Yesterday, I was sitting in my office’s 4th floor cafeteria, which overlooks the office gates and an adjacent railway tracks. It was exactly 5:00 PM, and majority of the employees were already leaving. Thanks to the slowdown, companies no more allow any overtime, so employees are made to leave early. But for the big time manager others (are made to) leave. The railways tracks heads towards Kyoto on one side, and Nagoya on the other. I felt a bit nostalgic when I saw trains filled with people.
Many questions flashed, are those people happy to go home? How about their spouses? Do they actually go home? or hang around in cafe or a bar, before going home. Do they miss their overtime? Looking at their faces I could not tell anything. Probably the gates were very far for me to look at their faces. Anyway, as always they were all briskly walking out of the gates.
Looking at many people leaving, I was happy for them. Somehow I always thought, the Japanese missed out many things when it come to their family. They work very hard, and will be very happy when they are busy at work. They hate to be free, or leaving early. So it seems that the government made it mandatory for companies to mark a day or two in a week as no-overtime day. I only wish these people go home on those days, but most of them go straight to isekaya’s where they drink, drink and drink … till they are drunk and go home late. Probably well after their usual returning times. The government’s plan has helped those bar’s nonetheless …
For me, my company neither pays me overtime nor under pays me when I work for less than 8 hours. Its flexi-time and I always enjoy going late and returning back early :)
No comments:
Post a Comment