I'm curious to see how many of these people who make SF level salaries while living in the Midwest stand up for their beliefs and refuse the 6 months severance
Not that most of them wouldn't be able to afford to
"Read all about how I refused Basecamp's buyout and spend a year snorkeling in Belize to make myself feel better"
I submitted this because I've been thinking about this problem a lot lately, and so was pleased to find this.
I'm unable to find any "meaty" articles, however - everything I find is pretty much press release stuff. Would love better links and a knowledgeable discussion on the plastic-to-anything-useful work being done.
Which part of Japan are you in? There are two very active Slack communities (Tokyo & Kansai) that can help you even if you can't do face to face with anyone (http://hnkansai.slack.com is use; can't recall Tokyo's off the top of my head, but sure someone will supply it)
I think you would benefit greatly by finding a partner of some sort. A business partner might be good down the road, but for now just a "mentor/stick-shaker" type to keep you motivated and on track with things. It can be very, very hard to do what you are alone.
You sound like getting work & getting things set up is not an issue, just keeping them going. Come join us and find someone to just check your progress each week to get you out of the rut. Little weekly progress checks may sound corny, but if you're a one-person show they can make all the difference
This isn't really the main point of his article, but he glosses over one very important point about young people & the work ethic today:
People who get labelled as "freeters" aren't necessarily bouncing from job to job voluntarily. For decades Japanese corporations were labor-heavy because of life-time employment. When the bubble burst, they broke that unspoken promise and shed themselves of thousands of workers.
When things picked up again, instead of returning to that previous promise, they hired temporary workers. No benefits, no annual pay raises or twice a year bonuses, etc. (And no loyalty from these workers)
The Japanese corporate system is set up that you are hired after college at a low salary, but you are guaranteed a steady climb until you can retire comfortably in the end. The corporations pulled the rug out from under that system.
So you now have many young people who have been fully employed at MegaCorp for 3 years, but on a contract basis, never knowing when it will end, never getting a decent raise...
If you read newspaper and magazine articles here you realize there is an enormous sense of insecurity among the 20 to 30 year age group; and so they are unwilling to take risks, get married, buy homes, etc. People are retreating into themselves.
It would make sense that that is linked to minimalism - or at least, a reduced consumerism - but that would only be my own speculation.
Let me add that low-salary that rises is still low.
My Japanese teacher 20 years ago bragged that Japanese CEOs don't make obscenely more money than their employees. I countered that western CEOs may make more but they also pay their employees far far more and generally don't making their employees work 10am to 11pm 5+ days a week.
I'm my particular field I halved my salary to come to Japan and tripled it going back to the USA. Even funnier I was working for a Japanese company in the USA. I worked for 2 large Japanese companies (one with 4000+ people. The other with 300,000+ people). Both had limits of ~$60k a year set by the HR department no matter how much experience. That's less than interns make at Google USA. A typical engineer out of school makes around $20k a year at a Japanese company.
Here's some data on average yearly salaries by job type in Japan
Off Topic - I do wish magazines that exist for long form articles would build the page so you could use the space bar to advance without covering the top lines with their navbar.
I don't sit and relax with long form story on a Sunday morning on my phone
This might be the case, but I think that maybe the original request ( Hey guys, what if we could film such an event and use it for our promotion ), translated into legalese, had to be that broad otherwise it made no sense ( ie. that Eventbrite would have had to run after everyone to ask for permission to film, or that after filming, the participants would have to veto it ).
Not that most of them wouldn't be able to afford to
"Read all about how I refused Basecamp's buyout and spend a year snorkeling in Belize to make myself feel better"