Companies that regularly require a min of 40, and max of whatever they can get away with, is not where I work for long ; )

Here in Australia, a min of 40 is actually illegal under threat of a $300,000 fine

The maximum work hours you can request of someone (on average over a "reasonable period") is 38 hours per week.

e.g. If I did three 50 hour weeks, then I'd have to have that over-time repaid to me by following it up with a 2 hour week (50+50+50+2 == 38+38+38+38)

However if you are late due to train delays, you can get a small paper from the train station that says they had a delay and the company will forgive such a case.

I know this is just a cultural difference (plus the likelihood of a Japanese train being late is much lower than an Australian train), but if I asked a station employee to write a note to my boss saying the train is late, they'd likely be extremely puzzled and think I was a bit crazy... and if my manager asked for proof that my train was actually late, I'd be offended at the insinuation that I'm lying.

We can tell when our creativity has run out for the day. Sometimes people will put in a 9 or 10 hour day, other times they may be done at 6 or 7 hours. All that matters is that it mostly balances out in the end and that they get their job done. We have had the rare individual who will abuse it, and routinely put in 6 hour days, but they are rare and are quickly dealt with.

What if you get a person who's creativity runs out after 6 hours routinely, but during that time they're 200% as productive as anyone else? Does it matter if their hours don't 'balance out' to a 40 hour week as long as they're getting a good amount of work done?

if I asked a station employee to write a note to my boss saying the train is late, they'd likely be extremely puzzled and think I was a bit crazy...

We have the flexi time system too. Core: 8:30 - 15:00, Friday: 8:30-13:30. You have to work 8 hours a day in average (in a month). If you have +8 hours, you can take a day off (only once a month, but the balance rolls over the months). If you have negative balance, you might have reduced bonus. If you are late from the core hours, usually nothing happens, you just receive a paper that you have to sign (the same paper that you get if you don't properly check in or out). It doesn't have consequences yet, though there are some changes in sight in the company, and some other bosses may be more prick about the thing than mine.

What about lunch?

People take lunch in there if they want, most of the team is salaried anyway. The point is that the "core hours" keep people from scheduling their hours in the middle of the night or something wildly outside everyone else' availability (and we're not international, so no general worry about time zones outside the US).

For some jobs like high volume phone support, being on time is critical.

Personally, I wouldn't work for a company that didn't allow me at least some flexibility in work hours. At my current job, we don't have flexi-time as such, but there's plenty of leeway as long as the work gets done (i.e. I finish early on Mondays to teach, I just either do some work at home that evening or work a bit later tuesday)

Everybody my job is cool with being a little late, although it's usually a good idea to send an email or a text if you're going to be more than 20 min late. I don't think I would ever work anywhere where I got a hard time for showing up a little late, especially if I were working late the night before.