Just an interesting story I wanted to share - had a conversation with a family friend who's a junior level executive at Samsung/LG/Sony in Asia. I imagine an exec position at a F500 to be quite cushy in the US. However it's a different ball game in Asia.
He mentioned that he goes to work at 6am, and gets out at 1am everyday, except for Sundays when he works a little less. That comes out to about 120 hours per week assuming he works a lighter schedule on the weekend.
The crazier thing is, he is in his late 30s and has a family. The craziest thing is, one person who was in a similar exec position and worked the same hours actually died in his sleep few years ago from the stress.
The story doesn't get better- when he tried to move to a smaller company,his bosses pretty much blackmailed him. They gave him more money and managers said if he works for another company, they will try to end his career.
After hearing that story, banking sounds like a vacation. Averaging 80 hours a week for only two years when I'm 22 sounds like a piece of cake compared to this. Keep truckin' WSO'ers!
LOL. I smell a troll.
No, I'm not trolling. I'm honestly not surprised, some of my friends that grew up in S.Korea/Japan slept 4~5 hours a night during high school and studied for the rest, so it makes sense for the culture to continue in the big corporations.
I believe this. It's a much different workplace culture in Japan/South Korea. You impress people by the amount of time you spend at the office, not how much work you get done. As a result, people work much longer hours but they also spend a significant amount of time napping/slacking off at work.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this guy was working the most of the time though. He said the reason why he was in the office for so long was because they staffed him on 4~5 projects at a time.
haha, are you really that naive?
At least he's an executive,, I've seen ppl at the lower level put up with those shit coming out with only 20K in Korea (Samsung/LG/Hyundai), bound to be replaced with fresh graduates....
Also, I know in Korea you are expected to retire when you are about 50 years old in a large corporation. Pretty brutal.
heard the Big 4 in Asia are brutal as well
Any story worth telling is worth exaggerating, I guess.
In Japan, the term is sararyman - "Salary Man." I know they work a lot and rarely take vacations but I've never heard 120 hours.
I wonder how the wives at home put up with this. My next vacation might be to Japan, and since I have no morals ... I will clean house with the sex starved women.
I hate it when I get blackmailed with money.
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