05 January 2017
POETS Day
But only once a month for hard-working Japanese.
by Lynda Goetz
Anyone who has worked in an office may well have heard the term ‘Poets day’ for the last day of the working week, Friday. The term has nothing to do with poetry but is an acronym meaning ‘Piss off early, tomorrow’s Saturday’. Whether or not the practice can be implemented at all will depend of course on the office where one is working and the nature of the work. In my own personal experience it was a very occasional happening when the boss had had enough and his wife had rung reminding him of their commitments for the evening (no, I didn’t have female bosses). However, in Japan the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has put forward a proposal for ‘Premium Friday’, designed to encourage staff to go home early, not every week, but on the last Friday of each month. The idea apparently is that this will not only reduce the excessive working hours for which Japan is notorious, but will also encourage workers to go out and boost spending in Japan’s sluggish economy.
Japanese workers have long been known to be reluctant to leave their desks until their boss has left the office. Likewise, the bosses cannot be seen to be leaving early as this sends the wrong message to workers. In the same vein, many workers do not take up all their annual holiday entitlement, with many using only half their annual allowance. “Karoshi” or death by overwork is a real phenomenon in Japan where the suicide rate is about three times the rate in the UK. The recent case of a 24 year-old employee, who had put in hundreds of hours of overtime at the advertising agency Dentsu, and whose suicide led to the resignation of the chief executive, Tadash Ishii, highlighted once again the stress under which many Japanese find themselves.
The scheme put forward by METI starts in February in central Tokyo and will be rolled out nationwide from April. Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, has written to its 1,300 member companies recommending that they back the scheme, which is voluntary, not compulsory. It remains to be seen whether workers or bosses will feel able to take advantage of the idea. Thinking of which, when was the last time anyone heard of Poets Day?
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