Some views on 996 and the realization of personal value

foreword

       Recently, the GitHub 996.ICU project has become popular, and it has once again sparked a hot topic in the circle of programmers . Let’s not talk nonsense about the specific content, everyone must have read a lot. During this period of time, when I have free time, I will also pay attention to this project and related topics. I want to see a variety of different viewpoints. It is clearer, so I will deposit an opinion article here and share it with you. This should be my first non-technical blog post, so looking forward to any exchange of views.

       By the way, I want to make a digression, I don’t know why, I always feel that it’s very interesting to observe the trend of public opinion and the progress of a hot topic from the perspective of a bystander, hhhh~~~

Considering that this article may be relatively subjective, it will not be synchronized to the company's internal platform and internal blog

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Morning reading, evening self-study, weekend make-up classes and 996

       At the beginning of the 996.ICU project, the author had not yet closed the issue. I accidentally saw an interesting comment in the issue: It turns out that the early reading, evening self-study and weekend make-up classes in the student days were in advance for the future 996. , 007 prepares. Seeing this, I found it very interesting, and suddenly recalled the original years.

       I don’t know if anyone has the same feelings as me when I was a student. For morning reading, evening self-study, especially weekend make-up classes, the most painful is usually the students in the middle – the students at the bottom of the list have already begun to give up on themselves in the final period. ; and most of the top classmates and teachers will not limit their time arrangements, even if they have to make up lessons, they will not listen to the lectures, as long as they have their own arrangements, most of the teachers will ignore them. Therefore, any supplementary lessons, early reading, and evening self-study are no different for the latter two.

Mandatory 996 doesn't make sense, but self-improvement is a must

       In Internet companies, I personally think that, except for accidents or other overtime work related to the subsequent development of the organization, most of the overtime work (with limited experience, I dare not say everything) is meaningless—people who have nothing to do, continue to paddle, Chat, go to the gym, or do some optional work to make your weekly report look more content; people who are willing to improve themselves and hope to at least stand out in their work circles, even if the company does not require overtime, they may also I will stay for a while, even if I have nothing to do, at least learn something, at least miss the rush hour before evacuating—here I will tell you how I feel, get on the subway before 7:00 in the morning, and get on the subway after 8:30 in the evening, 9% During the 10-mile journey, I was sitting. It was really much more comfortable than being crowded with the crowd. I could sleep, read a book, play with my mobile phone, and do everything comfortably.

       Some people may say that waking up early is a foolish day. My thoughts are: this situation is usually because the biological clock has not been adjusted for a while. When it comes to holidays, I also like to sleep late (such as when I was a student, during winter and summer vacations). Therefore, for a period of time after the start of school, if I get up too early, my efficiency will be very low that day, so later, when the winter and summer vacations are coming to an end, I will start to adjust my biological clock more than a week before, and try my best to let my body get used to nighttime sleep. The biological clock is a little more than six hours plus half an hour of sleep at noon. After being busy like this, you will find that the state is not bad.

       Some people often tell me that it is better to improve efficiency than spending so much time. Regarding this sentence, I feel that the point of view they want to express is relatively vague: Is this against my spending time? I still hope that I can improve efficiency on the basis of spending time. Regardless of the point of view expressed, here I give my point of view to communicate with you.
$$\begin{gathered} z:capabilityindex \\ Phi:efficiency \\ t:timespent\_\_ \\ z=\phi t \end{gathered}$$
       is a very simple expression. Regardless of whether φ can be improved, at least I must be right to increase t (I believe that the value of φ is negative for those who do not work hard?).

       The competition in society is much crueler and fiercer than that in schools. We have never really experienced it. It is always difficult for us in **student days to truly understand what our predecessors said when they were the happiest student days (even if we agree with their views) . ** Dear students, after graduation, in the waves of the times, we will go up and down individually. My experience is limited, so I dare not say for sure about the future development of everyone, but we can roughly feel that: when you were a student, those with excellent comprehensive qualities are often able to do well in the workplace and life later; Life is not bad; the most uncomfortable may be those who are mediocre in all aspects, and the family background is not superior (like me) - if you have some ambitions and are willing to put in the effort, you may be better than those students with better backgrounds, Work even harder.

       Most people nowadays are far from reaching the time when they can fight for talent. If you don’t believe me, look at the majority of people who go to work from 8 am to 10 am every morning and are blocked on the way to work. You will leave the company during peak hours, get stuck on the road, and fall into a red sea of ​​traffic jams. When you are in traffic jams every day when you commute to and from work, the workplace may also be in traffic jams all the time. Nine to five is the choice of the majority, and the result will be the same as the majority. The daily behavior of ** is the independent variable of tomorrow. **Most people have the same independent variable, and the dependent variable is also the same.

       My point of view is consistent with that of some people on the Internet: excellent people, there is no mid-life crisis, and there is no need to worry about unemployment. Maybe we are not good enough at the moment, but we should believe that we can be good. How to make ourselves get the evaluation of "He Ruxiu" in the environment of "Tong Nine Years" is to make our independent variables different. Let your workplace be in a "red sea of ​​traffic jams", then let your time schedule be one step ahead of others, and let your efforts be more rewarding . If there is no difference between 996 and 995 for you at least, then I am very happy that we recognize each other and find out through this article.

       For 007, it is really a bit scary. . . I am willing to work hard, but I don't want to devote all my life to work. In that case, I will think that life will really be meaningless. After all, the primary purpose of my work is to make money to support my family and improve the quality of family life. Realize my ideals, realize personal value - here, I have to admit that I don't have the so-called lofty ambitions to make more or less contributions to national progress, social development, and world peace.

So, what are the core expectations of the coders in the struggle?

       In the community, many people shouted to reject 996, 995, 007. There are also many leaders and bosses who shout to work hard and give you such a high salary just to make you work overtime. Regardless of the core views of all parties, I think some of them must be confusing the water (and there are not many). But on the other hand, through community comments and the actual social impact, it can be seen that the current coders and other Internet practitioners who are plagued by similar problems still don't understand what is behind their resistance to overtime. The opinions of all parties are scattered, and resistance is mere formality, and until now it still shows obvious social influence (it has not even become a search hotspot on Baidu or Sina). Here, I state my views from two angles to share with you. Of course, after all, my experience is not rich enough. If there is something wrong, welcome to communicate.

       From the perspective of the company , if you expect your employees to spend the same amount of time at work as the first-tier manufacturers, then please first confirm how much your employee benefits are different from those of the first-tier manufacturers. For startups, there are many reasons to avoid this problem, but in my opinion, this problem should not be avoided. After a company succeeds, the biggest beneficiary is the leadership rather than the middle and low-level employees. After the success, the middle and low-level employees get, in addition to the options that are illusory and cannot be cashed in a while, that is, a little bit of nothing. The quality of life has not improved significantly, so why spend more time for the company? The wages in the computer industry are high, but market environment factors, local gdp and industry thresholds cannot be ignored (developers should understand that the number of computer graduates output by universities across the country every year and the proportion of them who can really become qualified developers are actually not at all not tall).

       There is a very simple example. I have met some friends who live in Beijing. Everyone knows that saving the provident fund is good for buying a house in the future, but many people choose to withdraw it in advance to pay the rent. Why? Because the basic standard of living is not guaranteed. Of course, there are objective factors such as excessive competition pressure in Beijing and high consumption levels, but doesn't this just reflect the psychological state of most ordinary employees? The basic quality of life cannot be guaranteed, so there is no need to work together. Before comparing the employees of Huawei and BAT with your own employees, why not compare the salaries and benefits of Huawei and BAT with yourself. If the salary and benefits are in place, it will naturally attract more and better talents to join . At this time, the natural bottom position will be eliminated. On the one hand, the quality of the company's employees will be improved. When the salary and benefits are in place, employees will complain less (refer to Huawei R&D Most performance of personnel in this incident).

       From the employee's point of view , I think that if you can't accept a company's system, it is irresponsible for your future to choose to make do with the salary gap of one or two thousand. After interviewing several companies, especially after having some work experience, you should have a certain understanding of the development of the industry. In my opinion, it is indeed inappropriate not to express my views and attitudes on some issues in the industry at the beginning, but to gossip behind my back after joining the company.

1. The company has no such requirements;

2. Even if there is such a request, if it is such a time-wasting employee who is not responsible for the company or his own life, it would be better to leave ;

3. No matter whether there is such a system or not, and whether there are such employees, the landlord is not suitable to work in Sogou.

   Those who do not agree with the company's system either adapt to it, or give feedback and suggestions to help the company improve . What is it to run out and chew your tongue?

   ——From Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan's Sina Weibo (authenticated)

       Whether Sogou has mandatory or unspoken rules 996, I will not express my opinion. But starting from the second point above, I personally agree with the latter point of view. If you think there is something wrong with your company, organization, or department, you can send feedback and communicate with the leader in real name or anonymously, and even, if you can come up with a way to get the best of both worlds, I believe you may even get the attention of your boss. Because, I often give some opinions to my leader or occasionally to my boss, and my personal feeling is that they often don't know the problem, but they don't know any better way to solve these problems, but at the same time they are Other, more pressing issues bothered me, so I had to prioritize and set aside some issues that were not as critical to the company's growth (trust our company).
       This is actually another point of mine—companies also know that squeezing employees or having an unfriendly work environment will reduce their attractiveness among talents (in the entire international environment, this problem should be obvious). But I still choose to use this method. I think it’s nothing more than feeling that the company’s development cannot keep up with the pace of the times. Therefore, I think that instead of blindly resisting 996, which will increase pressure on employees and the company’s leadership and further reduce office efficiency, it is better to try Propose some solutions - how to improve employees' collective self-driving ability and how to improve employees' office efficiency . Everyone's office efficiency has been raised, and the company's development has reached the forefront of the industry. Then, for sustainable development, the company will definitely not treat employees badly. You who put forward relevant solutions and help improve the company's relevant systems will not be treated badly. If a company still treats its employees badly, if there is no pressure from the company's development, I would think that the company's leadership is stupid-pure oppression of employees is equivalent to giving up the attraction of talents and giving up sustainable development. Proactively asking questions and giving appropriate solutions, I think, is also a realization of personal value.

Two-way Choice and Personal Value Realization

       The previous point of view actually involves a very important issue. As an employee, how can you confirm that you are entering a company that meets your expectations?
       I started an internship (part-time job) in Beijing during the summer vacation of my sophomore year, developing for a small financial quantification company (PHP to make web pages or use python to write data interfaces for them), until I went back to Shenzhen to find an internship in my senior year. After several interviews, I know that most HR interviews will ask: Can I accept overtime? I belong to the kind of people who get tired of being asked the same question three times. Therefore, I added a special column on the first page of my resume, and wrote this sentence: "Be brave to take responsibility, and take responsibility for yourself. I am also willing to work overtime, but do not accept meaningless forced overtime. 』
       Later, I knew that many companies recruited people and paid attention to the expectations of employees, so when I interviewed later, when it came to the salary part, I would explain, "My expected salary is ***, and I hope it is higher than this level, but if the company If the degree of fit with me is high, then I can appropriately reduce the demand. ". I don't like to earn and earn for money, both in work and in life. Although for the company, an employee's salary of one or two thousand is nothing, but you must know that companies often "don't worry about shortages but about inequality." Moreover, if the company gives you a high salary, you need to know about subsequent salary adjustments. There are plenty of ways for HR to suppress your salary. Moreover, I don’t want to be left with the impression that I’m greedy by a company whose values ​​are in line with mine, whose industry I’m interested in, and whose goals are in line with mine , which hinders my follow-up communication with the leader. . Therefore, my idea is very simple " Never compromise with a company that I am not interested in joining, but if you choose to join, then choose to trust and work together ", I think you choose trust, one of which is to believe that your efforts will be rewarded There are rewards (believe that your leader is not inhumane, you give him trust, he can also give you feedback).
       Note that everything I said above is based on a premise: at the beginning, from the resume and the interview, you will show your values, goals, and expectations for the future. Most companies will not choose a company that is different from their corporate culture and spirit. Larger people join, so at this time, the more you show your ideas, the higher the possibility that you will be recruited by a company that matches your ideas. This is actually a two-way selection process.
       If you show yourself as much as possible, and after interviewing many companies, there is still no company that chooses to accept you, then you should consider whether there is something wrong with your thinking, reflect deeply, and continue to stick to what you think is right, and stick to what you think is wrong . Correction, I think this is a kind of ideological development, which directly affects one's own development potential.
       I did not perform well, compromised or refused to reflect on and correct my shortcomings for various reasons, and joined a company that did not meet my expectations. In the following year or even longer, I was in a daze, unable to find a goal, unable to find a reason to struggle, and in the low-efficiency office, I could not find any point of interest that would allow me to continue to deepen this field. At this point, it is difficult to improve one's own abilities, and it is also difficult to improve one's influence, so it is impossible to realize personal value. Therefore, I think that by keeping an open mind from the very beginning, continuously and objectively evaluating your own strengths and weaknesses, and choosing companies that do not match your own ideas without compromise, you will already be one step ahead in future development.

final words

       The opinions are scattered, but what I want to express has been marked in bold. Any exchange of opinions is welcome.

reference

1. Various comments in Github 996.ICU PR (the issue was closed by the author, sorry)

2. Blues 兰军Admitting mistakes is also a kind of ability: reissue "Forced 996, what should I do?" " (This author's point of view, I personally agree with it,)

3. Marshall Luxemburg, Luxembourg, Ruan Yinhua "Nonviolent Communication"