (Karoshi) culture. According to surveys Japanese employee satisfaction ranks relatively low compared to other countries: http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/english/reports/summary/200906/0...

[Liuser]

I did the whole 12-16 hr work day for nearly half a decade out of school, including the weekend. I even skipped out on vacation for 3 years. I really enjoyed what I was doing.

Having lived that life style, it doesn't leave you with much free time. Dinner with kids and spouse? Exercise? Cooking? Errands? Creative hobbies? 7-8 hours sleep / night?

My commute last for 30 minutes on a bicycle, I would like everyone to have the option to leave at a reasonable hour to live their life. If they want to continue working, that's cool too. But the impression I get from the Japanese culture is that it isn't so free to do so. It is 'expected'. I heard that Japanese employees don't leave until their boss leaves, which could be an ungodly hour. Having lived the extreme, my personal opinion is that balance is best.

[w1ntermute]

> sitting in traffic for hours

Have you bothered to actually look at the statistics? Americans have some of the shortest commute times in the OECD, while the Japanese have some of the longest: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world-of-commut...

> being very un-social

This is entirely subjective, but I've found that Americans are much more sociable, particularly with strangers, than the Japanese (or most Europeans) are.

> breathing in smog

Again, have you looked at the statistics? According to recent OECD data, America is less polluted than Japan: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/environment/

[chc]

How in the world do you interpret "see their families" as "private time on the road"? This isn't a commuting fetish. It's the idea that there is lots of life — most of it, in fact — to enjoy outside the office. If you really enjoy hanging out with your colleagues, you could do it outside of work. But if you have other friends or family members you'd like to see, you can't do that at work, and it wouldn't be very high-quality time anyway if you're working.