God some people don’t learn a thing. The US economy grew like bananas in the early 2000s, so did Ireland, so did Spain, so did Greece…according to their GDP figures.
Growth figures without context are useless.[/quote]
Annual growth has averaged 5% per annum for the past 15 years or so. That’s been achieved mainly through trade and without excessive borrowing. Very different economic models.
I understand and I don’t question that Taiwan has done well overall. But at what cost to the environment and living standards? Have average workers enjoyed the fruits of this growth over the last 10 years? Does economic growth include speculation in real estate?
tomthorne: I’d be interested to look at certain other figures to do with quality of life and where society is going though. Important figures might be increases in certain rates of diseases such as cancer, or things such as suicide. Likewise, the decline in birthrates might be worth paying attention to. Obviously, it might be very difficult to ascribe such long working hours as being at the root of such things as there are so many possible other variables involved, but in terms of the unsustainable economic growth of some other nations due to far too much financial leverage being used to chase unrealistic growth rates, I believe we could look at a kind of social leverage being used in similar ways in this country. Taiwan is not on a course of social sustainability in my opinion. Just as the financial systems in many Western countries were predicated upon a greater fool theory of being able to pass on ever more risky and more speculative investments to the next fool, the economic model in much of Asia is predicated upon being willing and able to run ever harder and faster than your neighbours, without pausing to consider the social, health or environmental effects. Without finding a more sensible way, what is to stop Taiwan from bleeding jobs, including its high-tech jobs, to other nations that are willing to work under worse conditions for less money? What then? Taiwan will be stuck in a no-man’s land between countries that have high productivity in niche areas by investing heavily in social capital and the Third World that eats its own. The outcome then is a rather painful lost generation or two in playing catchup in the transition upwards, if that’s even possible at that point (since the world is a lot more competitive now than when Taiwan became one of the Asian Tigers).
Of course you’re both right. There are many factors to take into account when judging the ‘success’ of an economy beyond money and growth.
I guess that all I was trying to point out is it’s quite difficult to form a valid argument that Chinese/Taiwanese working practises are somehow worse than western ones in terms of economic results. This is one of the reasons why the mainland Chinese are getting so cocky now. They’ve been telling themselves and everyone else that they are the best for centuries. Now they have the figures to back those claims up.
tomthorne: Even aside from the fact that they may have huge social and environmental issues within a few decades, there’s also the issue that they’re a developing nation. Developed nations simply can’t grow at those rates because all of the easy gains have already been made. There’s also the issue that China has a massive housing bubble and their rapid economic growth is causing big problems with inflation.
I’m working for a big Taiwanese company, and the working environment is the exact opposite of what has been described here. Most of low level office workers leave between 6pm and 7pm as their work is done, only the managers stay overtime simply because they have a lot of work. Everybody in is nice, friendly and relaxed. My boss told me he really doesn’t care if I’m late the morning or if I leave early the evening, as long as my work is done and well done. It’s just about corporate culture, like everywhere.
Cocky? What’s there to get cocky about? A billion people with a culture gifted at exploiting human beings to the max. Invent the next microwave, jet engine…actually anything original and I’ll be impressed. Any monkey can have a whip (insert Foxconn/Wintek) with a assemble line of robots making low quality shit for the masses.
Just remember that robots are more expensive to maintain than Chinese workers. 
You are right not every company follows the worst path. Yet if you re-read your statement they are still issues there. Why are low level employees only leaving at 7pm? Why are managers staying late every night? There is still an expectation there clearly. You are a foreigner, but if you were Taiwanese will you be given this type of leeway? Maybe, maybe not.
Sometimes Taiwanese do it to themselves by not challenging the system, my wife refused to work late at any job that she took on. She is a very productive worker and they knew she was not easily replaceable, so they gave her leeway on that. Interestingly other employees mumbled and grumbled although it was nothing to do with them, they just didn’t have the balls to do the same (this happened in a few companies she worked in). Many employees are not so confident or productive, so they are afraid to buck the system.
There is a kind of working ‘rule’ in Taiwan where things need to get turned around within 1 day. I think it is admirable in terms of customer service. However it is often abused now as many companies have international operations, they then have to stay late and get a double load of e-mail for every day’s work!
To be fair, you should add Apple to that list as most Apple products are made by those same robots (talk about low quality shit for the masses).
Please let me know who you work for so my girlfriend can apply at your company. Her current boss is a complete tool who lets his wife run the company and upset all the employees.
Regarding the last post about China, this is the truth…they did invent stuff though…back in the 13th century or so :roflmao:
This is not just a phenomena in Taiwan, though I would say its more pronounced here, given the 15 or so years of 10 hour school days and the fact that kids (who become adults) are drilled to follow orders and don’t really get a chance or time to think about they want
Therefore:
People or managers cannot measure what they have accomplished (since many times they may not know what they are doing or what is the point) so instead measure the effort (time chained to the desk)
People will accept 12 hours a day in the office over the uncertainty of the outcome of doing what they might want to do (going home early, telling the boss what they really think)
Work is a social life or should I say an escape from your family. Take lunch, people go to lunch here in groups. Hanging outside, smoking and shooting the shit is common practice
Others accept the 12 hour day, because they may not want to go home anyway.
Others again are afraid to stand out for fear of being put outside the group, or manager or boss using the other coworkers against the person
But the system works in some way I guess, and workers tolerate this. Luckily if you are a foreigner in a company here, they will give you some flexibility (foreigners are weird and all that you know). As long I guess you don’t try to incite revolution in the office, and trigger the independent thought alarm in your coworkers; then you should be left alone to get on with your weird ways
Since knowing me, my wife has become really proactive about all sorts of things without me prompting her anymore after witnessing me give a few people here and abroad a serve. Amongst other things, she’s threatened a previous employer with CLA action, been at our local council offices several times (including yesterday) or called the police complaining about some of the dickwaddery that passes for normal behaviour in this country, demanded to speak with people’s bosses and all sorts of other things. It is possible to de-condition Taiwanese from their apathy, a necessary requirement possibly being marriage to an angry foreigner, however.
Yea, verily. 
From the people around me and who I know, the low-level ones just get out not so late because they perform routine administrative work which can be easily planned and therefore achieved within the regular office hours. The managers often stay late because they deal with many international customers, which imply time lags, urgent requests, unexpected events, and the whole caboodle.
I wish I could say the same. 
[/quote]
I can say the same, even though I’ve been pretending to be one here for several years now
I’ve said this before and I know it’s something a lot of people don’t want to hear but many of the problems mentioned in the OP are down to employee’s own attitudes.
I know many salaried office workers who have been complaining about low pay and/or long hours and/or crummy bosses for years but for all the complaining they probably do 30 minutes per day of actual, real work. The rest of their day is spent farting around on MSN, playing farm games or trying to find ways to cheat a few $ of expenses from the company.
Once people get in this rut for a few years it’s very hard to move on to anything higher level that would involve putting in a solid day’s work and more mental stress. Sadly a lot of these employees waste away a good chunk of their lives moving from one half-assed job to another.
All of these people are at least college educated, they could do more for themselves if they wanted to put in the effort.
From the people around me and who I know, the low-level ones just get out not so late because they perform routine administrative work which can be easily planned and therefore achieved within the regular office hours. The managers often stay late because they deal with many international customers, which imply time lags, urgent requests, unexpected events, and the whole caboodle.[/quote]
Ah the joys of being a manager… from the frying pan into the fire. They don’t need to be at their desk though, there’s not enough flexibility about working from home either. The clever employers get two shifts out of one person…it’s the old 1 day turnaround rule at work. Then when you get back in the next day you start it all over again with the replies from EU/US etc.
At least they have a decent salary.