05/30/24 - That the fact they’re not paying me means they’re saving up money on my behalf.
[So jetlag has meant that all of my family’s sleep schedules are very screwed up, and over the last couple of days, I have had almost no time where both babies were asleep that I could work in. Especially since they tended to be up in the middle of the night, it takes a lot of energy and attention to make sure they don’t make enough noise that they wake everyone else up. I’m still working on the Singer show, it’ll definitely be ready in the next couple of days. But I also have good news! Although I still can’t get back into my weibo account without a phone number for them to send a verification code to, I did work out a way to actually read weibo without it bugging me to login all the time. So I can go back to making updates daily now! They might just be a little shorter since I’ve been rather busy. Also, without my login, I cannot read the comment section except the very first comment. I know people like to see the comments, but you’ll have todo without until I return to the US and can have a replacement SIM card sent to me at the end of June.]
“The company I work at is very market-oriented. A lot of times, it’s super busy. Business hasn’t been doing well the last 6 months or so, and the boss has been in a bad mood. He’s basically always trying to get employees in trouble.
Last week, on the company-wide meeting, he emphasised the importance of work regulations and said that he’d be checking people for tardiness personally. That he hopes everyone will do their best to look alive at work.
And starting from this week, every morning at 8AM, the boss has been sitting at the front desk with HR to catch a few examples to show the rest.
Since he gave everyone warning, people are pretty careful. But the latest newcomer to the Legal Department, Deng Ya, still screwed up. On Wednesday, she showed up to work at 8:06. According to company regulations, she was late by 6 minutes.
Our boss pushed up his glasses and told the HR people next to him, “6 minutes late, that’s a 500 RMB fine. Note down her name.” Deng Ya was going to apologise to the boss, but once she heard about the fine, she got a little angry.
She hasn’t even worked here for a month yet. She hasn’t even been paid once yet. Now she has to pay the company 500 RMB? Deng Ya pushed down on her anger and smiled at the boss, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was talking with a customer about our project until late at night, so I ended up sleeping in this morning. Please go easy on me, I won’t do it again.”
The boss told Deng Ya arrogantly, “Don’t try to bullshit me. You’re late, then you’re late. You think our regulations are just for show?”
Deng Ya was born after 1995, so she knew she was in the wrong, she couldn’t possibly win this argument. Although everyone at work thinks that these regulations are ridiculous, the boss still owns the company and he can do whatever he likes. Everyone can only put up with it.
We all thought that would be the end of it. A couple of coworkers even went over to comfort Deng Ya, telling her not to get too upset. She’s on somebody else’s turf, she’s gotta keep her head down. Don’t let this affect her internship.
At 6PM, everyone was packing up to leave work, but the boss told Deng Ya, “Don’t go yet, I need you to put in some overtime today helping me correct this contract.”
The boss never pays for overtime where we work. At most, he might buy a drink for anyone staying after the workday ends. When Deng Ya heard the boss’s demands, she said nonchalantly, “Sir, it’s after work now. I’ve got plans tonight, so I can’t stay.”
The boss was just getting ready to leave, but Deng Ya’s words made him stop in his tracks and turn back. He angrily demanded, “I’m not negotiating with you. I’m giving you a task. You don’t have a choice.”
Deng Ya gave the boss a look and said, “Working longer isn’t a problem. But if I have to pay 500 RMB when I’m late for 6 minutes, then I want the same pay when I stay late too. If I get one cent less, I won’t do a thing for you.”
Deng Ya might not have been at this company for long, but she works in the Legal Department. She’s very sensitive to things like rules and regulations. What she said really pissed the boss off.
He yelled at her some more, something about how she doesn’t have to show up to work anymore if she’s not going to do her job. But Deng Ya told him, “You might own this company, but you still have to obey laws. Don’t forget I’m a lawyer. If you don’t start being reasonable, then don’t blame me for being heartless.”
Maybe she really hit his weak point, but the boss shut up all of a sudden, and Deng Ya left without a glance back.
Later, I heard that the boss had arranged a meeting with a big client that night, and thought he could go over the details one more time and get the contract signed if everything was in order. But because Deng Ya didn’t work overtime, nobody could edit the contract in time, so the partnership fell through.
Afterward, everyone split into two camps about what Deng Ya did. Some coworkers think that Deng Ya did a good job and said what everyone wanted to say, and made the boss think twice about fining people in the future. Some people say that Deng Ya was in the wrong—she could’ve helped the company get a new project and that would’ve benefited everyone.
Did Deng Ya do the right thing? What would you do if you were in a similar situation?”
Comments say, “What the fuck kind of contract do you just not sign because you don’t have your legal people around that night? You’re really bad at making up stories.”
“Who would it have benefited? If everyone stood to benefit, why didn’t you crowdfund her overtime pay?”
“That means he could earn at most 4-figures with that contract.”
“Lately, a postgrad student in Wuhan became upset that he had to take a job at Jiayu Guan instead of his hometown of Lanzhou, that he made a long post about it on the internet called “Mountain flowers seek the seaside trees, but it’s better to be on the spring breeze,” which has drawn a lot of discussion.”
OP includes a compilation of a lot of big influencer’s takes on this:
“Government jobs are still very decent, or else there wouldn’t be so much competition for them. As young people have a harder time to find work, and instability in their life increases, they’ve over-idealised government jobs and ignored a lot of the harsher realities of this line of work.”
“I can’t believe this is even a controversial issue. Do people not realise what Selected Graduates mean?” [the program that this student was on, where honour students get picked for internships in the government, and will immediately get onto a management track as soon as they graduate.]
“Fundamentally speaking, this is just an issue where individual demand and public demands is at extreme odds with each other.”
“The reason we’re so mad at this guy isn’t because we want all graduates to go work entry-level jobs on our distant borders and sacrifice themselves for the greater good or anything. People are just mad about certain groups in society and their mindset of wanting to have their cake and eat it too, or thinking that just because they made a choice doesn’t mean they have to be responsible to it.
“It’s really hard for young, government worker women in underdeveloped areas to get married. A very high portion of them are single, because young, wealthy men escape from these places the first opportunity they get.”
“Some advice for people, if you have this kind of job, then never quit:
Around 6K or so a month.
8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
5 km commute or less.
Pays for insurance and social security.
Only occasionally demands overtime.
Doesn’t reimburse living or food expenses.
Coworkers work together well.
Not very stressful.
Chill and free.
Empathetic management.
Pays you on time.
Everything is getting involuted in this current social environment. A decent job is good enough.”
Comments say, “7K a month, insurance and social security, 6 km commute, weekends off, 8 hours a day, not too much overtime, like all my coworkers, stressful but not overly so. So long as this company doesn’t go under, I’m never leaving.”
“400K a year, insurance and social security, 2 km commute, weekends off and 7 hours a day, no overtime.”
“State-owned company, 3K a month, insurance and social security (but they’ve stopped paying it lately), get paid every half a year, with some occasional benefits like a 200 RMB gift card or something. 9km commute, decent coworkers, occasional overtime (but no overtime pay). I don’t even know why I’m sticking around. All my elders say it’s a good job. That the fact they’re not paying me means they’re saving up money on my behalf XD”
“Just realised iPhones might be the cheapest phones on the market.
You can buy an iPhone14 Pro (256G) for 7299 RMB right now, and you can use it for about 6 years. Around the 3 year mark, you can spend about 200 RMB for a new battery, and that works out to about 1200 RMB per year. And you can sell it after 6 years for about 1000 RMB. That seems like a really great plan for poor people. This was some numbers some random guy on the internet crunched. What do you guys think? I might be poor, but I couldn’t use the same phone for 6 years. I’d get sick of it. Would you guys use a secondhand iPhone?”
Comments say, “I paid 4000 for my Android and I’ve been using it for 4 years. I see no reason to change it yet.”
“Calm down, and just think. Which model of iPhone was out 6 years ago? Guess how much it’s selling for now?”
“Most of the time, you gotta buy a new one after 3 years. It’s only the lucky few that work for 6 years.”
“Do you know what middle aged men are into?
Entry Level Tier: cars, computers, jogging, phones.
Intermediate Tier: fishing, motorcycles, camping, fitness, gaming consoles, photography, cats and dogs, international politics, nuclear weaponry, The Three Body Problem.
Expert Tier: coffee, wine, tea, stereos, grass aquariums, smart appliances, face masks, mechanical keyboards, smart toilets, washing and drying machines, flower-infused wine, the political history of Europe and America, rocketry, genealogy, oil paintings, Chinese traditional paintings.
Master Tier: cigars, block chain, HDMI cables, routers, printers, bookshelves, mattresses, lighters, ovens, figurines, ship figurines, pet lizards, coral aquariums, warships, military aircraft, officer and noble titles through various Dynasties, porcelain, furniture.
Grandmaster Tier: projectors, NAS [I have no idea what this is], HD, lossless compression, set-top boxes, plug-ins, paper napkins, woks, knife sets, mops, cooking oil, soy sauce, Syria, Islamic Revolutionary Guard, grenades, pick-up trucks, carpentry, car mechanics, welding, other tools.
God tier: pet birds, pet crickets, chess, taichi.
Beyond God Tier: getting a sun tan.”
Comments say, “What tier is collecting delivery boxes and selling them for money?”
“I’m not the same as you. For me, it’s entry tier: hot chicks. Expert tier: hot chicks. Grandmaster tier: hot chicks. God tier: hot chicks.”
“I like to eat breakfast by the side of the road, and watch the people crowd around as they hurry to work.”
A NAS is a storage device people generally use for collecting extremely large amounts of media. Getting really into optimizing your NAS is the same kind of dry, technical hobby as lossless compression