It started as a simple calculation:
“What would happen to my annual income if I worked overtime until morning?”
If monthly overtime rises to forty or sixty hours, gross pay usually rises too. Under Japanese labor law, statutory overtime requires a premium, late-night work carries an additional premium, and overtime beyond sixty hours in a month is subject to a higher rate.[1]
But the calculation exposed something more interesting.
A peer was working more than forty hours of overtime in some months and still sat in a lower pay range.
A manager at a previous workplace also worked long hours and carried managerial responsibility while receiving a relatively fixed annual package.
After changing employers, however, I was not a manager and was working far less overtime. Even so, the compensation range moved much closer to what once seemed reachable only through promotion and long hours and, depending on the conditions, could even exceed it.
That reveals a simple distinction:
Selling more hours and moving to a different pay table are two different games.
There was another memory.
A former boss repeatedly made comments along the lines of:
“I’m the section manager. I’m important. I earn much more than you.”
Inside that hierarchy, the words had force.
Outside it, looking back from a different employer and a different pay structure, the reaction becomes:
Why did the title need to be announced so loudly in the first place?
This article connects overtime, employer wage effects, managerial status, bullying-like behavior, and the career strategy of simply leaving a game whose rules do not fit.
Short version
- Long overtime can increase income, but it also consumes time, recovery, health, and life. Overtime is legally limited.[1]
- The same worker can be paid very differently across employers. Firm wage effects are a major topic in labor economics.[2]
- A manager has organizational authority, not superior human worth.
- It is impossible to diagnose whether an intimidating manager acted from insecurity. That question does not have to be solved.
- The previous workplace was not described as universally toxic; other people there behaved normally.
- The real win was not proving the manager wrong. It was moving into an environment with working conditions and decision-making authority that fit better.
1. “Work until morning and earn more” is mathematically true
Overtime premiums make the arithmetic straightforward.
In Japan, statutory overtime generally requires at least a 25% premium. Work between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. adds at least another 25%. Overtime beyond sixty hours in a month requires at least a 50% overtime premium.[1]
So yes, working deep into the night can raise a paycheck.
But income is only one side of the ledger.
More overtime means less free time, less sleep, and often more recovery time afterward. A larger paycheck may simply mean that more personal time was sold.
Japanese rules also set overtime limits: in principle, forty-five hours per month and 360 hours per year, with stricter conditions even when special clauses are used.[1]
A person in a high-paying firm with little overtime and a person in a lower-paying firm with heavy overtime can have similar annual income while living very different lives.
2. Comparing a peer and a former manager made the pay table visible
Close comparisons make wage structures easier to see.
A peer can work much longer hours and still earn less.
A manager can work long hours, carry responsibility, and still be only modestly ahead of a non-manager elsewhere.
That does not make one person “better” than another. Jobs, benefits, bonuses, duties, and industries differ.
But it destroys one assumption:
More hours do not automatically create the highest compensation.
Labor economics has extensive research on firm wage effects. Patrick Kline’s review describes how high-wage firms differ in productivity, size, worker demand, amenities, and other factors, and how the employer itself can have a substantial effect on pay.[2]
A person does not become dramatically smarter on Monday because they changed companies over the weekend.
The shop putting the price tag on the labor changed.
That can make a position that once appeared to require promotion and long overtime accessible without becoming a manager at all.
3. “I’m the manager” confuses organizational authority with human rank
Managers do have authority.
They allocate work, make decisions, evaluate performance, and carry responsibility.
That is normal organizational design.
But:
“I am a manager, therefore I am a more important person.”
or:
“I earn more, therefore I rank above you as a human being.”
is a different claim.
A job title is a role, not a caste.
Pay is the result of employer structure, occupation, productivity, bargaining, timing, hours, and many other factors.[2] It is not a character stat called Human Value.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines workplace power harassment through three elements: behavior based on a superior relationship, behavior beyond what is necessary and reasonable for work, and harm to the employee’s working environment. Legitimate instruction is not harassment, but superiority does not automatically turn humiliation into legitimate management.[3]
So the point is not merely whether the boss was strict or kind.
Was that statement actually necessary to get the work done?
Repeating “I’m the manager” does not shorten a deadline.
It does not explain a business decision.
It mainly announces hierarchy.
4. This does not mean the entire company was abnormal
An important part of the story is that other people at the old workplace were generally normal.
There were reasonable coworkers.
There were managers who did not need to constantly display rank.
So it would be inaccurate to turn one memorable supervisor into a claim that everyone in the company behaved that way.
If anything, the fact that one person stood out so sharply is part of why the memory remains vivid.
Individual behavior and organizational systems can overlap.
If an organization ignores or rewards intimidation, that becomes an organizational problem.
If many people in the same system manage without intimidation, the individual’s choices still matter.
Both can be true at once.
5. “Maybe he was insecure” is a hypothesis, not a diagnosis
Looking back, it is tempting to say:
“Maybe he needed to talk about his title and salary because he lacked inner confidence.”
That may feel plausible.
But an outsider cannot scientifically diagnose the internal motive of one specific supervisor.
Research on abusive supervision itself has measurement problems: scholars have debated how to distinguish leaders’ behavior, followers’ perceptions, and contextual effects.[4]
Recent work also links abusive supervision with burnout, powerlessness, organizational dehumanization, and other negative employee outcomes.[5]
None of that lets us reverse-engineer one individual’s hidden motivation.
A more precise conclusion is:
“Insecurity may have been part of it. I do not know. And solving that mystery was never my job.”
Even if the manager was anxious or insecure, that remained the manager’s problem to address.
A subordinate is not required to absorb status displays as therapy.
6. Whether leaving was a good decision does not depend on proving the boss was a villain
Career moves are often turned into morality plays:
Did you run away?
Should you have endured more?
Was the boss truly bad enough?
A decision framework is cleaner.
Compare the conditions of staying with the conditions of leaving:
pay structure, overtime, job content, location, free time, promotion path, managerial expectations, downside risk, and how the external market values the experience.
If the alternative has better expected value and the market actually offers it, moving can be rational without a courtroom verdict on the old boss’s character.
After actually moving, the hypothesis that better compensation did not require trading away long overtime hours and accepting a management title was strongly supported.
The boss’s psychology could be completely misunderstood and the job change could still have been the better decision.
The key was not “I proved him wrong.”
It was:
“I changed games.”
7. The biggest gain may be not needing to become the kind of manager you never wanted to be
In some organizations, higher income appears tightly coupled with becoming a manager.
Management means responsibility for people, deadlines, staffing shortages, and targets.
Good managers can handle that without bullying. Management and harassment are not the same thing.
But if someone does not want a management career and does not want to motivate people through pressure, a system where “more money requires management” is a poor fit.
Changing employers can loosen that constraint.
You do not have to become “Manager-sama.”
You can create value in your own domain, improve systems, build expertise, and go home.
That can be worth more than a pay raise.
It means your livelihood no longer requires merging your personality with a title.
8. Conclusion: you do not have to defeat “Manager-sama”; you can leave the game
Inside a company, a manager’s title has real organizational power.
After you leave, that power disappears.
“I’m the manager!”
Okay. In that organization.
Another company has another chart, another pay table, another evaluation system, and another set of opportunities.
That is where career freedom appears.
You do not have to diagnose the boss.
You do not have to cure the boss.
You do not have to win the argument about who was “really superior.”
You can simply choose a different game.
Working longer hours is one route to more income.
Taking managerial responsibility is another.
Moving to a different employer pay structure is another.
Building scarce expertise is another.
The useful question is not, “Which route looks most impressive?”
It is:
“Which route buys the life I actually want?”
And if, years later, the memory still produces the thought, “That behavior really was strange,” that is fine.
Understanding the other person completely was never a graduation requirement.
You are no longer in the same classroom.
Sources
- 厚生労働省「労働条件・職場環境に関するルール」 mhlw.go.jp
- Patrick M. Kline, “Firm Wage Effects,” NBER Working Paper 33084, 2024, revised 2025 nber.org
- 厚生労働省「事業主が職場における優越的な関係を背景とした言動に起因する問題に関して雇用管理上講ずべき措置等についての指針」 mhlw.go.jp
- Thomas Fischer, Amy Wei Tian, Allan Lee, David J. Hughes, “Abusive supervision: A systematic review and fundamental rethink,” The Leadership Quarterly 32(6), 2021 doi.org
- Wen Zhang et al., “Dehumanized yet agentic? When and how organizational dehumanization mediates the effects of abusive supervision on burnout and interpersonal helping behavior,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 31(1), 2026 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
