I wonder how his compensation works. If it's based on performance reviews, is he now only expected to do 80% as much work? If so, him doing 100% as much work should lead to better performance reviews and maybe allow him to reach back up to his previous salary.
It's appalling, but not surprising, how little of the world cares about taking even ONE day off every week, let alone two, and laughable to suggest mandating three days off.
In the UAE, for example, most people work 12+ hours every day, and barely get just Fridays off. Almost every one I know was working on Christmas, and they'll be working on New Year's. Vacations etc are unthinkable.
They don't feel it's odd or that it's "over"working or that having more free time would be rewarding; this is dominant mentality in the the Middle East and most of Asia and Africa (and I bet in other "poor" regions like parts of South America and Eastern Europe too).
Being idle in these societies is seen as a sin at best and the difference between survival and starvation in practice. Besides, even if people were forced to take 2 days off every week, they wouldn't know what to do with their time anyway (which manifests as the generally low output of creative arts from these parts), or have the disposable income to indulge in anything beyond a stroll at the mall or a meal at McDonald's (though KFC is more common round here I suppose).
Holidays are a first world luxury.
If everyone took them more often in every country, your Samsungs etc would be a lot more expensive.
I think up through middle or high school while you still live in that bubble, yes. Afterwards, the playing field is likely tilted towards higher earners and higher savers. I haven’t done a survey but afterwards some people just had bad outcomes but were given the same opportunities when they were younger. They would say, do well in school and you’ll get a merit scholarship no matter your race, parents, background, or anything; Just your GPA. In some family households, grades and learning just aren’t important and in others, they are.
Bubbles of privilege are never a real solution to endemic societal issues. What will you do when you don't even have any electricity to run the HVAC on?
In most third-world regions with similar pollution people don't even have a reliable electric power grid.
When talking to Japanese people I sometimes surprise them by mentioning or recommending Japanese media or things about Japan I love that they didn't know about.
Likewise, when they talk about my country they sometimes mention stuff that I barely know!
This is usually good. It shows us what qualities about us are the most visible to other people, to build upon them or fix them.
Anglocentric chauvinism has always had a gross habit of looking at other cultures in a patronizing way. Though to be fair other cultures are guilty of this too when viewing those different than them.
Ever since antiquated Orientalism, it's rarely been an honest curiosity but more of a high-nosed "what's wrong with them" or seen as an exotic escape from the West's own mundanity.
The latter of course often ends in disillusionment, prompting generalized complaints about the object of fetish (if you lurk on any expat forums you may know what I'm talking about).
It can be really annoying to other people, specially when they have to either live up to some stupid assumption or defend against it.
Surly noone in the orient ever expressed such opinions, least of which the japanese --known throughout asia and the world for their love and admiration of other races -- which is why the west is in desperate need to turn the lookingglass around and cleanse itself from all forms of racism, which it is uniquely capable of doing. Other races needn't play in this game.
One could say that this is merely the continuation of chauvinistic anglocentrism by other means, but to do so would embarass self-professed "anti-racists", hence white supermacy gets a new lease on life deep within the liberal mindset that nominally opposes it.
“japanese--known throughout asia and the world for their love and admiration of other races”
Tell that to anyone actually living in Asia and most will absolutely scoff at you. There is too much historical baggage about what horrifying things the Japanese did to other Asians during its colonial era (early to mid 20th century), especially with regards to Korea and China. Japanese resentment is still highly noticeable in countries where they colonized and raped them.
To be fair, wasn't Japan invaded first? A few times.
The "West" has had the longest record of invading other nations, forcibly "opening ports", or just generally intruding into and screwing up countries in other ways besides war.
The Opium Wars are one of the more appalling examples. Literally invading a country because they don't want to buy your narcotics? What the fuck.
How tiresome. Every time a conversation regarding this topic is discussed, we always have someone arrive to graciously remind us how Asian People Are The Real Racists.
Im no expert, but from what Ive read, some of the imperialistic ideas and hiarchy of races ideas in Japan do have their roots in a historical period where Japan's Eliets were looking to Europe for a model of how to be a part of the world.
I tend to see chauvinism as either aware or self-aware. The French would be an example of self-aware arrogance, whereas the anglosphere tends to be completely unaware and this leads to patronizing attitudes. It's interesting to see the effects of this difference.
Only if the people you are kind to appreciate that.
I grew up in a third world dog-eat-dog culture where kindness is generally equated with naivete and everyone has to keep their guard up against each other.
I'm still struggling with ping-ponging between being taken advantage of or being too mean. I don't know where to draw the line and with whom.
In the last couple months alone I've been played for a fool by a few people who, to put it simply, weren't deserving of kindness. It certainly has not been good for my health, mental or physical, and it's going to leave me too cold and cynical for someone who could actually use some kindness, until I being to feel bad about that and open myself up to being exploited and so the cycle repeats.
> There has been no drop in productivity
Your employer seems to believes different.