
China’s Grueling Formula for Success: 9-9-6 - shubhamjain
https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-days-a-staple-at-chinese-tech-firms-1487787775
======
koolba
> Chinese labor law dictates a 40-hour workweek and extra pay for overtime,
> but many companies circumvent those rules by asking employees to sign
> contracts that say their jobs require flexible work schedules.

Being able to supersede labor laws by _forcing^W_ asking employees to sign a
contract that nullifies them is suspect at best. I get that office tech
workers aren't the factory assembly line workers for which these laws were
originally designed but the exclusions need to come from the other direction.

> Huawei Technologies employees work on the last Saturday of each month, and
> that earns them an extra 12 days by the end of the year that they can take
> in pay or days off. A year into their jobs, Huawei’s Chinese staff can sign
> a “dedicated employee agreement,” voluntarily forgoing paid vacation days
> and overtime.

That quote links to a different article[1] explaining this further:

> A year into their jobs, Chinese staff may sign a “dedicated employee
> agreement,” voluntarily forgoing paid vacation days and overtime. One Huawei
> engineer said he signed the agreement four years ago to start receiving
> shares as part of his compensation. The closely held firm says its shares
> are owned entirely by its executives and employees.

So the deal is " _Work an extra 12 days per year for 12 days of pay /vacation.
Then give it up along with all the rest of your vacation days and maybe we'll
give you some equity. Also, we can probably claw back the equity. Also, you'll
probably never be able to actually cash it out._

[1]: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/huaweis-founder-casts-a-long-
sh...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/huaweis-founder-casts-a-long-shadow-over-
telecom-giant-1480715055)

~~~
sevensor
> I get that office tech workers aren't the factory assembly line workers for
> which these laws were originally designed but the exclusions need to come
> from the other direction.

Maybe they're not operating the machines, but even in the U.S., white-collar
engineers at a fab will often find themselves working north of 60h every week.
Because you're salaried, there's no overtime pay. Also, you'll carry a pager
and be responsible for answering it 24 hours a day, every day. And since the
fab doesn't stop on weekends, you either work a shift or rotate weekends with
your team. PTO is usually approved, but using a substantial fraction of it
will result in a bad review. A capped portion of the remainder gets cashed out
at the end of the year, and the rest evaporates.

And that's the United States. I'm sure China takes this to a whole other
level.

(Source: recovering semiconductor process engineer.)

~~~
anoonmoose
Also, you'll make 2-3x the average salary in the US. TANSTAAFL

~~~
macNchz
There are quite many routes to making 2-3x the national average salary that
don’t require 24/7 pager duty. I’ve done on-call rotations, but being ‘on’
nonstop sounds like torture and a recipe for burnout.

~~~
avs733
I did 11 months of 24x7. My managers were so normed to it they actually
documented it. No one seemed to notice my contract called for that time to be
compensated.

After I ended my employment they seemed shocked when I asked for that
compensation to be paid out. They then denied that I had been 'actually on
call' (note: managers, don't lie to your HR department - especially the
investigations people). Thankfully I had documented all the listings of me
being on call and pointed out that their policy required an on call engineer
to be available and noted that no one else in the group was certified to be on
cal.

We settled before I had to take it to court.

~~~
sevensor
Yikes, you were the only person in your group who was competent to answer
pages? We had several, and there were a number of factors that determined who
would get paged first for a given issue, including whether you were in a fight
with manufacturing. (Don't ever get in a fight with people whose job
description includes paging you at odd hours.) I usually got woken up a couple
times a week. Sounds like you had it a lot worse.

------
rocqua
Does anyone actually believe this kind of schedule is actually effective?

I don't see how anyone performs well under these circumstances unless they are
horribly overqualified for the job. In order for a programmer to be even 60%
effective at this kind of schedule, the work has to be essentially trivial. I
don't see any debugging happening in this kind of situation.

The only explanation I see is that there is a 'social status' for bosses to
have their employees work a lot. Because I do not believe this actually yields
decent commercial results for anyone.

~~~
SlowBro
I’m currently working from about 8am until 10pm every day, and usually in bed
reading something that applies to my job between 10p and 12p and yes, 6 days a
week. I’ve got a day job but am also spinning up a hardware manufacturing
business.

Been doing this for over a year. My clarity and productivity haven’t suffered
that I notice, but I do not anticipate doing this forever. I’d burned out once
before ten years ago doing even more hours and days. This is about my limit.

You have a point though. Look at the crap China churns out.

Edited to add: Having experience the burnout lesson the hard way, I do pace
myself. Sundays are for friends, church, and family. I get all the sleep I
want. I stop at times to read YC news and talk to others :-) I get bike rides
and watch a movie now and again. Life is not all about work.

~~~
fnordsensei
Passion and interest can keep you going at a high pace for quite some time.
However, you're statistically more likely to eventually burn out with a job
that you truly enjoy, than you are with a job that's easy to put down at the
end of the day. There's more incentive to eat in to your long-term energy
storage in the former case.

In the case of 996, it's almost as if the employees are being asked to behave
_as if_ they are wildly passionate about what they do, as if it is their
destiny and calling. I can only presume that they will burn out all the more
quickly.

Although I suppose, if, as others have implied, the job is actually a non-
complex assembly line-ish thing, then perhaps employees are easily
replaceable, and it makes economic sense to use one up until it is empty, and
then proceed to the next one.

On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple
algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently?

Seems more likely that they are fooling themselves, and that the entire setup
is there to give upper management a sense of satisfaction rather than to
create actual productivity.

~~~
jcadam
> On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple
> algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently?

Because in a country with a large population of poor people such as China,
unskilled and semi-skilled (as in a typical factory job) labor has got to be
dirt cheap, such that it makes sense to have humans performing trivial tasks
that could be easily automated.

~~~
fnordsensei
There's a lot of variables surrounding employing humans that can make
automation worthwhile even if pay is very low. The "maintenance" of people,
such as hiring, managing, loss of production because of absence—those sort of
things.

I'm just speculating, I've no idea how they are reasoning. But I do suspect
it's more cultural/personal rather than practical or to maximize productivity.

------
throwaway77384
This is horrific, inefficient and stupid.

Multiple speculative causes:

\- Social pressure. The bosses want to be able to say "look at how hard I can
make my workers work", probably without comparing productivity in any way

\- Social pressure. People competing with each other for how hard working they
are. This seems prevalent in many cultures. "Oh I am so tired / stressed".
When you claim those things, you can stop worrying about other issues, like
doing good work. I have always noticed that the busier I appear, the less
people would hold me to account for problems. Ridiculous.

\- A tired / overworked populace doesn't have the energy to get any
revolutionary ideas. The status quo is maintained, no matter what the cost.
This suits almost nobody, other than a select few. But, we do it to ourselves.
Like the herd of bison running from the lion, we do not realise our power and
instead accept whatever the oppressors (companies) force on us. So, we made
our bed and are lying in it. No point complaining unless we are willing to do
something about it. See points 1 and 2, this has never been about
productivity.

------
welanes
In the words of Alibaba's Jack Ma:

“ If we go to work at 8am and go home at 5pm, this is not a high tech company
and Alibaba will never be successful...If we are a good team and know what we
want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.”

It's even more incredible watching him say it:
[https://twitter.com/humanismusic/status/963714910269079552](https://twitter.com/humanismusic/status/963714910269079552)

------
redm
The older I get, the more I find that making the right decisions, even in day-
to-day programming, makes your far more efficient and effective than throwing
time at a problem.

~~~
neor
Years ago I read a blog that I always remembered, very summarised it stated
that even though developers logging a lot of overtime are generally considered
to be hard workers most of them actually are horrible at planning their work.

The developers who don't log extra hours don't have to be less motivated,
sometimes they are just a lot better at prioritising their work.

~~~
internetman55
Isn't prioritizing work a manager's job ?

------
pipio21
I had worked as an European engineer in China. I worked European hours and
days.

IMHO the secret of success of China, if there is one(China is way poorer than
EU or USA), is accepting capitalism after centuries of stagnation with systems
that worked very bad for most people(worked for Emperors, communist dictators
and people in power thought).

To say that working 996 is the secret to success is just manipulation of the
wsj, which does not surprise me coming from this newspaper.

Not accepting patents in practice like US did with England could be the secret
of China industry advancing very fast but working too much is not.

Chinese spend a long time in work, they even sleep there but the energy they
have most of the time is very low precisely because of that. European system
is far superior.

------
madengr
Finally had a manager at my employer (in MO, USA) dumb enough to mandate 48
hrs/week in writing. It’s illegal in the state to expect continual,
uncompensated hours > 40\. The managers with 2 digit IQs demand it verbally,
once with a company wide voicemail.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Not just state law, federal law as well.

------
gaius
Welcome to the race to the bottom

~~~
madengr
It only takes a few smart managers to start this in the USA.

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jrochkind1
I frequently see WSJ articles on the HN front page. Is there a secret for
getting past the paywall that I don't know? How are y'all reading these? Or
are many HN readers WSJ subscribers?

~~~
Arun2009
I just went on incognito mode and googled the title of the article. From
google search results, I followed the WSJ link that showed up.

~~~
jrochkind1
Incognito, google title of article, click on it... I still get a paywall. Doh!

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leemailll
still better than a postdoc

