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wishfullthinkng
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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 Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
i wish this was true. 
unless you're working for a big chaebol those big bonuses and salaries are non-existant.
sure some of us get decent bonuses, but i wouldn't call my salary or bonuses worth the overtime i put in. many places will give you an extra vacation day if you work an extra day instead of the overtime money the government mandates. i think they do this because they know they won't get in caught and that koreans tend not to use their vacation days. i however, use this to my full advantage and rack up sizeable amounts of vacation time.
last year the government passed a law mandating that corporations work days only be monday to friday. a bunch of salarymen made a huge fuss about it because they wondered what would they do with their saturday since they wouldn't be working and also complained that it would make them have to take their families out, spending more money that they didn't want to spend when they could be working. i couldn't make this stuff up if i tried. |
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rchristo10
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| liveinkorea316 wrote: |
The cause is cultural. So too the solution must be. |
I love addressing urbane pseudo philosophy. How many cultural problems have been solved with cultural solutions? Can you give an example for clarification? Otherwise, seems like your falling into an argumentative fallacy (e.g. Begging the Question or plain ignorance of cause and effect)--Interesting idea though: solving a mess with a mess. 
You can ignore the below, but just for clarification of where we're perhaps not seeing eye-to-eye:
IMO, if culture is accepted as a set of social actions internalized over years and years of history, and also happens to be the quintessential factor that identifies and/or binds a group of actors, then how could any "solution" to a cultural problem exist unless it is not a cultural factor itself? Wouldn't any solution to a cultural problem by default also lack the characteristics related to the culture? In other words, only non-cultural solutions can solve cultural problems, and those non-cultural solutions can or may, over years and years, then become internalized, distinguishing factors of that said group of actors, i.e. it can subsequently become part of their culture.
Did people really use cultural solutions to solve cultural problems when it came to slavery, illegal warfare, inhumane torture and the like?
What exactly do you mean by cultural problems require cultural solutions? And if suicide is indeed a cultural problem, then how on earth could it be solved with a cultural solution?
Interesting food for thought:
http://www8.umoncton.ca/umcm-vincent_guy/Duncan%20-%20Superorganic%20in%20American%20cultural%20geography.pdf
***I think your point is that we should change Korean people's values. I usually don't take Said's Orientalist stance on things, but are you seriously asserting that only by going even beyond America's/ Japan's or some other country's physical occupation here, the world needs to embark on a virtual mind puck to end the problem of suicide in Korea? Honestly, I think the whole "Korean people's values and cultural problems are to blame for suicide" is ill-placed and burgeoning on being a modern-day Orientalist.
***I don't know how much we should allow people's socialist thinkings pervade commonsense, but to me suicide is a systemically-sustained dilemma, but ultimately and foremost an individual problem. It should be dealt with from both levels--neither of which can be pigeonholed into blanketed notions of "culture" or "kultur."
Seems to me we have a case of Western ignorance becoming more refined and complex, not some body of positive Western knowledge which increases in size and accuracy when we limit causes of "Korean suicide" (yuck!) to--culture. (Good lord, you've made me into a Said--and he's a hack, a hack with pretensions! "Western," "Eastern," "Eastern," "Western," yuck! ).  |
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sml7285
Joined: 26 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="wishfullthinkng"]
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
unless you're working for a big chaebol those big bonuses and salaries are non-existant.
[quote]
Pretty much the same anywhere. My friend at Goldman got a mammoth bonus his first year out of college (almost on par with his annual salary). Another friend at a boutique got a gift certificate as a "bonus".
This is in the US. |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| slothrop wrote: |
| more vacation time for koreans won't work. many koreans opt to not take the vacation days they get now and take the money instead. whenever a company tries to make a policy that employees must take their vacation days( in order to save the company money) employees complain and do everything in their power to reverse the policy. |
Well it's the compensation structure that's the problem actually. Your typical garden-variety Hyndai employee may get paid 60 million a year, but only 24 million of it is his base pay (or sometimes even less). The rest is overtime and a nominal bonus (in the 7 mil range). THIS needs to change. If the guy's base pay was 45 million with no overtime, he'd have MUCH LESS of an incentive to work overtime for no good reason. And I'd guess that a significant portion of the overtime worked in Corporate Korea IS for no good reason (e.g. any reason besides having work to do).
Then there's the cultural element where the old guys in charge think that sitting at your desk=working hard and getting things done on time and going home at 6=lazy. Face time is huge here apparently. Now if I were a manager, and someone sat around staring at me while I work, I'd send them home and tell them to get a life.
There was a saying by the guy that used to be CEO of Yuhan Kimberly...."Koreans are miserable because two people do the work that three people should be doing and the third because he has no job." |
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luckylady
Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Location: u.s. of occupied territories
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
Not at the junior level where you have to "prove out" or be fired or relegated to the backwaters. |
then they are paid hourly and receive overtime.
unlike their salaried bosses who don't. |
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luckylady
Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Location: u.s. of occupied territories
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| rchristo10 wrote: |
***I don't know how much we should allow people's socialist thinkings pervade commonsense, |
(1) the very fact you used "socialist" in your response when it really hadn't been brought up before (at least in any detail, I might have missed it if it was just barely mentioned) immediately caused me to dismiss everything else you wrote simply because there's such a blather of idiots tossing this term around both frequently and incorrectly
(2) who the heck are the "we" being represented by ?
(3) same question only who the heck are the "people?"
(4) by the same token, what on earth are you defining as common sense ? |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| fosterman wrote: |
a nation like Korea should be able to sustain itself with 10 million people easily! even 5 would be ok |
I would argue a country this small with this little arable land CAN'T sustain more than 10 million and 5 is a more appropriate number  The problem is that there are too many old people but there's no way the government's going to convince people to make more babies. There's not a single living organism, not even single-celled ones, that will reproduce MORE when there is NOT ENOUGH food (some will even EAT their young). The government should be basing their policy decisions on the assumption that the birth rate is NEVER going to go up and NO amount of propaganda or brainwashing is going to change that.
Low birthrates worldwide is a good thing except we have that ponzi scheme called social security to worry about. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| luckylady wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
Not at the junior level where you have to "prove out" or be fired or relegated to the backwaters. |
then they are paid hourly and receive overtime.
unlike their salaried bosses who don't. |
Sorry, but if your boss says we you have a consulting presentation that is to be delivered in 4 days, you are going to work overtime. However long it takes you to finish it is up to your. But he will evaluate you based on the quality of work. So obviously you are probably going to work overtime. The thing is he didn't tell you you had to do it. So you can't collect. If you do well you get promoted and a raise, but again, you have to prove out. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| luckylady wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
Not at the junior level where you have to "prove out" or be fired or relegated to the backwaters. |
then they are paid hourly and receive overtime.
unlike their salaried bosses who don't. |
Sorry, but if your boss says we you have a consulting presentation that is to be delivered in 4 days, you are going to work overtime. However long it takes you to finish it is up to your. But he will evaluate you based on the quality of work. So obviously you are probably going to work overtime. The thing is he didn't tell you you had to do it. So you can't collect. If you do well you get promoted and a raise, but again, you have to prove out. |
That's not the way it works in Korea. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| atwood wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| luckylady wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| In order to get the job done, many people work longer than 40 hours. You know, people like doctors, cops, lawyers, consultants, analysts, project designers, etc. |
Many of those people get paid high salaries and bonuses to compensate for the lack of overtime. |
Not at the junior level where you have to "prove out" or be fired or relegated to the backwaters. |
then they are paid hourly and receive overtime.
unlike their salaried bosses who don't. |
Sorry, but if your boss says we you have a consulting presentation that is to be delivered in 4 days, you are going to work overtime. However long it takes you to finish it is up to your. But he will evaluate you based on the quality of work. So obviously you are probably going to work overtime. The thing is he didn't tell you you had to do it. So you can't collect. If you do well you get promoted and a raise, but again, you have to prove out. |
That's not the way it works in Korea. |
Oh yeah, Korea. Crap, that's work until you die for the sake of working. I was more referring to back home. But yeah, Korea is just insanity when it comes to uncompensated extra time. |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| motiontodismiss wrote: |
There was a saying by the guy that used to be CEO of Yuhan Kimberly...."Koreans are miserable because two people do the work that three people should be doing and the third because he has no job."
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I like the quote, but do you think it is that true? I always thought it was three doing the work of two, but getting paid 60% of what they are worth. So they work long hours, low productivity, bored, and underpaid.
[I visited my dong-office yesterday, what a sleepy lot.]
I wonder if there are just too many (cheap) workers, so companies don't work efficiently. [I worked some companies back home where it was 2 doing the work of at least 3, maybe 3.5. Profits were up!] |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
There was a saying by the guy that used to be CEO of Yuhan Kimberly...."Koreans are miserable because two people do the work that three people should be doing and the third because he has no job."
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I like the quote, but do you think it is that true? I always thought it was three doing the work of two, but getting paid 60% of what they are worth. So they work long hours, low productivity, bored, and underpaid.
[I visited my dong-office yesterday, what a sleepy lot.]
I wonder if there are just too many (cheap) workers, so companies don't work efficiently. |
Seconded by me and supported by the studies showing that Korea has some of the lowest productivity in the developed world. |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| motiontodismiss wrote: |
There was a saying by the guy that used to be CEO of Yuhan Kimberly...."Koreans are miserable because two people do the work that three people should be doing and the third because he has no job."
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I like the quote, but do you think it is that true? I always thought it was three doing the work of two, but getting paid 60% of what they are worth. So they work long hours, low productivity, bored, and underpaid.
[I visited my dong-office yesterday, what a sleepy lot.]
I wonder if there are just too many (cheap) workers, so companies don't work efficiently. [I worked some companies back home where it was 2 doing the work of at least 3, maybe 3.5. Profits were up!] |
It's true of the public sector and academia. There 6 people do the work that 2 should be doing AND they're overpaid. In the private sector, three people do the work of two probably and they take too long to do it, AND they're underpaid. Although I know someone who's a second year at Hyundai who works late 7 days a week. Really, if there's that much work they should be hiring two people to do that work, not one.
This is Korea where bureaucrats are paid too much and have too much power. The person at the dong office gets paid more than you to do what they'd get paid 88 man won for in the private sector (or that a machine would be doing in the private sector). Then there's the fact that these bloated, wasteful bureaucracies make life difficult for everyone. What do you expect of people who don't have any real-life work experience where they had to work efficiently? And the only thing they did to get the job is study for years for a multiple choice test?
Then there's the fact that Korea's system of education doesn't encourage efficiency AT ALL. Students barely listen to the teacher at school and study at hagwon. Then some genius bureaucrat thought that EVERYONE should be an expert at EVERYTHING, which we all know is impossible. Then there's the parents who force their kids to study all the time.
Parents tell you to study every waking minute=>no incentive to get any studying done because mom will force you to study even if you studied everything=>kid pretends to study=>kid goes to college sick of studying=>doesn't study=>take time off for military, work holidays in Austraila, whatever=>forgets everything=>cheats his/her way to a 4.0=>gets job=>boss forces you to deskwarm even if you're done with everything for the next week=>pretend to do stuff while getting nothing done=>gets assigned junior people to manage=>forces them to do the same sit at your desk staring into space routine because of some stupid "pay your dues" nonsense=>repeat ad nauseam. you get the idea.
There's a reason SNU doesn't have the recognition that say, U of Tokyo does.
Then of course, there's overpopulation. |
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oppa637
Joined: 05 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Hyundai seems to need more employees as the work of 10 is normally done by 4. Hence the late hours. |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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| oppa637 wrote: |
| Hyundai seems to need more employees as the work of 10 is normally done by 4. Hence the late hours. |
Actually pretty much all of corporate Korea's like that. |
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