[noodle]

I read an article around a year ago. It spoke about Japans, "traditional" way of working, and said that it was bad. i.e. The part about people working overtime etc. Japan, as a whole is not very effective at work. It seems that only the BIG companies such as Sony, Nissan etc are effecient. The article explained that in most companies, people worked slowly during the day so that they may stay after their shift for overtime pay. This article was of course talking about office jobs where generally, there is overtime pay.

I think this article made a very good point. If I manage a team of people and I see that certain people are working overtime on a regular basis, I would hire someone else to help them. This way, if the employee is lazing about simply to get some extra cash by working later, this will stop as it wastes the company's money. And if he really is struggling and has too much work, his work load would ease and he could have a happier, healthier life. Over working yourself is never good! I know this because my brother is a workaholic. He usually works from 7am till midnight!