No need to go to work tomorrow
Chen Rui is a typical native of the Poundland company. He often gets off work after 1:00 am, and his clock record is rarely less than 12 hours, and he can work for up to 42 consecutive days; he never eats lunch before 12:00 noon, and already sits back at his workstation before the late break at 19:00; there is no “toilet freedom “, then hold it; he does not give advice, rarely complains. He is very clear, if agree that this is a deal, then high pay and high pressure is equal.
Integrity, due diligence, focus, not greedy for cheap, seeking responsibility for themselves, the founder of Poundland, Huang Zheng’s interpretation of the “principal”, Chen Rui can speak out. In his Perception, the core of the “proper” is to do your own thing.
Nevertheless, this young man was still “left”.
One day in December 2020, as the back-end engineer of the grocery project, Chen Rui had been working continuously for 20 days. Tomorrow is Saturday, and he wants to rest. This is not the idea of a proper person, but the double 12 is coming up, if not tomorrow, it is impossible to rest for the next three weeks, and he has to work continuously for nearly 40 days. After the last such intense and continuous work, he always felt knee pain, physical strength decline, only 27 years old, carrying things upstairs are a bit hard.
At 10 p.m., after hesitating for half a day, Chen Rui went around to the group leader diagonally opposite.
“Want to take a day off tomorrow. “His voice was not loud, trying to let only the team leader hear.
“Have you finished all the work at hand? ” the team leader asked.
“Done. “
The team leader stared at the computer screen and was silent for about five seconds before saying, “Okay. “
Chen Rui hated the team leader’s reluctant tone and his own groveling, cautious look, “Why do I have to take Time off even for a normal break? “That night, he lost sleep. After thinking about it, he could only convince himself that this might be the next normal, the expedient way is “not to behave in the future”. “Seize any opportunity to be lazy and try to make it easier for yourself”.
That afternoon, he went to the supermarket to buy groceries. The last time he cooked, he made Kung Pao chicken and fried shrimp on his day off more than 20 days ago, which is one of the few pastimes in Life. A message suddenly popped up in the work group, sent by the group leader: “Students who are off on Saturday should take time off with me and xx (the big leader). Recently found that at night our group are the earliest to go, several times others came over to ask, eh your group so early to go ah …… does not exclude that some colleagues do have less things on hand, you can feedback with me. Overall there are still a lot of things to do. “
Chen Rui was completely enraged. He took a screenshot of the chat log, anonymously sent to the workplace social platform Pulse, with the text: more groceries, PUA, than to leave late, the normal rest to take time off.
This is Chen Rui’s first job after graduation. He crossed over from the mechanical profession to the Internet, and it was not easy to get this job. When hr said to work 6 days a week, he felt that it was acceptable. What’s more, Poundland’s salary is generally higher than the industry average, and some of the same positions can be 5000 blocks higher than their peers.
His expectation for this job is not only the salary, but also to see “how this product, which can be used by the whole country, is made”.
On Sunday, Chen Rui returned to work as usual and worked overtime until 3:00 at night. After waking up, he went back to work before 1:00 pm.
Around 10 p.m., before the work was done, Chen Rui was suddenly called to the 9th floor. Three administrative staff sat across from each other, and one of them held up his phone and asked, “Is this what you sent? “
Chen Rui nodded his head. The other asked again, “Why are you sending it? Before he could explain, he heard a series of accusations: first-level disciplinary violations, leaking company secrets, and malicious slander against the company.
It was the day after Chen Rui tweeted on Pulse. He used the anonymous function, and the post had only 10 replies, and was soon flooded with messages, “I didn’t expect to be found out so quickly. “The message was sent at Home, and he was thinking that if Pulse hadn’t leaked his identity, the biggest possibility was that there was something wrong with the company’s office software installed in his phone. Previously, I heard from my seniors that several times when chatting in private WeChat groups, they suddenly received criticism from their supervisors that the workload was not saturated.
In his recollection, the colleague on the 9th floor offered two options: leave voluntarily within 10 minutes, if not, there might be a stain on the separation certificate and file.
Nothing else was possible. 5 minutes later, he signed.
The supervisor and the administrative staff escorted him to return his work card and then to his workstation to pack his things. It’s around 10:30 p.m., prime working hours for the 7,000-employee, $200 billion internet company. A former employee of Poundland said that after 11pm in Shanghai’s Jin Hongqiao International Center, “whenever you see so many floors lit up, it’s them”.
The same group of more than a dozen colleagues are glued to their computer screens, Chen Rui quietly stuffed his books and water cups into his school bag.
He walked back to his rented room alone. When he arrived home, it was not yet 12 o’clock, the earliest time in recent months. He was a little chagrined, should not send that tweet, not only the loss of the year-end bonus, signature fee (the benefits of large Internet companies to attract school enrollment), and less than a year of work, and it is not easy to find another job. But sadness is mixed with a touch of happiness, “the next day can finally not have to work”.
This part does not need to be calculated
To work in a large factory and become a member of the Internet beat workers, is the supreme pursuit of many college graduates. This industry has surpassed FMCG, real estate and media PR to become the existence of young people’s crazy wrestling. According to the observation of a graduate who had submitted dozens of resumes in the 2019 fall recruitment season and finally won an offer from Poundland, each big Internet factory has a preferred type of student recruitment.
People admitted to Tencent, most of them are students who show strong self-efficacy and are more active in the community; students who go to Ali have high emotional and intellectual quotient, good practical skills, and people are also very spirited; students who go to Byte Jump have a lot of creativity; and those who go to Poundland? It is to be able to do, can bear the hardships of the people.
Chen Rui is the kind of person who meets the requirements of Jindo. He was bailed out of a 985 college with the fourth grade in his major, and started brushing up on algorithm problems a year before graduation, and taught himself JAVA courses.
Some people on the Internet spit out the Poundland “late 1 minute, deduct 3 hours of salary” system, Chen Rui will take the initiative to clarify the composition of this provision: the normal rules 9 o’clock to, technical staff 11 o’clock to, technical staff late 1 minute, push forward from 9 o’clock, is 3 hours, “the rules is 11 o’clock, and then late can not rely on others”.
In 2018, the prospectus released by Poundland explains what it means: to be honest and to be trustworthy. In the prospectus, it was explained that it means: to be honest and to be trustworthy; to do one’s own job, no matter what others are doing; to isolate external forces, return to the original intention and focus on doing what one should do.
But in the view of former employee Li rang, this value is heavily shaped and means something different when it comes to the head of the bottom employees. Asking you to do your part is equivalent to asking you to “work honestly as if you were a tool, less spiteful, less unrealistic fantasies. He said, in contact with these companies, Jindo is the most depressing to him.
A decent person can be in this building and put in maximum work. Most of the employees are required to follow the “11-11-6” work schedule and are under intense business pressure. They are allowed a one-hour break at noon, and the company brings meals upstairs, where they go to the pick-up room and are served at crowded workstations. In the evening, after work, they could reach their sleeping place within ten minutes – the company included Food and accommodation, and out-of-town employees could choose to live in the dormitory. The next day is a new cycle.
Those who are in the right place are expected to strictly follow the company rules – some are written in black and white in the employee handbook, others are subtle, agreed upon “unspoken rules “. For example, every month you do not take time off, if you have to take time off, take a day can, take two days can not; you go to the toilet in the inside can squat 10 minutes, do not squat 15 minutes; noon meal an hour and a half can be done, do not engage in two hours. “Let you do what you do, that’s what this is. “A Poundland technical department left the staff said.
There is no set of strict calculator, but Li rang said, because there are no rules, so the rules are everywhere, “you may touch the hidden red line at any time”.
On the first day of employment, he proposed to build a WeChat group for several people who joined together, thinking that “all came on the same day, quite a fate”, and was severely criticized by the supervisor on the same day; once he returned from a business trip and was too tired. Once he came back from a business trip, he was too tired and rested there at noon, VP came and patted the table, what time is it, still sleeping? He got up and saw that he had slept for ten minutes more. “There was a feeling of being in a nineteenth century textile factory”.
That time he happened to pass by the senior management workstation and saw them in a meeting, a form was marked with various different colors – data analysis presenting employees in which time period overtime, marked with different colors, “often at eight o’clock People who left at that time should be focused on. “
It is not clear when some employees acquiesce to the value of “this part”. Li rang said that when he first joined Poundland, he also felt that this might be a value for good: honesty, diligence, and compliance with rules. He recognizes this and is willing to maintain it.
One time, he went to a university to recruit, introduced himself from Poundland, disdainful laughter came from the podium. The company’s reputation for being a good company to work for is very high. “Li rang was still angry at the time, he questioned the students on stage: how many people are currently independent from their Parents can fully earn their own living expenses? “I don’t think they are qualified to laugh at Poundland. “
He also acquiesced in the company to ask “what is your name”, which means asking for the name of the flower. Even back to the dormitory, colleagues will not have deeper communication between them, until they leave, he does not even know the real name of the roommate.
Li rang remembered that when he entered the work of Poundland in 2018, the average age of the employees of this company was 26 years old. This may have been a coincidence at first, but Li rang guesses that this later became the company’s strategy – young people are better able to work overtime, they are healthier and can withstand more work pressure than people who have worked for many years.
“The group of people who belong to the top of the pyramid are very self-driven. “The smart ones, he said, are more easily adapted to the system and after that, “there is no need for any system process to discipline him, he himself is a system process “. Huang Zheng also said in an interview with the media, this point into the company’s Culture, is a very strong core competitiveness.
In Poundland, Benfen is often flirted with by employees hanging on the mouth. “Did you do your job this morning”, referring to “today 11:00 you clocked in”, “noon to Benfen? ” means “eat at the office at noon”, when someone is disciplined or just read a book in the company, colleagues will say among themselves, this person It is really not proper.
Li rang hindsight, “people flirt with this time, proving that the company’s values, people already do not believe it, it has collapsed, people have not recognized it from the heart. “
Until you abandon yourself
If you do not enter the “more buy food” project, Chen Rui will probably continue to be a part of it. “11-11-6” is not so difficult for him to endure, the big factories are like this, “this model continues, also quite good. Good. “
The company’s business scope covered Wuhan and Nanchang, and was known for its advantage of lower than the market price of goods. “The first day of the project, the only Saturday off day was cancelled.
As a newcomer, Chen Rui was responsible for the simplest work. 23:00 on August 17 officially went online. He thought he could finally take it easy and meet up with his classmates on Saturday to see the newly released movie “Ya Bai”. But the second task soon came: that Saturday, Chen Rui’s group, must optimize the head of the small program’s pages and functions.
According to public reports, 13 days after the launch, the daily order volume of Doduo buy food exceeded 200,000, the volume and scale far exceeded Meituan Yousei and Orange Heart Yousei. This is the real beginning. Ali, Meituan, DDT, Jingdong and other giants have entered the game, and the real competition behind this project is the speed of the Internet giants’ “enclosure”.
The expansion of Buyoyo is directly reflected in the 29 floors of workstations. Chen Rui remembers that the grocery team originally occupied only 4 rows of workstations, but expanded to 10 rows in early December; there were only about 15 technicians in August, but increased to more than 50 in October. There were more and more people, and the average workstation changed once a month. Some people’s clothes gave off a strong smell of sweat, and there was basically “no communication, no sharing, only work” among colleagues. Every afternoon, he would feel tightness in his chest, dizziness and nausea, “I think the carbon dioxide concentration is too high”.
The speed of this huge enterprise machine is getting faster and faster. When will it slow down? No one knows.
The management changes at Poundland are well documented in the memory of 26-year-old Wenwen Liu. She joined Poundland as a management trainee in late 2016. At the time, Poundudo relied on WeChat to leverage huge traffic and user resources in the form of scramble groups, etc. “Sending links in WeChat was very much like the kind of irregular website for fishing enforcement. “But Poundland, founded in 2015, only took a year to get the B round of $110 million in financing, users exceeded 100 million, is one of the most popular unicorn companies.
When Liu Wenwen started, Poundland had only a few hundred employees, and the office had not yet moved to today’s Jin Hongqiao. At the induction pep rally, founder Huang Zheng gave a speech to the new employees. During her year of working at Poundland, Liu Wenwen doesn’t remember the company’s propaganda of the now widely circulated “Benji”, but she remembers Huang Zheng’s speech at that time. “The general idea is that young people to achieve their own value, should be done from work …… overtime and do not be afraid, this is the growth process must be experienced, but also only in the continuous overtime and dedication to see your loyalty to the company’s loyalty. “
Liu Wenwen summarized the key words of that speech, “is dedication, overtime, growth, collective spirit, abandoning individuality. “
In the opinion of former employee Yang Kai, the listing of Poundland became a turning point, and after that began to “have a kind of, if nothing else, indefinable depression in the head. “He joined the technical department of Poundland in the second half of 2017, according to his recollection, just in the first year, in addition to overtime tired, other than normal.
Leadroyal, a security engineer who worked for three years at Poundland, wrote in his blurb that after the company went public in 2018, an employee asked Huang Zheng, “When are we going to change from single to double rest? ” Huang Zheng’s reply was: when we become the second in China, we can take a double break. At that time, Poundland had already created a myth, successfully listed in just three years after its establishment, and it took 6 years for Jingdong, the “second in China”, to complete the process.
In 2019, the number of users, GMV (total transaction value) and even market value of Poundland exceeded Jingdong, and the double break still did not come. Some departing employees remember the reply given by Huang Zheng: there is still a gap between us and Ali, or a company that is too young.
Under the high speed operation, everything available will be played to the extreme, and everything useless will be stripped away without mercy.
Communication and contact are cut a little. When Yang Kai first joined the company, he used WeChat to communicate at work, and colleagues could add friends to each other; later, the company changed the communication platform to enterprise qq, so only flower names were left, and WeChat groups were no longer allowed to be established; later, the company developed an internal communication tool, and all chats were monitored.
Privacy was also taken away a little. Once, because the floor where the toilet to queue, he went downstairs to the toilet, back to the workstation a little late, was found by HR check monitoring, punishing his leadership, “even “. In order not to be monitored for more private content, he never connected to the company intranet, in the company has been using cell phone traffic.
Someone once trolled Poundland on Pulse, and the result was that the entire department was checked over the phone. Although Yang Kai felt disrespected, he didn’t dare to say anything. “Can you refuse? Do you want to mix or not? Refusal is certainly not Benjamin, you may be on the blacklist. “
Many employees mentioned a sense of “distrust. The former employee Leadroyal recorded in his own statement, Poundland before 2019 can use the boot record, browser records, chat logs, etc. to prove that they really came to work, the supervisor can admit. From a certain day, it is said that an employee for the next employee to open the computer, the senior management is furious, decided to make up the card in the future need to HR check the monitoring, no longer recognized all the proof. “The company is very distrustful of employees, everything will be thought in a bad direction. “
At first, Poundland’s employees would store technical and product documentation on top of the wiki, so we could learn from each other. Yang Kai recalled that later, in order to prevent information leakage, the company removed the search, recently visited and other functions, disguised to cut off the connection between departments and business. If you want to link up to do a project, you have to find people through people, which is very inefficient.
Former employee Li rang, on the other hand, remembers a colleague who just jumped to Poundland, told the team leader he was going to an interview and actually went downstairs to the cafe to stay with a friend for an hour. “This is just a small thing in other companies”, but in Poundland, it means you have no integrity – -The team leader called over for confirmation, and then fired the colleague.
When you dedicate all the time and energy available to drive, and show your loyalty, will you be the employee who is in line with the “right”?
Throughout August, Chen Rui did not have a day off, living a “netherworld rest”, leaving work at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. every day, the latest time out of the company at 6:00 a.m., and continuing to work that afternoon. In October, the supervisor made it clear that he would return to normal in April 2021. But when he saw the broadcast of Huang Zheng’s speech on the TV in the office building, he vaguely remembered that Huang Zheng reminded everyone to abandon their illusions at the end, and Chen Rui’s heart got colder the more he listened. For him, this might mean abandoning his “illusion of wanting to rest on Saturday”.
He began to question the meaning of this life. In his view, a day off each week was perfectly achievable, but the company’s atmosphere was one of “treating people like tools, cutting them into 24-hour increments, and not letting them rest. The meaning of “grocery shopping,” as relayed by senior management, had also vaguely moved him to believe that “meaningful to society”, “in creating value for users “. But what was the value? He could only say “convenience” and “cheap “.
Later, these slogans became “bullshit” in his eyes, because he could not even guarantee the most basic rest. After being transferred to the grocery program, he worked an average of at least 12 hours a day. One night, he left work at 12 o’clock, and his colleagues said sourly, “Why do you leave so early? “
His mentor, a veteran employee, is one of the few people he has met who recognizes the values of Poundland. The 80-year-old often tells Chen Rui that Poundland is a company that can grow quickly, doing 3 years is equivalent to 5 years of experience. But one afternoon and evening in October, Chen Rui found the master lying on his workstation for half an hour in succession, he was shocked, “never seen him so tired. “Two days later, the master quietly transferred to a less core department below the grocery shopping program.
Chen Rui also thought about escaping. During that time, every day at work, he had to look at the office system on the departure button. But he told himself to hold on a little longer. He continued to work diligently, seemingly less prominent, but also basically did not cross any red line.
However, the system was the first to abandon him – because of an anonymous complaint, because of his “inability to do his job”.
Life is not about being exciting, but about being smooth
In Jin Hong Qiao International Center, no one discussed Chen Rui’s departure, or rather, did not notice his departure. Until two days after his departure, a usually familiar colleague asked him on WeChat: Why not come to work, run away? Even after witnessing his departure, the supervisor who had worked together for five months only said two words throughout. When he was called away from his workstation, he said, “Come with me for a moment”; the moment he was sent out of the building, he threw down the second sentence. “Don’t do that again”.
Chen Rui began to look for a new job. His requirement now is that even if his income is a little less, he must ensure two days of rest, and secondly, he absolutely cannot accept overtime work. “Life is not exciting, but smooth”, said the 27-year-old.
Big factories no longer appeal to him. “This kind of performance achieved by relying on human overtime to go to the pile, is not that it has any innovation in technology. “
The afternoon of January 3, Chen Rui is preparing for the interview, brush pulse when I saw a help message, “my good sister died suddenly in Xinjiang to buy vegetables, no one really dare to say a word? Is it in the eyes of everyone that little money is more important than anything else? “
All he could do was to keep forwarding it, hoping that this 98-year-old colleague’s encounter would be seen by more people. A few days later, the 23-year-old Changsha colleague committed suicide by jumping from the 27th floor. Immediately after, front-end engineer Wang Taixu self-reported that he was asked to leave his job voluntarily because he sent the photo of his colleague in the ambulance to Pulse anonymously, and the process was almost the same as Chen Rui.
These disappeared young people, and did not shake the place in the slightest. Some people say on the internet that “at the very least there are high salaries in Poundland”. “It’s worth it to pay more to sell your life.” ……1 The share price of Poundland surged 12.24% on January 5.
However, the news of sudden death, jumping and being left is also vaguely shaking certain small individuals. A former engineer who has been working in Poundland’s security department for three years said that because of the negative events, many students would come to him to ask for comments and opinions about the company.
When he saw the news of the sudden death, Mann suddenly had a little relief. The company’s first-ever “Poundland” was a new company, and the company’s first-ever “Poundland” was a new company. But out of consideration for her health and Family, she ended up spending $5,000 in ruined contracts, choosing a nine-to-five career unit, with a vague resentment in her heart. “But that moment, I may feel that the choice is right, not so regretful. “
She recorded the feeling at that time on the social platform: “I felt a chill down my spine, like my own side of the people, instantly no longer in the world kind of feeling. I believe that did not happen before this incident, she should and I and we, the same class of fresh graduates, experienced the fierce competition in the autumn recruitment, get a satisfactory salary offer, looking forward to their first job, expect to be able to break out in the Internet, to open up the territory for Duo. “
In her opinion, although the company does not have a single office building, toilet pit less, no canteen and was “crushed” by other large factories, but it opened up the sink market, the future is great. The future was promising. What’s more, the Internet is the most halo industry choice for graduates. “People’s herd mentality is very strong, in fact, they are afraid of being left behind by the whole team, afraid of being abandoned by this era. “
The interviewer had asked her if she could accept 11-11-6. Mann said at the time that this was the time I usually slept and “I would like to be part of the trailblazer. No one felt that overtime was the most serious problem, “996 which big factory does not have it? “
After getting the offer, Mann was pulled to a “care more” WeChat group. At first, the group is very active, “we are lively to take the name of the flower, sun work meals, spit cassoulet without a few pieces of chicken, the toilet in line …… “In Mann’s impression, that time the work atmosphere seems to be more relaxed, Friday group of friends will also meet to explore the store to eat food. I don’t know when it started. The company’s main goal is to provide a comprehensive range of products and services to the public. The group was disbanded.
She didn’t know what happened.
Li rang, who had been a group leader in Poundland, said that many companies are 996, the size of the week, but there will be a “thick layer of shame” to show humanistic care, arrange a wealth of The company has a lot of people who are interested in the company’s work. Pindo is not at all, it is “naked, straightforward and profit-oriented”. “It depends on your ability to recover,” said Li rang, can not stand to leave, “Poundland’s departure rate is quite amazing “.
He once recruited a large number of young people into Poundland, and now in turn discourage, “freshers really do not fit in, they are actually sponges, should go to draw water, to grow, to know what is good in the end, what is good. “And here,” everyone is desperately running forward, all the problems are covered up by the development, who cares about your growth? “
Three years ago, Liu Wenwen left Poundland, following the advice of his family, looking for a job in the system, “I would like a 9 to 5 job, as if to give myself time to heal. “
She re-found a job at an Internet company in 2019, the new company is not the “Internet factory” that everyone is trying to get into today, there are two days off per week The company has two days off per week, and occasionally works overtime until 8pm at the latest. The atmosphere of the company is very good, you can freely and smoothly put forward their own objections and suggestions to the leadership, but sometimes to report to the leadership, she found herself always tense, “speak a single word. “She sometimes envies her colleagues, who have a strong sense of autonomy and can drive the enthusiasm of the whole team, “they all have a face that has not been poisoned by Poundland. “
Chen Rui decided to return home to the north to develop, and now he is not demanding a salary, even half of the original is acceptable. He retired the house only two subway stops away from Jin Hong Qiao building, ready to leave Shanghai. The company arranged for a three-room dormitory, but he likes to cook and would rather spend 4,000 yuan a month to rent a large single room of more than 30 square feet. He is actually a person who loves life, he used to insist on swimming, running, and for a while he was also obsessed with roller skating, he likes to read Science Fiction, historical novels, and also read ancient poetry, when chatting, he can casually recite Qu Yuan’s “National Elegy”.
After leaving Poundland, he was finally able to get back to his hobby, frying and cooking every day, and also wandering around. For this city, he used to know only “the silent early morning and the noisy afternoon” – that is In his last days in Shanghai, he was surprised to find that “there is also the leisure of square dancing after dinner.
(Names in this article are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the people involved)
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