They're each contributing the same: one person's worth of work.
The article discusses the idea that when you're hired you're given a career that the company decides on, not you. So in that context, where they'll turn an art history major into a java developer, things are different.
The Japanese system is predicated on the idea that salarymen are fungible, and in that context your personal skills or contributions don't factor in. You're the same as everyone else, and if every one of a company's 80,000 employees is functionally identical from the point of view of the system, there's no real line between a programmer and a janitor.
> They're each contributing the same: one person's worth of work.
You're talking about effort and he's talking about value, which are quite different metrics.
A programmer uses a crazy work multiplier known as a computer to affect, potentially, millions or even billions of lives (in the cases of Google or Facebook).
A janitor cleans a small area and generally won't affect as much, in addition to being more easily replaceable due to being unskilled labor that does not require all that training.
For what it's worth, I say that having worked jobs not far removed from janitor.
The article discusses the idea that when you're hired you're given a career that the company decides on, not you. So in that context, where they'll turn an art history major into a java developer, things are different.
The Japanese system is predicated on the idea that salarymen are fungible, and in that context your personal skills or contributions don't factor in. You're the same as everyone else, and if every one of a company's 80,000 employees is functionally identical from the point of view of the system, there's no real line between a programmer and a janitor.