This is a huge issue in Hong Kong and Singapore too. The work hours in both are crazy.
Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
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Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#92Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me. I think I am underpaid (actually I think most devs in my country are underpaid) so i don't do it with the exception of when I made a major cock up and the team was waiting on me.
Serious question: why do you think you're underpaid? Why do you feel you should be making more. The market has said that you're currently worth/getting paid X. So... why think you're Y?
People are often underpaid compared to market rate because jobs are not a perfectly liquid market. This is due to a number of factors: family situation, workplace social bonds, confidence in one's abilities, fear of change. It is very naive to believe that the labor markets are efficient. This is why some companies are able to take advantage of employees and get away with underpaying them.
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#94Sort of off topic but maybe not: I'm in Chengdu right now, my first trip to China since 2010. I had previously just been to Beijing among Chinese cities (lots of time camping in Xizang backcountry otherwise). Chengdu is so tranquil, orderly and clean compared to the Beijing of my memory. People don't yell or spit, traffic lights are obeyed and drivers slow for pedestrians, the city is quite nice. Is this just the difference between the megacities and the smaller cities, or has Chinese urban culture matured a bit?
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#95> Pilots or train conductors, for example, can work longer shifts than the eight hours stipulated under Chinese law.
I can't think of anyone who I'd less want to be working excessive hours than pilots.
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is a case of basic human rights. There's no such things as "human rights standards" for how much you should work per week. For most of human history people lived in abject misery and precariousness and in comparison 72 hours a week and most folks having all the comfort of modern city life is not as bad as it sounds like.
There were periods in medieval history when a typical peasant only worked ~150 days out of the year. While you are right that life was difficult, your sense of the past is warped to the point of caricature.
True.
However, the rest of the time was spent with military duty (feudal levy), preparing/preserving food, collecting firewood, takig care of livestock and general homesteading like repairing your mudbrick house.
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#97Very interesting article, but I was disappointed that the article stated that the millenial only-children of China are "outspoken", "pampered", or "self-centered". I don't believe that any of those terms apply to people who are fighting against working 72 hours per week for low pay. This is a case of basic human rights. The words that come to mind to describe the folks who are fighting this fight are "proud", "resili…
> This is a case of basic human rights. There's no such things as "human rights standards" for how much you should work per week. For most of human history people lived in abject misery and precariousness and in comparison 72 hours a week and most folks having all the comfort of modern city life is not as bad as it sounds like.
Yes it is. What good are all those comforts of modern city life if you never have time to enjoy them?
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#98“In my experience young people, especially the post-90s generation, are reluctant to work overtime – they are more self-centered,” says labour rights expert Li Jupeng, one of many who have observed some millennials challenging the 996 concept. self-centered is a funny word. It implies selfish, but is it really selfish if it's self-preservation?
I have to imagine something was lost in translation there? My brain just cannot fathom how "overtime" by the very nature of the word can be anything but an optional extra. You'd just as likely selfishly choose overtime as you would not choose it.
There are many ways to make something a "choice" that you really have no choice in.
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#99> Li said that initially he felt he couldn’t be too be picky: he had majored in English, not in one of the sought-after science or technology fields, and he had attended a low-ranked university. Many of his friends are unemployed. To me, this was the most interesting part of the article. It all sounds so familiar.
> sought-after science or technology fields
Hell, I did major in one of the sought-after science or technology fields, and unpaid overtime is an infuriating, unavoidable fact of my life.
Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
#100“In my experience young people, especially the post-90s generation, are reluctant to work overtime – they are more self-centered,” says labour rights expert Li Jupeng, one of many who have observed some millennials challenging the 996 concept. self-centered is a funny word. It implies selfish, but is it really selfish if it's self-preservation?
Self-preservation is the most selfish thing you can be centered on, and it is absolutely ethically and morally correct. Being self-centered is what makes free markets successful, as in pitting your self interests against others, brings out the most productive aspects of everyone involved.
Except by that standard, me pouring waste in the river, instead of paying to have it properly disposed is "ethically and morally correct."