On the Blogosphere there is some chatter going back and forth between how hard folks in Silicon Valley work compared with their counterparts in Europe. The contention is that engineers in California work hard and stay late while those in France are too relaxed and do not work at the pace of business.

While Westernized socities battle out who works the hardest, there is one workforce across the Pacific that has been displaying discipline and a heavy-focus on work.  Here is an excerpt from Silicon Valley works hard? Try Japan… by Sridhar Vembu, the CEO of Zoho, that describes a typical day for his Japanese colleagues:

Here is the schedule of my colleagues in Japan, and this is entirely typical in Japan: come in to work at 9 AM, on the dot, after a standing-room-only commute on a very crowded train lasting an  hour or more, often changing 2-3 trains along the way.  Lunch around 12:30 to 1 – usually a quick affair, often at their desk, so it is not even much of a break.  Work till at 8 to 9 PM, with many folks staying in the office as late as mid-night, catching the last train, another hour spent commuting (trains are crowded even at 11 pm on week days!). If it is an important customer, you go out to dinner with them (add 3 hours!), and that means last-train-if-you-are-lucky and the last train is usually even more crowded. Yet, they are back at 9 AM next morning, impeccably dressed.

After reading Outlier by Malcom Gladwel, it makes you extra aware of different cultures and their varying work ethics. As I find more examples, I’ll post them.  And Vembu is right when he says the Japanese are impecabbly dressed.  The photo above I took of a person waiting for the train back after work.  It was 10pm.