Slashdot Mirror
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.
When I think of China the first thing that comes to mind is technical innovation.
I remember basically living at work for a few years, slaving away for no good reason (other than ship-ship-ship). I had a friend of mine who worked for a fairly well-known maker of tax software, half their year was basically crunch time complete with in-office cots. They were treated well outside crunch time but I swear to god it aged him prematurely.
I don't think I'd ever work like that again, at the end of the day the code quality was poor and it burnt out all the talent. I didn't think it would be possible to be sick of pizza, but you learn these things.
Sure made the bastard CEO a hell of lot of money...
crazy dynamite monkey
"God rewards the diligent."
Is that Chinese for "Arbeit macht frei"?
-Styopa
Looks like a bunch of people sleeping on the job to me.
d-_-b
This is what happens when capitalism is unrestrained. In every country undergoing an industrial revolution there's a mix of outdated feudalistic modes of thought and inefficiency matching worker to task that allows this sort of thing -- whether it's mining camps, heavy industry, or middle commerce. Scrooge's shop in A Christmas Carol wasn't at all far from the common, nor Song of the Shirt unrealistic. Only government reigning in corporate interests for the common man can stop these travesties. So here's my hope for the Chinese people to say, "enough" and make their government fix this.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
"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)
And why wouldn't you? If I had a reasonable expectation of becoming a multi-millionaire, I would certainly do this for a few years.
love is just extroverted narcissism
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.
I think it's hard for a lot of folks to see both sides of the picture. I've worked both "crappy" jobs at a call center all the way up to a programmer for a telecom. There are times I wonder if I get paid way too much for doing so little work as a programmer compared to the crazy non-stop work as a call center agent. And while the call center job was a lot of work it always impressed me how some folks could handle that job happily and make thing seem a lot better. While sometimes my very well paid co-workers in telecom would complain about ridiculous things. I think some of those folks despite that crazy life style are having fun. They're pushing their abilities to the limits and accomplishing more than a lot of folks are. It's sometimes nice to be able to focus on one thing and to give it your all in life. Also letting your workers nap is a good thing. They've shown a 15 minute nap can double productivity. If I was the boss I'd encourage it. Life is a lot of things to different people for some it's anything but work but for some it is work. So either way, I wouldn't see it as bad necessarily.
I've slept on the floor at my last startup. Whatever.
When I first moved to Silicon Valley, I didn't even rent an apartment for the first 2 years. I just lived at the office and slept under my desk. Many others were doing the same. The company provided showers, a full kitchen, and laundry service. Then I got a girlfriend. We had sex in my office a few times, but then she insisted that I get an apartment. That was quite some time ago, since we are married now, and our daughter is in high school. But I will see people living out of their vans in tech company parking lots, so I think the startup culture is still alive and well.
Sounds to me like the French understand something we don't.
That micromanaging and over-regulating businesses leads to 11% unemployment, and 0% GDP growth?
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
Really. Doesn't ring true. I would have heard of it.
I saw several TV news broadcasts on the subject in the early 1980's, but that was pre-Internet and newspaper accounts are probably available only on microfiche. I wasn't able to turn up anything on the Internet. However, the modern practice of tech slavery is alive and well in the Valley.
According to the report, which was released by The Center of Investigative Reporting (CIR), The Guardian, and NBC Bay Area's Investigative Unit, these labor brokers have often charged workers the cost of a visa and didn't have a job waiting for them when they arrived, both of which are prohibited by visa rules. And in some cases, when workers arrived in the U.S., the account goes, they were "benched"—placed in a guesthouse with subpar living conditions and asked to post exaggerated resumes online.
Then, when workers received jobs, the report claims, the body shops who hired them collected a cut of their salary. The authors of the investigation probed this migrant worker problem for a year, speaking to thousands of Indian tech workers both on and off the record. They found abuses in Silicon Valley, as well as other parts of the U.S. One worker described it as an "ecosystem of fear."
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/investigation-reveals-silicon-valleys-abuse-immigrant-tech-workers/
And btw, reducing the work hours one is allowed to work, forces the employers to let go some of their greed and actually hire more people.
Economists call this the Lump of Labor Fallacy. Real economies don't have a fixed number of jobs to be divvied up, and reducing working hours did not reduce unemployment in France.
On paper I always had plenty of time off. But just try to take it. Then you find out how much time off you really get. And every time you change jobs, the clock starts over.
I worked at HP back when the HR dept used to herd all of us into a room every year to proudly explain that they had colluded with all the other big engineering companies throughout the bay area to set salaries and benefits. The subtext was obvious- stay here because you aren't going to get a better deal anywhere else.
I had an interview with a company in Agoura Hills while I was working for HP. After passing me around for a day the HR guy finally said they want to hire me and he gave me all pay and benefits info. I said "I'm getting 4 weeks of vacation at HP and you want to cut me back to 2 weeks (not that I could ever take that 4 weeks off), and the pay you're offering is a little less than I get at HP. Can we do something at least with the vacation time?" He said "Nope, that's the deal everyone gets, take it or leave it". I was back in my car in about 30 seconds.
Really. Doesn't ring true. I would have heard of it.
I saw several TV news broadcasts on the subject in the early 1980's, but that was pre-Internet and newspaper accounts are probably available only on microfiche. I wasn't able to turn up anything on the Internet. However, the modern practice of tech slavery is alive and well in the Valley.
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/investigation-reveals-silicon-valleys-abuse-immigrant-tech-workers/
Thanks. I'll read.
Sex slavery and human trafficking are alive and well. Several brothels exist within a mile of my home. There is seemingly nothing I can do about it. Cops will 'come by for an inspection' occasionally, get their free rub-and-tug or BJ, and then move on. The cops are part of the problem.
These places pull the same stunt that you described – job in America!!! Once they arrive, Visa or Passport is "held" by employer until repayment of airfare, etc. is paid for. Their job is not cleaning, or whatever, but sex-trade work. They fear returning home out of (misplaced) shame. Or lack of funds. With no papers, they cannot open a private bank account. And the pimps cycle them through all of the various cities to keep a fresh stable of (slave) whores, who have no idea what city they are are in at any given moment.
So, that said, and having perused your link, I must agree.
H-1B visa overload, with people training their own replacements, is another example of this type of double-exploitation. An H-1B is supposed to be for someone with a "special skill that can't be found locally in the US." Um. Hello? Americans are training their own replacements. That is a hint that the required talent exists locally – just not any that can have a visa-renewal lorded over their heads to demand long hours.
Again, thanks for the link.