Comment by AnonC
Comment by AnonC 2 days ago
Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC was reported [1] by Nikkei Asia in March 2023 as saying this about the work culture:
> "Design is the U.S.'s competitiveness. On the other hand, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have competitiveness in manufacturing...It's also about the work culture and the people."
> The TSMC founder cited chip production equipment as an example. Because these machines are so expensive, they need to be running 24 hours a day to justify their cost. "If it breaks down at 1 in the morning, in the U.S. it will be fixed in the next morning, but in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 a.m."
> "If an engineer [in Taiwan] gets a call when he is asleep, he will wake up and start dressing. His wife will ask: 'What's the matter?' He would say: 'I need to go to the factory.' The wife will go back to sleep without saying another word," Chang said. "This is the work culture."
This isn't all so unusual if its written into the job description. SREs in tech companies are expected to respond within a few minutes if they're paged in the middle of the night. They are usually compensated for their oncall time, however.
Expecting a worker to come to the factory out of fear or good will is not the way. Just write it into the contract/expectations/evaluations.