It's still 5/6 day workweeks in the office in China, India, SK, Japan, HK, and Singapore. Same in the Gulf.

The reality is the bigger Asian nations like China, India, SK, and Japan that worked on building resilient alternatives after the 2022-23 ONG shock due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine aren't as dramatically impacted. The others didn't.

Additionally, in Pakistan's case, their government raised fuel taxes by around 33% because they didn't meet their IMF loan terms [0] but somehow found $11M to buy a private jet [1] for the CM of Punjab who is also the niece of the PM and the daughter of the former PM and Pakistan is in the middle of a war with Afghanistan [2].

Edit: can't reply

> gas cylinder booking...

The gas cylinder/LPG issue is due to consumer habits - induction and electric stovetops have been available in India for decades, but there has been a cultural aversion to adopting electric.

Even Indian Americans in the US prefer using Gas Stovetops over Electric for cultural reasons (eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops despite living here for decades).

And dhabas and restaurants used to use coal briquettes or kerosene until those were banned in the 2000s for pollution reasons (much help that did /s), and will most likely revert back to those.

[0] - https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709

[1] - https://www.arabnews.com/node/2633978/pakistan

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakis...

I read the headline and assumed it was "Japan and China" but it wasn't.

China is a country so what is the problem there.

“Parts of Europe” or “Europe increasingly” etc would be ok (the latter if there was an expected progression of these policies to other European nations).

This headline is similarly misleading.

But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop.

Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.

We could develop new technology, research culture solutions... or... meet in-person.

But I also am a bit reluctant to hire introverts for this specific (entry level) job. They will not ask for help to their and my detriment.

Being a bit casual and not making grand claims: I should hire Senior introverts and have them WFH. I should hire entry level extroverts and have them in person.

For those kind of business having full occupancy is more important than worker productivity.

But ya, probably best to just call it "traffic" then, and they might be more receptive.

I encourage people who are remote but want human contact to rent a desk once a week at a co-working space.

For me personally, I want to do my work as efficiently as possible, in as little time as possible, and then have my social time, which has very little in common with my work and/or colleagues.

I might be an exception, but I get up very, very early and work almost right away, and I don't want to be on a roll and then have to pack up, get in the car at a terrible traffic time where (some) people are driving like animals, hunt for parking and then find a desk. That's a huge _tax_ on my productivity.

But I don't expect or demand that the rest of the world do this.

As a side comment, I would agree with you though, that 2 in the office is better than one. But I also had a very effective pattern around 10 years ago, where I spent 2 days in the office per month, and that worked really well for me (though those days were far, far less productive than my at home work days).

Now, if the world adopted a 32 hour, 4-day work week I would probably be ok with the office 1 day a week.

If it is a sweet spot for you fine, I am happy you found it. But DO NOT FORCE all of US who have different sweet spots to meet you at yours.