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China's Tech Work Culture Is So Intense People Sleep and Bathe In Their Offices (techinsider.io)
An anonymous reader writes: China's technology sector is booming at an intensely fast pace. Many startups are seeing their business grow faster than they can hire, placing a heavy burden on those already working within the industry. "The pace of Chinese internet company growth is extremely fast," Cui Meng, general manager and cofounder of data startup Goopal, told Reuters. "I've been to the US and the competitive environment there isn't as intense as in China." This has led many workers to put in overtime, sleeping at their desks, on cots, or even in provided bunk beds. Many employees are encouraged to live at the office during the workweek. Lunchtime naps are generally allowed, and those who end up staying past midnight usually pass out in the office.Reuters has amazing photographs of such offices and employees.
"God rewards the diligent."
Is that Chinese for "Arbeit macht frei"?
-Styopa
There is not much innovation in that country. They are good art reproducing, doing what they are told to do and build according to given plans and instructions. Many is to blame at their education. Most of the time at school is spent at learning thousands of chinese characters. At the end, reproducing is all they know. Because of that, inventing is not in their system. They have never been challenged to innovate. Their economy is based on cheap labour. As soon as western countries find cheaper or easier way to build stuff, China's economy will collapse.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
The worlds' addiction to laziness and greed will ensure that doesn't happen. You have been warned. China is but an embryo slowly morphing into the mighty dragon it will become. It is already too late. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
"giving the entirety of one's being" to one's company is already a pretty big trend.
Those of us who know what it's like to actually have a life know what stupid bullshit that is. I have worked with people like that and they seem to think they were put on this planet to work for some company or other. I was not put here for that purpose.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Did you find that it was unsustainable? There were two periods in my life like this: Bachelor's degree, and a start-up. The start-up was just slightly easier than the bachelor's degree. YMMV based on how hard your school is, how much of a task-master your boss is, and let's face it--how smart you are. I'm sure there were some people that just absolutely cruised courses that made me cram... but then again there were people who dropped out and never came back. I dropped out of start-ups, and when you're middle aged you start to think twice about a diet of late-night pizza and soda. If you pass out with a coronary at 50, what's the point?
Still though, if you think it's really important--if it's for God and country, or family, or just trying not to end up homeless or working a shit job for the rest of your life, you'll do it. Sometimes I think about the excitement and for the right project, maybe... one more time. I ran into a 20 something like that a while ago. He wanted me to help him code his stuff; but unfortunately it was the kind of software I hate. It was easy to turn that one down...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I agree 100%. I have been to China and I have seen how rapidly they are accelerating. Anyone who dismisses the rise of China by making racist remarks or talking about their lack of innovation is in for a surprise. I work with many chinese engineers and i see no shortage of innovative ideas. Some of them might lack in their leadership abilities but unlike Japan and Korea, China is very open to adopting western ways of doing things and you already see the changing of their culture. American engineers should enjoy their 8-9 hour/day jobs while Chinese engineers and entrepreneurs are working 15 hours a day. Soon Silicon Valley will be like the North East, hordes of angry unemployed people shaking their fists at the "damn farreigners".
At one time it was a reasonable deal. You'd give your youth to a company, and they'd provide a pension when you're too old to work. Now we still give our lives to companies, but we don't get the pension, or even steady employment in a lot of cases.
Similar experience with me in the 90s and early 2000s. We worked 16 hour days in many cases, sometimes for weeks on end to ship and at one place I worked at they finally did an audit of our bugtracker after one release. It was discovered that the amount of mistakes on code worked on during those pushes went up dramatically, and especially tellingly - during the last 4 hours of those 14-16 hour days, frequently working all weekend as well for up to 2 months. As a result during the next release cycle, the "push" was started earlier but days were limited to 10 hours and we took weekends off again and our ship time on the release was actually faster.
Another after-release audit of the bugtracker showed that the number of introduced bugs was significantly lower than on the previous death march release and the conclusion was that the extra work hours were being burned up by mistakes to no benefit and much lower morale. Going forward, that company continued the 10 hour max rule and continues to do well.
I moved on to other things and places and sometimes there was the old work long cycle again, but I've decided that I will no longer work at places that institutionalize that kind of time commitment. I work in systems so I am on call 24/7, and if something breaks at 3am I get up and fix it because it's what I signed on for, but I am definitely not putting in crazy overtime as part of general employment.
And right about the time they hit their stride, we'll hit a shortage of almost every industrial metal.
Should be interesting.
I can understand their motivation. It's like it used to be for programmers in the U.S. in the 80s. You could literally work 6 months and earn 2 years worth of pay.
Today, you work 72 hours a week and the company offers you base salary plus a "potential" bonus that never hits 100% while the executives take home millions in pay, have a 2nd better funded pension system, and gold plated health care.
U.S. workers do work hard when they have a realistic potential to earn $200k in less than a year. I've seen them walking around with black eyes from lack of sleep. I've been at companies where they worked themselves til they were taken away unconcious from their desk to an ambulance.
But executives have gotten greedy and taken away... comp time, genuine achievable bonuses, and decent pay (with heavy offshoring).
As china moves from a GDP of $15,000 to a GDP of $45,000 the ability to become 'rich' thru working long hours will fade and with it so will their enthusiasm to work these hours. Their children who enter the work force in 10 to 15 years will not be nearly so enthusiastic ( same pattern as the u.s., then japan, etc.).
There will be a time when the chinese also ask, "Do I live to work or do I work to live?"
Former programmer then manager... retired for 4 years and loving it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The British said this about the Americans at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when we stole their technology.
We Americans said the same about the Japanese and Koreans.
The British were wrong. We were wrong. Everyone who says that "they just steal our innovation and copy it without any creativity" is wrong. Completely, utterly, to their own detriment, WRONG.
It screams "whistling past the graveyard" /at best/ and probably veiled racism depending on who you hear this stuff from.
"China's economy will collapse"
Whose economies don't have cycles of boom and bust? Ours? HAVE YOU FUCKING LOOKED AROUND?!
Christ on a stick. You have no fucking clue. You are complacent and have not looked past the headlines at all.
--
BMO
I went through the same experience pre-2000, I would sleep at the office and work 100+ hour weeks at time.
The thing is I don't actually regret it because it was just at the start of my career and I learned a lot of stuff extremely rapidly that has served me well though the years.
It's not like I'd do it again but I don't see anything wrong with other people working like that if they desire to.
Unlike you, I have not yet found the amount of pizza that would make me sick of pizza...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley