"Hurry or the world perishes" - Working conditions at Canon

<p>Interesting blog entry about the working conditions at Canon:<br>

http://www.dannychoo.com/detail/mac/eng/image/19639/Canon+Electronics.html<br>

(It links several Japanese news sources.)</p>

<p>I can see the competing emplyee recruiting messages now:<br /><br /><em>"Relax here at Pentax!"<br /><br />"Have a Nap with Nikon!"<br /><br />"Toke at Tokina: Smoking Breaks Are OK With Us."<br /><br />"Sigma: We have fast primes and slow hallways."<br /><br />"Panasomniac! Where A Bit Of Sloth Isn't So Bad. Feel free to stay up all night playing video games."<br /><br />"Sony: We're Very Homey. Put Your Feet Up While You Work."<br /><br />"Olympus: You Can Sit Down For Four Thirds Of The Day"</em></p>

<p>This is an interesting issue on starting a debate on workplace surveillance, privacy protection, human dignity and efficiency.</p>

<p>The article doesn't mention how 'wealth-constrained' the Canon employee's are in comparison to their, say, Nikon counterparts.</p>

<p>I have never visited Japan and based on the blog entry, it seems that Japan doesn't have privacy protection or even effective occupational and health laws to protect their employees.</p>

<p>Perhaps the Japanese laws are slanted to increase the employer's total surplus rather than reducing their profits by overcompensating for the employee's gain.</p>

<p>Hopefully, there will be more fallout from this blogger's entry. Will I boycott Canon? That would depend on if there will be positive internal changes at the company.</p>

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<p>So what. Thats Japan and thats why we here in the USA love it so very much. Thats why I dont live places like China/Japan/Iraq etc where human rights are on the bottom of the list.</p>

<p>I buy Canon products because no one in the USA makes a comparable one. This is good for us Americans to see. Maybe it will wake us up and see what Obama is trying to do with us. If his party had their way, we would be well on our way to something similar.</p>

<p>Its an accountability issue. I worked for a German car maker here in Alabama were they did things similar. Say things like, you should speed up when you walk. You americans walk so slow. Or dont sit down. It looks like you are not working when you sit. Stupid. Yes, we had some(quite alot) of individual americans that would literally walk at snails pace and try to do as little as possible. So....fire them! Make those individuals accountable for their work performance. Not these stupid rules.</p>

<p>So....Canon does this. No surprise. Its been going on in places like that forever. Again, thats why the USA is so great.</p>

<p>Look at the salary comments. Why should I spend 12 hrs a day working my fingers to the bone for near pennies when the owner of the company makes billions. Yes, workers should have a salary balance that alows the company to remain profitable, but without the workers, the company makes no money. Thats their government for you. Our major car companies are in trouble cause they let the salary specs get out of hand. GM production workers making close to $50/hr. Our guys down here making top out of $27/hr. They should be compensated well, but not that well. And this is why companies have to lay off and shutdown. Making $7/hr less for these people would be alot better for the comapny and save them a job. Cause they wont make that kind of cheese anywhere else for sure. But Asian salaries are rediculous. But, thats why I am here, and not there. Some one needs to crack that same whip over their so I can get a better camera for the 1D4. </p>

<p>Wow. That guy is seriously, <strong>seriously</strong> full of himself.</p>

<p>Reducing time spent in meetings is good. I attended a meeting once (in the US) where we mainly talked about what the agenda should be for future meetings. The organizer was trying to invent reasons to hold meetings. Eliminating chairs might put a stop to that.</p>

<p>the next time i take a canon pic.... i won't be thinking about the canon workers.... i'll be thinking about the next pic... i will however, thank them in my prayers for building such great gear.... :>)</p>

<p>Terrible, if I wasn't already invested in Canon, and had to make a new buying decision, and knew Nikon was not like this, I would avoid Canon.</p>

<p>Canon makes cutting edge, high tech products. It shouldn't be difficult to convince people who work there that they are part of something great and exciting. People who enjoy their work can't get down a hallway fast enough, and they won't want to sit down unless they need to to get their job done. If Mr Hisashi Sakamaki can't motivate his people in more effective ways than by taking their chairs away and monitoring the speed at which they walk down a hallway, he is failing his job utterly.</p>

<p>We used to have stand up meetings sometime, guaranteed short.</p>

<p>When we first went to cubicles, I substituted a file cabinet for a guest chair. I simply explained I did not want people to overstay. It worked. But they still insisted on fingering my computer screen. I moved it to where they couldn`t reach it.</p>

<p>During bad employment times , mgt can get away with most anything. The real test is did the the manager get a standup desk. I`ll bet not.</p>

<p>My opinion is if that is the best he `s got to drive productivity and loyalty, he should be replaced yesterday.</p>

<p>We had some people go to China to source some parts. At one visited factory, a very dangerous operation was being done where the worker to get seriously hurt or killed. When the tour guide was questioned, the answer was " IT`S OK, WE HAVE LOTS OF PEOPLE" and he was perfectly serious. Absolutely true story.</p>

<p>And we wonder why we can`t compete. </p>

<p>< t</p>

<p>Not to belabor the point but while all this discussion about working conditions at Canon may be entirely true, I have a really hard time accepting such reporting from such a clearly biased (and in my opinion, utterly creepy) source. <strong>The guy has soft-core anime porn and figurines strewn all about his so-called "office" while he's wearing a stormtrooper outfit.</strong> WTF is that?</p>

<p>And then he posts some Nikon video where he's talking grandiosely about his work "documenting" Japanese culture. My stomach turned when he spoke about <strong>wet schoolgirls</strong> . I mean, REALLY! I'm not a prude by ANY stretch of the imagination, but this guy just reeks of dirty.</p>

<p>I have no love for either company (they are companies, after all), but to be fair one should ask those 1000 recently laid-off Nikon employees whether they'd rather have a job where they have to walk at a certain speed, or no job at all.</p>

<p>Now excuse me while I go wash the creepy off of me.</p>

<p>Yes the Japanese work ethic is MUCH different than here in the U.S. It shows in the much better designed, engineered, and built cameras, cars, TV's, stereos, etc. that we make here. Oh wait...</p>

<p>Also it's obvious that by walking briskly at work in Japan and working while standing causes much more obesity than here in the U.S. Oh wait...</p>

<p>Maybe this explains the continuing issues with autofocus tracking in the 1Dm3: <http://robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10039-10098></p>

<p>Another reason why almost everything I own with the Canon name on it has been purchased used.Save a lot of $$$ and Canon doesn't make a penny off of me.Support your own country and buy used.I did purchase a FS4000US film scanner and a Pro 1 Digicam from them new and they both ended up in the scrap pile because they cost more to fix than they were worth.</p>

<p>In regards to no chairs in meetings, I can understand that. I work in the corporate world. Coming from an engineering background I've learned to avoid meetings whenever possible. Just tell me what is needed. There are times when I have to attend, and then I limit discussions to the actual work at hand. Don't bring food. No, I don't want to talk about the game, and do I really care to know why your weekend shopping experience at the Mall went so badly? Once my part is done, I ask to excuse myself.</p>

<p>Then there are times we'll gather in a room and phone someone. Hey, let me have the conference number, I'll put it on speaker and continue to do work in the studio. I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I have three photo shoots and five video jobs in the works, and I like to go home at a reasonable time.</p>

<p>The pedometer in the hallways is laughable, (Maybe they should put motion sensors and timers in the break and rest rooms as well). If the boss feels that the employees are spending way too much time traversing the facility, then he needs to work on the root cause of the issue and see if he can shorten the trips.</p>

<p>Yes, thank god I live in the US. I buy canons because they are good tools that get the job done.</p>

<p>I now know why we have good and bad copies of lenses, maybe if they slow down all the copies of 24-70 f/2.8 will be sharp and 1D Mark IV's focus will be perfect *sight*. If your lens was made at the end of the work day, expect it to be soft :).</p>

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<p>Thats why I dont live places like China/Japan/Iraq etc where human rights are on the bottom of the list.</p>

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<p>Thanks, I lold.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>With a company as large as Canon, I must say I like the notion of fewer meetings. I work for an electronic assembly company and it seems like all we do is have 45 minute meetings where some dumbass stands in front of the room and reads from a powerpoint that anyone could read in under 10 minutes. Also, line work is really a pain in the ass when sitting, for the record. Nobody is forcing these people to work at Canon. If you hired people to sit around and drink beer and smoke dope and sleep all day SOMEBODY would still complain about he rigors of working, that's the nature of the beast.</p>

<p>How could someone draw up conclusion based on simply a few photos and claim that he/she does not like other places?</p>

<p>The photo itself did not mention what type of work that they are working on and how often that they are allowed to take a rest. If I took a photo from a most advance laboratory in United States or a shop floor from GM’s plant, you can simply see those chemists and workers are working without chair! Does this mean no human right?</p>

<p>The great America Corporations also some up with quality measure tools like Six Sigma that try to push people and works to the next level, this is similar concept of Canon measure how fast people walking. Unless someone shows that there is punishment associate with it, I would not draw conclusion on human right.</p>

<p>As far as I know that Japan is a free country according to the “Western” standard (they have different working culture though). But workers sure have choice not to work for the company that they do not like!</p>

 

<p>Article doesn't mean much to me, not sure what the point is. Have a sit down job now, but have had jobs where only sat down to move from one place to another in a vehicle. Forestry, factory work, logging, painting, food service and hotel work, i worked in health care for 12 years, sat down on maybe one hour per day if I was lucky. What I don't like is the "cheerleading" stuff about the walkign speed, good grief, kind of like the arbeit mach frei as you enter dachau. What they really mean is if we don't flourish, Nikon will</p>

<p>If Canon facitlity is that big, they should get bicycles like they do at Boeing here. What I'd rather read about is the profile/bio on people like the engineers that design the optics and cams.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Hopefully, there will be more fallout from this blogger's entry. Will I boycott Canon? That would depend on if there will be positive internal changes at the company."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well you'd better boycott Nikon too.</p>

<p>(Photos taken by Rob Galbraith on his visit to the Nikon D3 Factory - cont the number of workers you see sitting down) ...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-8744-9113">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-8744-9113</a></p>

 

<p>I just thought of this. The summer between high school and college I worked at a factory (assembly line). The work was much more strenuous than building cameras and I remember standing all day except for lunch and short breaks.</p>

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<p>Well you'd better boycott Nikon too.</p>

 

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<p>Rob's article doesn't mention about Nikon monitoring their employee's walking speed.</p>

<p>Again, the photo/blog itself does not mention how many monitors and how it is being used in details. If this is just a symbolic tool to motivate people to move and work faster, I am okay with it. A lot of American Corporations also measure employee’s productivities in different ways, any complaints on that?<br>

<br />I am not a die-hard Canon fan, all I am trying to say that do not simply use a few Internet rumors/news to judge a whole corporation’s culture. Both Canon and Nikon are companies making great products, there are already too many debates on the Web to compare which company making best product (or actually who make a wiser choice?). It is funny to see that people start to compare which company treats their employee better which is really difficult to be judged from an outsider!</p>