"It's tough being a salary man"
It is the difference in a sense of values of work and life between an American
employee and a Japanese employee that makes us feel incompatibility when
we start to work in U.S.A. American employees are sometime late for the
important meeting or leave office before time due to the reason that his
or her children become sick or are involved in school troubles, which leaves
Japanese boss puzzled how to correspond with it. In the case of Japanese
employee, family circumstances are usually given the least priority and
there is even a trend to boast mutually on how inattentive he has been
toward the family.
The word "workaholic" has been in fashion once. It indicated salary-men who sacrificed his family and even his own life for the job to get a promotion during the high economic growth of the 60's. Within the framework of family management principles of a corporation, such as lifetime employment and a seniority-based wage system, it was made into virtue that employees swore loyalty to the company and to his boss and to contribute for development of a company by sacrificing his own holidays and pastime. The training camp equal to an army is praised and the employee was standardized by a kind of mind control. It was a time when a success followed as one worked harder. But was he able to get what he dreamt of? A workaholic generation of those days would today be an executive statue, however even those who are generally regarded as an successful executive would not receive a remuneration comparable to the western counterparts, who are rewarded by the result. Sadly, most salaried workers are driven into retirement after positioned several years basically neglected in the corner end of the office (by the window, or "madogiwa") or being ordered a temporary transfer to a subsidiary. Thus, for most, holidays are none other than pain for a man who has no idea of life other than his role in a company, who does not have a room in a family, or who does not have many friends outside work or any significant pastimes. He does not know how to spend an enjoyable Sundays, therefore he feels uneasy and cannot be relaxed as weekend nears, which is called Sunday neurosis or hang around wife's back as wet fallen leaves and treated as an obnoxious intruder.
When high economic boom passed away, "gojikara-otoko"(a man who shines after 5 O'clock) came to be praised instead of a workaholic and the trend of enjoying leisure by introduction of five-day work week etc. has grown. Along with it, it is said that time of the merit system and performance gauged wage system has come instead of the lifetime employment system or a pension salary system where corporate will evaluate contribution more than loyalty and ability more than popularity. However according to the opinion poll of a new employees, to the question of "would you prioritize work or a date? ", work as an answer resulted in 78.5% which is the highest ever including the high-economic-growth time. For our roots are based on agricultural backgrounds, the family principle seems to be a more suitable diagram and I think that the lifelong employment system of a new dimension will reemerge.
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