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Overtime Complaints? China's JD.com Boss Criticizes 'Slackers' (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Richard Liu, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc, has weighed in on an ongoing debate about the Chinese tech industry's grueling overtime work culture, lamenting that years of growth had increased the number of "slackers" in his firm who are not his "brothers...." Liu, who started the company that would become JD.com in 1998, in the note spoke about how in the firm's earliest days he would set his alarm clock to wake him up every two hours to ensure he could offer his customers 24-hour service -- a step he said was crucial to JD's success...
The '996' work schedule, which refers to a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week, has in particular become the target of online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some firms. Liu said JD did not force its staff to work the "996" or even a "995" overtime schedule. "But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!" he said.
JD disputed reports that the company would be cutting up to 8% of its workforce, but did say "We're getting back to those roots as we seek, develop and reward staff who share the same hunger and values... JD.com is a competitive workplace that rewards initiative and hard work, which is consistent with our entrepreneurial roots."
JD's investors include Walmart and Google.
The '996' work schedule, which refers to a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week, has in particular become the target of online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some firms. Liu said JD did not force its staff to work the "996" or even a "995" overtime schedule. "But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!" he said.
JD disputed reports that the company would be cutting up to 8% of its workforce, but did say "We're getting back to those roots as we seek, develop and reward staff who share the same hunger and values... JD.com is a competitive workplace that rewards initiative and hard work, which is consistent with our entrepreneurial roots."
JD's investors include Walmart and Google.
Breathe in that pollution, slaves, and get back to work!
differecne between working to enrich yourself and working to enrich others.
The guy who makes big bucks on the backs of his workers is upset that they want a life. How unexpected!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I'd like to know if this guy is a loving father, or if he ignores family for work?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
why do we care what a self-styled entrepreneur in a totalitarian communist state thinks, let alone what he claims in public?
But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!
That's great if you are running your own company where you get to enjoy all the fruits of your labour and then some. But for the vast majority of people, work is not a number one priority. This reminds me of one of those dumb-ass corporate slogans that got handed down from management: "Everyone should work and act like an entrepreneur". My answer: sure, then how about paying me like one?
I want to be challenged and I like pushing myself to my own intellectual limits, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of hours I put in. Because I also like to be home early and pursue my own interests. How about rewarding people for their individual contribution rather than for keeping a seat warm? Oh I know... measuring output would be hard, a punch clock is installed in minutes.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
People in the US fought long and hard for the 5 day work week. That idea and expectation was exported around the world. Now, while we're all fighting amongst ourselves and while the US Administration further erodes the US' power and influence, China is now trying to export their ideals and expectations.
How long before Americans have to impose similar 12 hour work days and 6 day work weeks just to attempt to compete with China?
If he's willing to rewards the employees who work just as hard as he did by making them a billionaire just like him, I'm all for it!
Wait, what, you're telling me that he's not?? I'm shocked, truly shocked.
It sounds like he's really saying that China has more people than they know what to do with, so who cares if he burns through them?
You care if you are a paid Chinese troll and your job is to make China look like it is a sparkling wonderful democracy, with no pollution over there. So, you simply lie and troll others, and then collect your money and prize. That tosser actually has 2 or more /. accounts.
And is the reward he offers for pushing to the limits adequate? Or as it's usually goes? Seems like he don't feel the difference between working on own company and be the hired employee.
-- With best regards. Really. Shaman007
Avoiding work and only working hard to get other to serve you like slaves, *is not work*! It does notnadd value. It does not deserve a reward! Nothing was earned!
It is laziness and greediness!
It is profiteering!
It is robbing and stealing!
It is "just capitalism".
Sorry, and fuck you to all employers who feel the same.
You are my employer, I have no interest in pushing myself to the limit to make you rich ... especially since you will not once demonstrate any loyalty to me.
Companies seem to think we're all going to dedicate our lives and energies to them, but they can and will toss us aside as soon as it's convenient.
Sorry, no. Fuck you. I'll work my contracted number of hours, and little more. I don't work time I'm not being paid for, and I sure as fuck don't prioritize the company over myself.
Employers need to understand they get only so much of our lives, and the rest they don't get any of.
It's not my job to 'invest' in my employer, and I definitely am past feeling like I have to put in extra effort so "we" can succeed ... sorry management succeeds, the stock holders succeed, but some how I don't see a fucking thing out of it.
Which means I'm not busting my balls to make management get their bonuses, when the rest of us aren't even getting raises to cover the cost of living.
Who literally *used up* people in the gulag factories, and sent 2 people with only one rifle towards the Nazis.
There's been several stories about how Amazon treats its employees like machines where they feel pressured to not use the bathroom. These stories came from all over the world from different journalists.
Is it any surprised that the Bezos/Luthor of China does the same thing?
Some people might want to go one step further and push themselves over the limit, but they put suicide nets on the limit to prevent that.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
It seems to me, all you want is money.
Well, just have them work and you take the money without working!
I thought that was the essence and core of capitalism!
JD's boss: Shut up plebe! Now lift me up in my palanquin.
That's what the boss is asking for. Not that I'm a fan of the CCP, but sooner or later the CCP is going to do something about it, not after the goodness of the chairman's heart but to prevent a backslash on the high-value-added service industry (that happens to be effing critical for its end goals of economic growth.)
Even by China's standards, JD's boss sounds like a damned asshole. It takes a lot of effort to stand out like that.
In Japan, kids rarely get to see their fathers at all. At best, once a week. At worst, he lives in a different apartment close to work, and work is his family. Especially "successful" ones.
In China, I figure they'd just save the additional step, and sleep, work and eat right at the factory.
It's the "being a cog in a machine without hierarchy" mindset, that they wrongly associate with communism. (China is not communist. Because if you look it up, the whole point of communism is self-sufficient communes with no central leadership. *Very* overlapping with US libertarianism.)
I would seriously just ignore the story. It's all clickbait with no substance. What will the editors do? Put up another article with even more outlandish tidbits? Snopes, at least, is interesting and worth reading, even if it would take enormous amounts of time. Just say no to hack fiction!
That's how Foxconn fixed their workers jumping off the top of their buildings to commit suicide. There were protests where literally 50 or 100 people were threatening to jump together although I've never heard of them following through with it.
The management at these firms are short-sighted grifters with no concept about how to plan generations ahead, they just strip mine everything and anyone they can and expect society, drawing the political pendulum up and expecting it never to swing back. They are creating millions of people with no concept of self respect or dignity, no sense of real pride, just a concept of work and lots of it in company towns. That comes across, to me, as an unstable horror show that is going to blow up in their faces.
You still want that iPhone and those $3 pants, do you?
Because this is what that results in.
At least stand by what you do.
It's the first step towards realizing that this means you're on the lever for changing it aswell!
Even if you have 9 women working on it.
There's a sweet spot. If you demand more hours, you only get less results again. The only difference is: You pay more. Unless of course, you don't even do that.
And what a leech mindset anyway!
People are not anyone's slaves!
If HE wants more money, how abnout HE works more?! Instead of leeching on the work of others!
Because *nobody* can make a million in a year. Nobody can work more than N hours a day for a year. And *no skill in the world is worth that much* for those hours!
996 would be a sense of relief for my friends in Japan and Korea. Waking up at 5am to take the train to be at the office by 8:30am and then leaving work at 10:30pm-ish; Drinking with senior colleagues is practically mandatory after work; You hit the last train and finally can sleep by 2am and do it all over again 6 days a week.
Japanese have the least discretionary time in the world statistically and also have the least sleeping hours and longest working hours. Korea and Taiwan aren't far behind.
I say this only because being outraged at Chinese working hours isn't much to sneeze at in and of itself because this is more of an East Asian "problem" as a whole than just China.
And he literally had people murdered over it.
He's the reason the Mafia became big in the 1920s.
Read up on you history, kid.
Cause even when you want to doom yourself to repeat it, we have no interest in letting you fool drag us back down with you.
I know several people like this guy. In the case of my friends, they're not exploitative - they're incredibly nice people who pay and treat their employees well. They just happen to be very hard-working and dedicated to their jobs. The most successful one runs a multi-million dollar company. He described his workday to me once and he's basically constantly glued to a screen reading up on any new news that may be relevant to his business sector. Even during meals he'll be reading up on something. He typically goes to sleep past midnight, and wakes up around 4:30. His wife tells me that when they're on vacation, she has to constantly pull tablets and the phones out of his hands because he'll try to sneak in some work, rather than enjoy the vacation and time off. (After she confiscates his phone and locks it in the hotel room safe, he tries to steal his kids' phones so he can do more work.)
Anyhow, people tend to imagine that everyone else is like themselves. And workaholics tend to assume that everyone else could work as hard as they do, not realizing that most of us aren't blessed to be doing jobs that we love enough to want to spend most of our waking moments doing it.
In big businesses, that guy is dead or completely removed from the actual job of the company. Management in there only works "hard" in order to make others slave away hard for them. They add zero value to the organization or product. Research has shown that in most cases, the company would actually *impove* if you cut them away.
I can't believe the editor put that all in the article just for this comment. Carry on. Or not. Sigh.
The problem is being paid a commensurate salary compared to the time you spend. I am betting he is not offering far more than the average salary for the time he wants to claim from the live of his worker, in other word, his success was paved over the live and money of his worker.
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996 is absolutely something that came from Robber-barons era and it boggles my mind that anyone anywhere in 2019 would tolerate this.
Richard Liu is a profiteering low-life, and probably deserves negative social credit score for this.
What China needs is a communist revolution against the abusive capitalists.
E Proelio Veritas.
It ain't so =D
If US is so great why does Trump need to make it great AGAIN? ;)
When lazy Westerners don't want to work 80 hour weeks, their jobs are going to be snapped up by willing Chinese or Indians. Race to the bottom :(
You don't want to be locked out of society.
... if you're expecting your employees to put in regular 72-hour weeks, you're running a sweatshop. And shame on Walmart (never viewed them favorably) and Google (opinion of this bunch is dropping like a rock) for investing in this jackass's business.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I've been in the industry for 20 years, and I have not yet seen a programmer that can fit more than a few hours of real, actual, focused work in any given day. The rest is just filler like meetings, bullshitting on slack, goofing off on Reddit or something else. I don't think the Chinese are any different. So most (or all) of this insane overtime likely also consists of filler. Under the definition that you have to spend all 8 hours of your workday actually doing work, we're more or less all "slackers".
Where he's wrong, though, is I can pretty much guarantee you they're less productive with this schedule than they would be with 40 hours a week. What's more, if they worked 40 hours or even less, they'd likely be more creative as well, and less resentful towards their workplace. Henry Ford established this to be true even for assembly line work a hundred years ago, and this is considerably more complicated and requires orders of magnitude more creativity than assembly line work.
You only need one of these 2 things to have the upper hand with regard to excessive working time:
1. Be an expert in some skillset which is extremely hard for the employer to replace easily.
2. Enough money in the bank, no debt, and low living expenses to weather being fired for refusal to work long hours.
If you have neither, you can be easily expoited.
No plane tickets for you whiner!
What happened to "workers own the means of production?"
Is this guy a capitalist infil-traitor into their communist utopia?
Or is this your typical "capitalism sucks (unless I'm the one on top)?"
Wages have barely risen for the past 10 years, unless you are upper class. Meanwhile the quantity of currency in that timeframe has grown exponentially. So no, I'm not going to be putting in extra hours until I'm paid a fair salary.
he's absolutely right - if you want to succeed within JD, you have to sacrifice your health and life and work every waking moment. keyword is within.
but, if you want to build a business like JD itself, working for them isn't going to get you there, because you'll be too busy working there to build a billion dollar business. or even a million dollar one. work there a little while, learn what you can, and move on kids.
Like most of us my job requires some level of concentration.
My "burst limit" is about 18 hours/day for 2 or 3 days or about 60 hours/week for about 1-2 weeks.
My sustainable limit is about 45 hours/week with at least 6 full days off a month.
Anything past that and my overall productivity goes DOWN.
If I were doing a relatively mindless task, I might could sustain 15 hours/day 7 days a week, but if you want my brain to function well, it needs more break time than just sleep, meals, bathroom breaks, etc.
You just wait until we infect your working class with socialism and dreams of a UBI. Then you'll be lucky to get any productivity out of your population.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's only 72 hours a week as compared to 16 Mon-Thu and 12 Fri-Sun.
When you are working 996 , there Is no time for anything else like dating or raising a family
...and an early grave for you.
Seems the Chinese have taken the American Way to heart.
When the Chinese workforce finally gets tired of being treated like slaves, the era of cheap labor in China will come to an abrupt end.
Companies and Markets the World over will feel the repercussions and it will not be pretty.
I worked for a company that, in 2008, had to lay off about half the company due to poor decisions made by the CEO combined with the slowing economy. To make sure he didn't lose any employee productivity from his poor decisions, the CEO told his management team that he expected the rank-an-file employees, even those with families making a fraction of what the CEO made, to put in 16-hour days to make up for the cuts. Because they were lucky to still have jobs. Fortunately the rest of the management team had a clue and talked him down. But it just goes to show how out-of-touch people like these CEOs are. People have lives, families, civic duties, etc., but these CEOs think that the employees should dedicate their lives to the company, even if they're the lowest paid person on the totem poll.
China problems are for US SJWs to deal with!!! (sarcasm!)
Translation (IMHO):
"Americans!!! Chinese workers need your help!!! Protest Chinese government!!! It is hard for us to do!!! You do it instead of us!!! You solve our problems!!! It is your job, not ours!!!"
That felt good hey, I enjoyed reading your rant, thanks. :)
[($)]
> every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit
Yeah, no. Some other person might be willing to sacrifice everything for the job, but some people actually have families that matter to them, and actually want to be able to spend the money they make at work doing things they enjoy rather than just wasting all day at work.
Because the party of gimps spent the eight years before Trump whoring is out to General Tso.
Thankfully playtime is finally over, though the tantrums will likely continue through 2032.
The era of cheap labour is already coming to an end. In Shanghai and Beijing the wages are currently exceeding those in the EU, for freelance jobs at least. This isn't a general trend yet, but there is a real labour shortage starting and Chinese are very pragmatic: if they competition pays 1 cent more, they up and leave.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
I've checked out JD.com and if this is the result of 178K people-company working 12 hours a day for 6 days a week, I'd say keep trying. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
When he was working those '24 hour days' where he woke up every two hours, he was invested in *HIS OWN COMPANY AND HIS OWN FUTURE!!!* When you hire someone to work under you, unless you are giving them a non-trivial number of *VOTING* shares, they don't have the same investment and as a result the same commitment as you do. Some may work just as hard as you did regardless, but speaking from personal experience here in the US, unless you are a documented PARTNER in the business you won't *EVER* be successful because it just makes good business sense to chew up and spit out the naive but hard working then move on to some new employees. I saw it at department stores, I saw it at convenience stores, I even saw it at mom and pops eateries, mechanics shops, computer stores, and hobby shops. Not including all the 'independent businessmen' using illegal immigrants for labor and screwing them by docking wages for lunch, or saying that all those other benefits they gave them meant they shouldn't pay them a legal wage (whether they were illegal or not, everyone deserves minimum wage. If you can't pay it, then do the work yourself!)
Long story short: Fuck this guy. He's an alleged rapist anyway, so maybe someone can do us all a favor and REALLY go fuck this guy. I've heard it's hard to tell Chinese man ass from woman ass, so maybe there is someone here who likes both :)
They're still crying about Reagan, 2032? LOL!
He should work that long if not like everyone else.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Are the wages comparable given there are labor laws in the EU with teeth? It's still cheap labor if you're asking for twice as many work hours for the same wage.
That is for them.
Chinese people are basically insects, their society is structured more like an ant colony and freedom is terrifying to them.
That same attitude exists all over.
I've been working for my company for 5 years -- it's small, privately held, in operation about 10 years -- I was part of a hiring push to build out the product, in the past 5 years we've gone from $2M in annual sales to $200M because of the work that I and 3-4 other engineers have done.
Like fools we expected that if the company went public our CEO would reward us, he was always personable, willing to come by and chat with us. We got stock options each year, but they refused to disclose the total shares or values, so we had no idea of any values.
Like idiots we kept working diligently, putting in lots of unpaid over time, and I myself have effectively been on call 24/7 for 4 years.
Shit we even bought our own hardware to work on because "budgets" wouldn't allow more then $700 for a PC...
This CEO started at the same time I did, but was just a VP at the time.
Just found out the company has been sold, hasn't been announced yet... $500M...
My reward? My options are worth $6500 gross, and when asked about my position post sale I was told "that will be up to the new management".
CEO is walking out with $45M...
When I had a private talk with the CEO I was told "this should be a valuable lesson, you need to negotiate up front better and learn to do what's best for yourself"
Fuuuuck.
Liu, who started the company that would become JD.com in 1998, in the note spoke about how in the firm's earliest days he would set his alarm clock to wake him up every two hours to ensure he could offer his customers 24-hour service -- a step he said was crucial to JD's success"
You realise that this has probably made him functionally insane by now, right?
bezos! just stop drooling over this article ffs!
I'm in the same boat. I work for a point of sale dealer, as a tech and system integrator, who thinks my time is only worth $600/wk when putting in 7am to 9pm daily, and even tries to force me to do weekends.
1. That's why we need complete societal control to help us detect and remove defective units ASAP. The worst thing you can do is stand by idle and let the infection spread. Also rate of infection is reduced by feeding 'koolaid' into 'water supply' ( note the '' here)
2. Alternative is a brutal battlefield aka 'pvp everyone vs everyone' aka 'dog eat dog without limits' . For a time there is 'external enemy' (rich people, 'monarchy', 'elites' ..), but quickly they turn onto each other. Wonderful process of corruption creates new 'elites'. and we are back to 1.
Humans, aren't they wonderful. Now take your pick between 1. or 2. As an exercise to the reader try to guess where we are now.
The people I know there work hard, but not twice as hard. 60 hour work weeks, sure. But not much more. This changes with people in small shops or those store ladies that they have dozens of. They work double shifts and basically live in the office.
What I see is that skilled labour is approaching Western style wages. The unskilled labour force, however, is still struggling to get by.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
chinese are naturally born capitalists!