Japanese housewives are so convinced of the value of office work that they get angry if their husbands come home early in the evenings; and this is why many Japanese husbands, fearing assault by the rolling pin, spend long periods at the pub before heading home very late. Japanese wives are deluded, however, if they believe that offices are places in which much work is done; on the contrary, they are places in which time is constantly being wasted.
Offices are not conducive to long and concentrated effort; they offer far too many distractions. You aren’t alone in an office, but amid people with whom to converse and to intrigue, to flirt or to fight, and in the presence of coffee machines and water coolers around which to engage in frivolous banter. There are also the frequent meetings at which members of staff tell each other what they are doing (or not doing), and give the impression of initiative by proposing ideas about what everyone should do next.
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