996 has become the identity label of a group of domestic Internet workers, it means struggle, but also highlights the oppression.
As early as 2019, a project called 996.ICU exposed the Internet companies that enforce 996 in China, and almost all of the popular big factories are listed.
However, after talking to 20 employees of the big factories, we found that among the 996 beat workers, another group gradually surfaced – and we understand the 996 beat workers are different, their work also has a clean time, in the company “They pretend to be 996 when they have a choice.
Especially in those large factories with stable market patterns and having passed the crazy expansion period, 996 in the traditional sense became an “empty shell”, but they did not walk away from the “empty shell”. But they did not come out of the “empty shell”.
In the eyes of outsiders, and even in the eyes of relatives and friends, they are hard-working social animals, but in the knowledge of these parties, 996 is the more crazy the company’s internal volume is, the more they “feel the fish “the more joyful.
01
Wu Chen, e-commerce platform programmer
Work for 6 years: 10:00 a.m. to work, 2:00 p.m. to start work
Every late night, our company building is brightly lit, some people are engaged in research and development to meet the deadline, some people are studying new programming language, and some people play games to watch live, in these quiet moments, for us means free arrangement of time, but the transmission to the outside world, is in overtime, is in 996.
The company environment is good, there is a canteen in the middle of the night, taxi to reimbursement, for some of us who rent a house, stay in the company, than stay at home comfortable. Home less than ten square meters of rental housing, at least for me, just a place to sleep.
Over time, many of our colleagues have also developed the habit of working late in the day and working late at night. The morning “fish paddling” has become a regular rhythm of work.
In several large factories where I have worked, programmers can really enter the work state in the morning is very little.
The first thing I do when I arrive at the company is to buy a sandwich from the convenience store downstairs, heat it up, and then have a glass of iced American style, and then go to my workstation, return to the information, browse the web. 12:00 and colleagues to eat, go downstairs to turn a circle, 1:30 back to the workstation, lying on the table to take a nap.
It’s basically two o’clock when I open my eyes, and the day’s work starts from this moment.
Colleagues from product, operation and testing departments will look for alignment and pull meetings. These communication work basically occupies all the time during the day. People outside the circle call us “coders”, some people think we only write code, in fact, most of the time will be occupied by communication work.
At night is the time to really put in programming, and is the most efficient time. But it’s not that I’m sitting at my workstation, I’m tired of writing I have to let my brain relax, online shopping, downstairs, squatting in the toilet, and friends, family chat …… In short, in addition to writing code, you can find a variety of reasons to let yourself breathe.
Our programmers here, the workload is flexible, project development period, or shopping holidays, overnight nothing to say, and even in the hotel “centralized isolation” to do research and development. But in the stable period on weekdays, we are more of an improved technical service, work intensity will be much less, do not have to rush, and do not have to nervous.
I am now the company’s middle office technology, a kind of basic services, mainly to do general components, to support the various business lines to do specific business.
I have been working in Internet companies since 2014, and all of them are familiar companies. At that time in the first company, just graduated a lot of technical do not know, 996 are commonplace, but I do not care, then overtime is to learn something, want to do more work, hope to grow quickly.
At that time, outside the work time, basically in learning, and later went to a live platform, where the work state is strictly 996, the company is in a rapid growth period, from the capital market crazy financing, we sit in the office building programmers are also desperately working.
At that time, the desperate state rarely appeared again, in the current market pattern of stable industry, the work state of large factories has been completely unlike the pioneering period so enthusiastic.
Now I do not want to go home after work, so I stay in the company, but in more than 12 hours of work, the time really devoted to work is very limited.
It’s pleasant to “fish”, but I’m actually very anxious.
To be frank, programmers are also “youthful rice”, and at my age, I will either develop in the direction of experts or move to management. And the technology is updated very quickly, if the daily idleness, is eventually to pay the price.
New technology will eliminate you, young people will also eliminate you, 35 years old is a hurdle.
I’ve been working for eight years, saving all my money and planning to get married and buy a house.
For us so-called “pretend 996” people, in the eyes of outsiders particularly hard, but a lot of time is spent in We have chosen a seemingly struggling posture, but the actual payment is very different from what the outside world knows.
02
Zheng Jie, a large factory algorithm engineer
Work 5 years: I learn to fall in love in the company
I am engaged in algorithms, usually very little contact with girls, from college to work, because of my profession, the ratio of men to women around these years basically remain at 5:1.
Work these years, the hand has a little savings, want to find a girlfriend.
I have never been in love.
After this intention, I made a series of plans, every morning 10 ~ 11 o’clock, the company’s people will not arrive, and there will be no urgent work to deal with. I will learn how to fall in love during this time. I spent 3,000 yuan on the Internet to buy a set of courses to learn to pick up, 10 lessons, each 40 minutes, which is not cheap tuition.
When I listened to the lesson in the company, I wore wireless headphones, narrowed the video window, listened to the lesson at the same time will pay attention to work e-mail and intranet communication software, there is work to come, then pause the video; a colleague came to the workstation to me, then minimize the video window processing. But even if others see it, it’s okay. Over lunch with my colleagues, I also share the tips I’ve learned with them.
In two weeks, I listened to all the lessons using the one hour I had at work every morning.
I mastered the basics of picking up girls, how to please them, and what to look for in a date with them. The teacher would leave homework, and we were told to go back and learn some other skills in order to be more attractive in order to get better dates.
I learned bartending.
Again, during the morning hours, I looked up bartending videos on the Internet, learned the theory, watched the practice, went straight to the bar after work, practiced again by myself, and let the bartender guide me.
After 7 days of continuous study and practice at the bar, I learned to mix a few classic cocktails such as margaritas, Long Island Iced Tea and brandy.
The skills are basically mastered, everything is available, only one object is missing.
I downloaded the dating apps Tan Tan and Stranger, and I had a great time chatting with a girl named Jasmine, and every afternoon I would chat with her in between meetings or doing algorithm modeling.
I asked her to go to the bar where I studied bartending. That day, the atmosphere was particularly good, I used the palm of my hand to constantly flip the bottle, I do not know why, usually there will be failure, that day the flip was particularly successful, I saw her happy look, I feel that this thing is done.
Then we started dating, from seeing each other once a week, to gradually increasing the frequency, from the fifth ring road in the north to the third ring road in the east of Beijing. However, I was still able to squeeze in half an hour on weekday mornings to learn how to make the girl’s favorite Western food.
The time I spend at work, the machine learns me, and I have to seize the time to learn what the machine will never learn.
03
Tang Jun, big factory operation.
Work for 10 years: in the eyes of my family, I have always been a model worker
Usually the news notifications that pop up on your phones are pushed by us, the operations. My job is to monitor the news hotspots, and then push the news to the users after screening.
The nature of this work determines our morning and evening shift system, moreover, holiday duty is also arranged.
Three salaries for holiday duty, which leads to more people than usual to work on legal holidays. The more people come, the more the workload of each person will be reduced accordingly. Therefore, we are basically “fishing” on statutory holidays, and can earn three thousand a day.
Therefore, you will see our department is particularly busy during the statutory holidays, others think we are particularly busy, but they do not know that this overtime is a fat job. No one wants to mess with money.
The whole family treats me as a model worker, and I am not at home on these family reunion days, such as Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year’s Eve dinner, and my relatives always think I am working hard and take special care of me, and I don’t explain much.
In previous years, the Spring Festival, I usually work from the 30th to the seventh day of the year, only to start the inverted rest, because colleagues in the field are home for the New Year, although 7 days in a row, but can get 20,000. This year, many colleagues in the field did not go home for New Year’s Eve, and most of them chose to work on duty, and they did it voluntarily.
Legal holidays are crowded, I usually look at job opportunities, resume.
Now the algorithm technology is becoming more and more mature, our kind of work is going to exist anxiety. And job hopping can also increase salary, which is a constant in our career planning process. By studying this, I can understand the development trend of the industry, and I can also grasp what kind of abilities and qualities are required of the candidates for the positions I am interested in, so I can also keep improving my resume and sorting myself out, so that I can have a good idea and not panic about unemployment.
Every time I look at the job site in the company, I am still very vain, worried about being seen by colleagues or leaders and misunderstanding my intention to quit. I have to shrink the page every time, turn down the brightness of the computer, and at the same time, my eyes are watching and listening to all directions.
04
Tutu, Product Manager of Music App.
Working for 4 years: What can I do at home?
I’m a product manager of a music app, and in the eyes of my family and friends, I’m a typical 996 person.
A few years ago, the industry was crazy to collect copyright money, and the market pattern was reshuffled, some were merged and acquired, and some companies that had been doing it for more than ten years were closed. However, the competitive situation of the whole industry is not quite reflected in our company.
The time I really put into my work every day is good enough for 6 hours.
People like us, who have been working for three or five years, are actually not too concerned about 996, we are relatively young, single dogs, back to the rental house also have nothing to do, stay in the company to eat, the network is still fast, blowing air conditioning, there are colleagues with you.
Although we go home very late, the company does not give overtime, but you say I go home to do?
Unless I am tired of sitting.
Our work is not what you bored to do there, there will be any improvement, not to mention the competition between the giants in the industry will play a decisive role.
We are a group of screws, do their share of the work.
Although many in the company are after 90, but you in the morning, look at our company, simply like the authorities, everyone like old cadres, make tea and watch the news.
I am still relatively dedicated, I put a mirror on the workstation, the morning to the company, primping and primping themselves in the mirror. In the morning, I blew out my hair and put on hairspray before leaving home, took a few pose selfies in front of the mirror, and then sent the photos to the community section of our app.
The purpose is to create an atmosphere in the community and see what kind of interaction is effective. When the product was first launched, I went up and simply posted some paragraphs, and then posted a selfie, and surprisingly some girls gave me praise. Now it has become my basic operation to send selfies up there, and the encouragement of my fans starts my day full of vitality.
For our position, many of our peers will no longer experience the product in depth after testing, but I will still go up every day to get the atmosphere.
I have a product manager’s WeChat group, which is full of peers, basically a super straight group. Everyone in it is particularly active, feeling as if they are quite idle. Every day at three or four o’clock in the afternoon is the most active time in the group, we seem to have agreed to come out bubbling, gossip. The group is all doing the Internet, the outside world’s perception of us is 996, busy, huge pressure, but you can actually feel the difference between the actual situation and the outside world’s perception from the whole group.
The product manager often plays the role of “taking the blame”, because the daily activity, length data did not go up, the technical algorithm engaged in R & D will say that the product design experience is not good. Operations, the market will also say that it is the product problem. Sometimes, we are quite stifled, so we often spit in the group, cursing colleagues sb, leadership sb, company sb.
We are all peers, many industry slots have special resonance, for me, at least temporarily forget about KPI, OKR, DDL these nasty things.
In the group “fishing”, rarely found by others, the leadership to find me, are also online to find, see the reply on the line, the key I also did not play the game, is While working and chatting.
Our work status is that we focus on “fishing” in the morning, mainly to wait for people from other departments to arrive, a lot of our work needs to interface with other departments, they do not arrive, our work is also impossible. If they don’t arrive, we can’t carry out our work. In the afternoon, we work for an hour, take a break and have afternoon tea, and the pace of work is like a class.
My family sometimes reads articles in the media and thinks that I am working very hard and under a lot of pressure, and then they often ask me about my work and are afraid that I will get tired. Every time I have to explain for a long time that 996 is only the impression we get from the outside world, and often times, the working hours are just artificially long.
At the workstation, we are frowning and the keyboard is crackling, but on the screen, there is a world outside of 996, we use our own perspective to see the Internet, and the Internet uses another perspective to see us.
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