Kenji Koshio, chief executive of Shindenki, a small electronics company in the city of Kobe, wrote on his blog that troops, police officers, firefighters and medical workers were expected to work around the clock. Why not Japan’s prime minister?
Responding to the uproar over the meeting, he wrote: “Why don’t you just stop being so lame and be grateful to the people who are working hard for the people of Japan?”
Any other leaders calling meetings this early? Not just starting work themselves but imposing it on others. I found a few historical figures who did: Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Oliver Cromwell, and — in the summer when first light came early — Genghis Khan.
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65 comments:
"Any other leaders calling meetings this early?"
Maybe Hitler and Stalin.
But is it "this early" or "this late"?
Needs based employment is common. 9 to 5 may be a common luxury.
I remember being on console for shuttle missions starting at midnight for 6am launch. Heck, when I was invited to watch a launch, we were rolling into KSC at 2am. Admittedly, that happened in the Obama years, and we saw what death and destruction he wrought.
Daylight working hours is discriminatory.
west coast traders and other financial services people tied to east coast market open have morning meetings that early. There were traffic jams in Portland at about that hour bitd...
Joe Biden would sleep til noon. Get up for an ice cream cone. Then take an afternoon nap, followed by an appearance before a union group paid to stay and listen to him. Then dinner. Then someone would read him a bedtime story. Then off to bed at 7pm.
While Autopen ran things.
Is our hero, President DJT, a “historical figure” yet? I think so.
My grandfather used to get up early to walk ten miles to feed chickens in the early morning during the depression. I figure he was getting up around 2 AM, but he didn't need to wake everyone to do that.
I recall a neighbor who got up at 4 AM to milk the cows before heading off to high school. Also a professor who scheduled a class for 4 AM. The class was canceled because no students showed up ;) Farmers, and ex-farmers have early hours.
Daylight working hours are discriminatory, exclusive, and idealized in a globalized market, a Diverse democracy, and megawatt Automaton coworkers.
To Temujin: LOL! Perfect!
During WW II, churchill, stalin and hitler all worked well into the night. Of course, they all started late. The military staffs, OTOH, had to get up much earlier to assemble data, and do all their other work. Alanbrook used to complain that Churchill wore him out.
Anyway, japan isnt at war, and there's no reason for a PM to keep anything other than 9 to 9 hours. If you're working at 3am its because you don't know how to budget your time or focus on what's important.
"Is our hero, President DJT, a “historical figure” yet? I think so."
I did some research and he isn't calling meetings in the 3 or 4 o'clock hour. He does make phone calls and expect people to wake up and talk with him, but these aren't meetings and I think he's known to sleep between 1 and 5.
YEah, a lot of folks left the farm because they got tired of getting up 4 AM to milk the cow or feed the animals.
I'm often up and working at 3, but I wouldn't include others in that time, which happens to just work for me. And notice there's a big difference between making a phone call at 3 and requiring people to arrive at a meeting that starts at 3 and stay at that meeting for hours, then continue with the work day!
Given that this is the NYT, and the current Japanese PM is closely identified with DJT, I'm gonna need a lot more context for why there was a meeting at 3am Japan time. 3am in Tokyo is 1pm EST or 6pm in London. Is this a standard occurrence or had she just participated, or was going to be participating, in another meeting with officials gathered in the US or other parts of globe? As other commentors noted, as a computer software engineer I had to work at all hours of the day and night including weekends on a regular basis in order to meet required change windows, in addition to standard Monday through Friday office hours.
The problem is that Japan's economy has the kind of tired more sleep won’t fix. Money never sleeps, and Japan's demography is perilously close to losing any chance of actual Japanese people ever generating more of it ever again.
Temujin (aka Genghis Khan) is calling Sleepy Joe a slacker!
During COVID, I routinely attended 4am meetings but that was to support the UK, which was noon for them. 3am in Japan is 1pm EST.
New boss, new rules. Don't like it, the door is on your left at the end of the hall.
This from the city that never sleeps. Wake up.
simple solution:
if YOU are a civil servant, and DON'T won't to serve.. DON'T
maybe a bullet in your head? a knife in the belly? or just quit?
but, PLEASE: stop bitching.
I recall a presidential candidate running an ad about who you'd want answering calls at 3am. I guess we want national leaders to sleep in now?
Night court is in session, the honorable Takaichi presiding.
If/when the citizens see that purposeful grimace and hear that terrible sound, as he pulls the spitting high tension wires down, I expect they’ll be damn glad the PM’s on the job!
Takaichi Derangement Syndrome, or is it too early yet?
Anybody that's ever worked graveyard shift knows how nice it is to get off shift, tired, then head out to the donut shops and groceries and see everyone starting their day, everything fresh and at its best. It may seem perverse, but it gives you an 'all is right with the world' feeling, especially wolfing down that fresh donut.
Then quit your government job and get one in the private sector. Nobody there ever has to work at 3AM.
I always worked at home since the 80s but find others up at 3am responding to email. A bunch of us had play for pay jobs and that's the result.
General “Mad Anthony” Wayne was rumored to need little or no sleep. This spooked the Indian chiefs - along with the fact that he consistently bested them in battle.
n.n said...
“Night court is in session, the honorable Takaichi presiding.”
Night Court? Did he get the job because he was the only one to answer his phone? And who is the equivalent of Christine Sullivan in this scenario?
Maybe she was Facetiming with Trump while he ate lunch. Chicken teriyaki.
3am is actually a great time for a Japan, US, UK/Europe conference call. Do these people not care about international relationships?
Of course, Napolean and Genghis Khan couldn't make international conference calls, but I guess there is some reason to compare them. Don't know what it is yet a comparison was made.
Oh, Christine! My angel of government. Rule for me, my angel of government.
Is the issue climate change? Zoom, zoom. Don't forget your pants. Oh, and all hands above deck.
Somethimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and write emails, none of which I expected to be answered right away. The only one who answered them immediately was a Japanese colleague. She must of had her phone on and near her bed when sleeping. Not wanting to interfer with her sleep, I decided to just write draft emails to her at night and send them after daybreak.
"Then quit your government job and get one in the private sector. Nobody there ever has to work at 3AM."
As a former midnight shifter I would disagree.
So the Japanese PM is "to the light of Genghis Khan?"
...but reft of Orivel Clomwerr.
Once, twice, three times a burden? Progressive? Sequester the conception.
Christopher B said...
Given that this is the NYT, and the current Japanese PM is closely identified with DJT, I'm gonna need a lot more context for why there was a meeting at 3am Japan time. 3am in Tokyo is 1pm EST or 6pm in London.
I used to work in the IT department of an international company. We had people at our facility in metro Sydney, Australia. Every other monthly department-wide conference call was done in the wee-hours here in the US so the Aussies could actually attend during their day.
Some people just need to quit their bitching!
Amexpat: that is some dry, dry humor. Well done! CC, JSM
People need to be well-rested to perform well. That means letting them sleep at 3 a.m. unless their job requires them to be present very early in the morning. I have to be at work at 6 a.m., so I get up at 4:00, but for people who don't have to be at work that early, let 'em sleep.
Different individuals have different sleep needs and habits.
I sleep 4-5 hours a night and have for most of my life. When I wake up, I'm ready to get up, usually around 3 am. It's my favorite part of the day.
I realize this is very unusual. Not better nor worse, just different from the norm.
NYT has sniffed out a kinship between Takaichi and Trump. TDS surfaces
At a couple Silicon Valley companies, I often had conference calls with staff in Texas, Atlanta, London, Espoo (Finland), Rome, Warsaw, Bangalore, Sydney, and Tokyo. Operating worldwide is just another management skill, but it does frequently require some odd hours.
Aw hell man... as a computer programmer (my title was systems manager) I had to work 24 hrs strait one time... 18 another time.. I did lots of overtime... big f*cking deal.
"As a former midnight shifter I would disagree."
Actually, I would too, as I have worked later than 3AM myself. My previous comment was more of a snark aimed at "civil servants" who seem to think that their jobs exist solely in order to provide them with money and benefits.
Not to compare Takaichi to him, but Stalin was famous for ordering Molotov and other Politburo members to his office for meetings at 2, 3, 4, 5am.
He also liked to hold frequent attendance-mandatory hours-long Politburo dinners where heavy drinking and mean-spirited jokes and pranks were also mandatory. He loved to get the Politburo drunk then either mess around with them himself, or watch them mess around with each other. Followed by screenings of imported American movies. And then once the night finally 'ended' and they went home, an hour or two later, one or some or all of them would get summoned to the late-late-late night meeting.
You cannot do software development without late night testing and debugging sessions. Usually I could get through the next day okay, but the day after that was a waste.
My apologies for missing the sarcasm.
No worries.
She rose to prominence on the coat-tails of one scion of Japan's political aristocracy, and serves as the frontispiece for another. That the old men who run the LDP feel they need a woman to front the shop is primarily an act of desperation. Secondarily, it's also a recognition, possibly unconscious, that Japanese society has moved past them. Talk about leading from behind!
Imagine a political party of old men needing a woman to front the shop because their society has moved past them. It can't happen here.
If I took a job directly dealing with the elected leader of my country, I'd consider it an honor to be expected to be at work at 3am with her there.
"If I took a job directly dealing with the elected leader of my country, I'd consider it an honor to be expected to be at work at 3am with her there."
And most all of them probably do. It's Japan! Apparently Japan's new PM is being targeted by our left - as indicated by Kack's post above.
She got too close to Trump. And nothing else matters.
It's 5 o'clock somewhere.
Churchill, Hitler, Stalin. The 3am meetings may have something to do with living in underground bunkers and losing track of what's day and what's night. Presumably Japan's PM isn't living underground. Maybe she's just conscientious and hard-working.
Wasn't she a heavy metal drummer? Maybe she's closing down the bars at 2am, then heading in for the first meeting of the day.
Winston Churchill was one of the most in-shape, out-of-shape men to ever live. He somehow managed to work throughout the 24-hour day while getting no exercise, smoking cigars, drinking whenever he was awake, and eating whatever he wanted. And he lived to 90.
One of his secrets was minimizing physical effort. He conducted a lot of his business from bed - fully dressed in his favorite pink robe, with stenographers and other aides in the room. Even once he got up, he would later have an afternoon nap. Then he would have marathon dinners that were also business meetings. And finally back to bed, for some more reading, dictation and editing before falling asleep.
So working weird hours is easy, if you are powerful enough to make everyone else fit your schedule. Or if you are all the way at the bottom of the totem pole and no one cares when you work, as long as you do. CC, JSM
Rabel: "It's Japan!"
Good point. Coming in for a 3 AM meeting, you miss the horrendous traffic, the subway crowding, the masses of pedestrians downtown, etc. CC, JSM
Unless it's a true emergency, there is no problem at 3 a.m. that is not better addressed at 3 p.m. Let people stay in bed at 3 a.m. so that they will attend to perhaps the country's top problem, which is producing more Japanese.
Wasn't she a heavy metal drummer? Maybe she's closing down the bars at 2am, then heading in for the first meeting of the day.
More than a few Japanese Pols can be found in bars during the wee hours. The trains aren't running much after midnight so many of the Worker Bees have left city center. "Players", in certain sectors have the place all to themselves.
P.S. - Closing time in some Tokyo bars is nowhere near 2 a.m.
I can tell from the complaints that the hard line Japanese are now in the minority. Baseball has more participants than judo or kendo, so they never learned of these concepts.
The Japanese terms for intense martial arts training sessions held during the most extreme weather conditions are:Shochu geiko (暑中稽古): Training in the peak of summer heat (typically July–August, during the hottest and most humid period).
Kanchu geiko (寒中稽古): Training in the depth of winter cold (typically January–February, during the coldest period).
This made me think of Thatcher surviving an IRA bomb because she was at the desk working at 2 in the morning. She was unaccompanied though.
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