Overtime Complaints? China's JD.com Boss Criticizes 'Slackers' (reuters.com) 180
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Richard Liu, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc, has weighed in on an ongoing debate about the Chinese tech industry's grueling overtime work culture, lamenting that years of growth had increased the number of "slackers" in his firm who are not his "brothers...." Liu, who started the company that would become JD.com in 1998, in the note spoke about how in the firm's earliest days he would set his alarm clock to wake him up every two hours to ensure he could offer his customers 24-hour service -- a step he said was crucial to JD's success...
The '996' work schedule, which refers to a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week, has in particular become the target of online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some firms. Liu said JD did not force its staff to work the "996" or even a "995" overtime schedule. "But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!" he said.
JD disputed reports that the company would be cutting up to 8% of its workforce, but did say "We're getting back to those roots as we seek, develop and reward staff who share the same hunger and values... JD.com is a competitive workplace that rewards initiative and hard work, which is consistent with our entrepreneurial roots."
JD's investors include Walmart and Google.
The '996' work schedule, which refers to a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week, has in particular become the target of online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some firms. Liu said JD did not force its staff to work the "996" or even a "995" overtime schedule. "But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!" he said.
JD disputed reports that the company would be cutting up to 8% of its workforce, but did say "We're getting back to those roots as we seek, develop and reward staff who share the same hunger and values... JD.com is a competitive workplace that rewards initiative and hard work, which is consistent with our entrepreneurial roots."
JD's investors include Walmart and Google.
China is awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
Breathe in that pollution, slaves, and get back to work!
Well, YOU paid them for it. (Score:1)
You still want that iPhone and those $3 pants, do you?
Because this is what that results in.
At least stand by what you do.
It's the first step towards realizing that this means you're on the lever for changing it aswell!
New disguised zero child policy (Score:1)
When you are working 996 , there Is no time for anything else like dating or raising a family
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Maximum Darwinian advantage for the 1%, 75%+ of whom were born in the top 10%
There is a (Score:1)
differecne between working to enrich yourself and working to enrich others.
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Would become? It either became, or it didn't. Was the company started in 1998, or did it become JD.com in 1998?
In 1998 it had not become the company it is now, so the construction is absolutely correct. If you think it is wrong then obtain copy of Fowler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Really! (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy who makes big bucks on the backs of his workers is upset that they want a life. How unexpected!
Re: Really! (Score:5, Insightful)
That caricature exists for a reason. Labor movements in the US lead the country into prosperity. While an individual business owner can benefit in the short term from working his laborers to the bone, the systemically the economy suffers because they are too busy working to buy stuff, eventually get sick, their acquired skills go to waste due to death and sickness, and they're a drain on the healthcare system.
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Ah yes the evil caricature with the cigar
Nobody gives a rat's ass what he is smoking, Ivan.
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Reality....(n), true representation of persons or events for purposes of defeating propaganda
Cash your tRumpcheck, remember he likes to play chicken in court.
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Ludlow massacre.
You DO need to read
Re:Really! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a hard worker who cares about your work, you will work some overtime. It's inevitable. BUT, if your work routinely can't be completed unless you work overtime then your boss is doing a poor job. He's supposed to hire and retain enough qualified people to do the work and he's suppose to reject work that exceeds his staff's limit.
That's really hard to do but doing it successfully is why he gets the big bucks. If he's not successful at it, he doesn't deserve the big bucks.
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"If you're a hard worker who cares about your work, you will work some overtime. It's inevitable."
I want to think about myself I do care about my work up to the point to be considered a true professional.
A true professional respect contracts as they are the true mark of a business relationship.
A contract has two sides.
I respect the value of both of them.
That means, among other things, I don't expect even a dime over what I agreed in contract with my employer, and he should not expect even a minute over what
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I couldn't disagree more. Contracts are about what happens when someone fails. You. Your boss. Someone.
Success means you never had a discussion about what the contract requires because it was never necessary. You were paid what you expected and more in bonuses and benefits. You were assigned work within your abilities you could reasonably complete. You did the work well, focused on the quality of your work product and how it met the companies needs. You were done when the work was done, not when the clock h
Re:Really! (Score:4, Interesting)
That's success. Clock-watching is failure. No different than non-trivial amounts of overtime is failure.
That's success in a business sense, perhaps. However, I value success in a family sense. When I leave on time, I get to sit down a bit, then cook for my family. They value this greatly. I've had discussions with a manager, where he would say I'm not a team player. When in actuality, I'm a teamplayer just not for the company profit.
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That's still a relationship failure. I've had contracts where we never referenced them, and those have been some of my best working relationships. Because the only time to reference them is when someone is unhappy.
It sounds like "being there for your family in the evening" is important to you. Great! Not being there with (and for) them makes you unhappy. But other people will want to work late one day, and come in late the next. It's possible that this mismatch of values makes you a bad fit for a spec
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"You were done when the work was done, not when the clock hit five"
Except no, but sorry no.
My contract very well could say so, it's only it doesn't. They put their expectations in writing for a reason. If they lie in writing (to me, or to themselves) it's their problem and their lack of professionalism, not mine.
Whenever they want me to work for the results, not for the hours, I gladly will negotiate conditions (which, more possibly than not, will include percentage on profits, since they are the results o
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Yes, but a worker who cares about their work will accidentally think about it when not at work. If those thoughts are useful, that was some free overtime in the context you replied to.
Or for example, when I was young and worked at a mill they had a rule, once you clock out for your shift, you can't clock back in. They had old time cards with a time clock that printed the times in ink, and extra lines made it harder for their supervisors. (It isn't like the boss went to college, or something) So if I get to
Re:Really! (Score:4, Insightful)
People generally fail to understand that one day they might need you, the next you might need them. What comes around, goes around. So I treat my customers with the courtesy they deserve, and flexibility in hours, as long as they reciprocate. In general I try to work hard enough that they can see results, and have no reason to even think I would shortchange them on hours worked. And that means I don't mind crunch time, but when crunch time is done and deadlines have been achieved successfully, they better not give me any crap about coming in late the week after.
When they start being anally retentive about time and scheduling without any reason except bureaucratic idiocy, I generally feel that the business relationship is no longer on a footing of respect and equality, wrap up my work and leave. It seldom happens because I make my views on this topic quite clear up front.
Yeah, no. Only true for small businesses. (Score:1)
In big businesses, that guy is dead or completely removed from the actual job of the company. Management in there only works "hard" in order to make others slave away hard for them. They add zero value to the organization or product. Research has shown that in most cases, the company would actually *impove* if you cut them away.
Re:Yeah, no. Only true for small businesses. (Score:5, Interesting)
My old boss used to say "if you work overtime, your planning was bad and it's your own damn fault. I never asked you to work overtime, I just asked for a realistic planning." It certainly taught me to plan better.
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On the flip side: My father used to come home from work every day with huge piles of work. After dinner, he'd sign into work and begin going through the piles. I asked him why he did all this since he wasn't being paid overtime. He responded that his boss expected this level of work from him. I told him that he set his boss' expectations by delivering on this level of work via unpaid overtime.
When I started my current job, I made it very clear that I work during business hours but leave the work behind when
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Re:Really! (Score:5, Informative)
Work smarter not harder applies to managers too. If you lead by staying late all the time, you're doing it wrong.
Re:Really! (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you a boss? Do you supervise other employees? If you don't then you don't know. You underestimate the difficulty of work you haven't performed.
Me, I tried being the boss a couple of times. It's hard! You can't get qualified people when you need them. You're lucky if you can get qualified people before you need them when it's hard to justify the expense. And you can't keep them. They move on when they're ready.
Hiring a bunch of juniors is a disaster, especially smart juniors. They don't know what they don't know but enough of them together convince themselves that they do. Easy way to lose your seniors is to hire more juniors than the seniors can ride herd on.
Meanwhile the big boss never wants to hear that he can't do what he wants to do because you can't hire enough staff to make it happen... not even if you pay more because there just aren't enough competent people in the field looking.
So here's a lesson: don't tell the other guy how easy his job is. You don't know, he knows you don't know and to him you just look like a fool.
Re:Really! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since he wants them to put in the same level of work as him, they should receive an equal reward should they not? Somehow I doubt he'll profit share.
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If he gives me an equal share in his company, I'll work just as hard. But until then, I'll work hard in my *own* company, thank you very much. And if I had to work for him, I certainly wouldn't voluntary lower my hourly wage just to increase his profit.
Father? (Score:2)
Judging by how it's in Japan... (Score:2, Interesting)
In Japan, kids rarely get to see their fathers at all. At best, once a week. At worst, he lives in a different apartment close to work, and work is his family. Especially "successful" ones.
In China, I figure they'd just save the additional step, and sleep, work and eat right at the factory.
It's the "being a cog in a machine without hierarchy" mindset, that they wrongly associate with communism. (China is not communist. Because if you look it up, the whole point of communism is self-sufficient communes with
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In Japan, kids rarely get to see their fathers at all. At best, once a week. At worst, he lives in a different apartment close to work, and work is his family. Especially "successful" ones.
In China, I figure they'd just save the additional step, and sleep, work and eat right at the factory.
It's the "being a cog in a machine without hierarchy" mindset, that they wrongly associate with communism. (China is not communist. Because if you look it up, the whole point of communism is self-sufficient communes with no central leadership. *Very* overlapping with US libertarianism.)
This reminds me of a Japanese family that spent a couple years in my city before returning to Japan. They had two daughters. Unless the father was at work, both parents were with them at all times. Always ready to jump and provide whatever their children needed. Always providing supervision, but without denying them anything that they asked for. Loving, devoted parents, dedicated day and night to their daughters' growth and happiness. And they took an interest in chess while they were here, so the parents w
Push this, pal! (Score:4)
But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!
That's great if you are running your own company where you get to enjoy all the fruits of your labour and then some. But for the vast majority of people, work is not a number one priority. This reminds me of one of those dumb-ass corporate slogans that got handed down from management: "Everyone should work and act like an entrepreneur". My answer: sure, then how about paying me like one?
I want to be challenged and I like pushing myself to my own intellectual limits, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of hours I put in. Because I also like to be home early and pursue my own interests. How about rewarding people for their individual contribution rather than for keeping a seat warm? Oh I know... measuring output would be hard, a punch clock is installed in minutes.
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This reminds me of one of those dumb-ass corporate slogans that got handed down from management: "Everyone should work and act like an entrepreneur". My answer: sure, then how about paying me like one?
That actually was my trigger to leave my permanent job and start out as freelancer a decade ago. I never regretted it. But yes, you do have to act like an entrepreneur. Make your own customers, build relationships, work on admin and websites and taxes, work for customers, etc. But you work for yourself and you never feel as if someone is profiting from your hard work, except yourself. And the taxman, of course :) (*)
(*) I don't mind taxes. The local roads are the best in the EU, hospitals... we have had CT-
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Saying someone doesnâ(TM)t deserve their money after they take all the risk is a BS argument.
And where exactly did I say this? The point isn't that entrepreneurs don't deserve their riches (they do), but that it makes no sense to expect an entrepreneur's level of commitment from a regular employee who has no significant stake in the company's success. And no, being able to continue to draw a salary is not a "significant stake". If my boss wants me to commit over and above what can reasonably be expected from an employee (i.e. the hours I get paid for), then he can pay me over and above the norm
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A lot of work doesn't require that much mental acuity or carries much risk when a mistake is made. It just requires repetition and the effortless movement, obstacle avoidance, fine motor control and self maintenance which is still decades beyond the best automation. Even when tired we're often still much better robots than machines ... for the moment.
Sometimes making people work themselves to the bone is profit maximizing ... especially if you're not on the hook for when they break down.
If he rewards them like he was rewarded... (Score:5, Insightful)
If he's willing to rewards the employees who work just as hard as he did by making them a billionaire just like him, I'm all for it!
Wait, what, you're telling me that he's not?? I'm shocked, truly shocked.
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Many years ago I worked for a family owned, multi-billion dollar business where the great grandson of the founder was the CEO. There was an economic downturn going on at the time, but he was confident the company could perform not just well, but exceptionally. So he asked all his senior executives to come up with a plan to deliver double digit growth in the coming year (I worked closely with one of those executives to crunch the budget numbers). Of course they said it couldn't be done (most companies wer
Too many people (Score:2)
It sounds like he's really saying that China has more people than they know what to do with, so who cares if he burns through them?
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And this is why we don't trade on equal footing with China. There is a high price to having reasonable working conditions, environmental protections, child labor protections etc. Unless and until China makes a genuine commitment to those (probably at cost of their government), we should not be great friends.
Okay, so he pays a lot? (Score:1)
Screw that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, and fuck you to all employers who feel the same.
You are my employer, I have no interest in pushing myself to the limit to make you rich ... especially since you will not once demonstrate any loyalty to me.
Companies seem to think we're all going to dedicate our lives and energies to them, but they can and will toss us aside as soon as it's convenient.
Sorry, no. Fuck you. I'll work my contracted number of hours, and little more. I don't work time I'm not being paid for, and I sure as fuck don't prioritize the company over myself.
Employers need to understand they get only so much of our lives, and the rest they don't get any of.
It's not my job to 'invest' in my employer, and I definitely am past feeling like I have to put in extra effort so "we" can succeed ... sorry management succeeds, the stock holders succeed, but some how I don't see a fucking thing out of it.
Which means I'm not busting my balls to make management get their bonuses, when the rest of us aren't even getting raises to cover the cost of living.
Re:We needed this story. (Score:2)
Push oneself to the limit, but not over (Score:3)
Some people might want to go one step further and push themselves over the limit, but they put suicide nets on the limit to prevent that.
pitchforks (Score:4, Interesting)
JD's boss: Shut up plebe! Now lift me up in my palanquin.
That's what the boss is asking for. Not that I'm a fan of the CCP, but sooner or later the CCP is going to do something about it, not after the goodness of the chairman's heart but to prevent a backslash on the high-value-added service industry (that happens to be effing critical for its end goals of economic growth.)
Even by China's standards, JD's boss sounds like a damned asshole. It takes a lot of effort to stand out like that.
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The CCP is run by those people. Many of the people sitting in the national congress are billionaires. They make members of the US senate look poor.
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The CCP is run by those people. Many of the people sitting in the national congress are billionaires. They make members of the US senate look poor.
Nope. The CPP allows those people to milk shit till it changes its mind and throws them a wrench. It's one of the reasons why a lot R&D or international deals get torpedoed, for you never know when the CPP will decide they don't like your business model (even though they were ok or even funded it before.) There are a few books written on this subject.
I am not saying the CPP is good or better than the JD'S chief-asshole-officer, but the CPP can and will do something if it perceives something has the po
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I suspect the CCP and the single party idea has the same broad support that we have here. Only 26 percent voted for Trump [mises.org], and this isn't a Trump thing, this is every presidency. Half of people just don't even bother, because it's an obvious scam. I think China must be the same way. The idea that the CCP has broad support is basically a media-created mirage. Most people see this mirage, at least subconsciously, as the scam that it is. But, being practical, they simply work within their cage to try their best to live a life. It's sad really. At least our cage is bigger for now...
Uh, ok, but nothing in my post can be interpreted as making that assertion, not without going to extreme contortions of the written word.
Workaholics (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyhow, people tend to imagine that everyone else is like themselves. And workaholics tend to assume that everyone else could work as hard as they do, not realizing that most of us aren't blessed to be doing jobs that we love enough to want to spend most of our waking moments doing it.
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they're incredibly nice people
And yet you describe him as a jerk who values money more than his family. Pathetic.
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No... he's a workaholic. Once you pry all the phones out of his hands he'll get some withdrawal symptoms but after a few days he'll be fine. Been there, done that :)
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The problem is not slacking (Score:4, Insightful)
Unions is the answer to this (Score:4, Insightful)
Richard Liu is a profiteering low-life, and probably deserves negative social credit score for this.
I've said it before (Score:5, Funny)
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They had that. Didn't you get the memo? It was an unmitigated disaster. Peasants got more calories while being occupied by the Japanese. I repeat: the Chinese people were better off under a regime whose motto was "Kill all, burn all, loot all" than communism. No joke.
"We cast aside our three core ideas - Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism - and that was a mistake. We were taught Marxist revolutionary ideas from 1949 to 1978. We spent thirty years on what we now know was a disaster."
-- Zhu Zhongming,
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Well, for a short time you can kill off everyone and the survivors will eat quite well, on average. It tends to end badly.
The calories thing... needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, the Chinese had a famine during the cultural revolution when the so-called Red Guards (aka morons with guns) instituted completely retarded programs. They cleaned house and it didn't happen again. Food security is actually the absolute first priority of the leadership and they will go to great lengths to ensure the "iron
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Globalization (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but... (Score:2)
... if you're expecting your employees to put in regular 72-hour weeks, you're running a sweatshop. And shame on Walmart (never viewed them favorably) and Google (opinion of this bunch is dropping like a rock) for investing in this jackass's business.
He could be right and wrong a the same time (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in the industry for 20 years, and I have not yet seen a programmer that can fit more than a few hours of real, actual, focused work in any given day. The rest is just filler like meetings, bullshitting on slack, goofing off on Reddit or something else. I don't think the Chinese are any different. So most (or all) of this insane overtime likely also consists of filler. Under the definition that you have to spend all 8 hours of your workday actually doing work, we're more or less all "slackers".
Where he's wrong, though, is I can pretty much guarantee you they're less productive with this schedule than they would be with 40 hours a week. What's more, if they worked 40 hours or even less, they'd likely be more creative as well, and less resentful towards their workplace. Henry Ford established this to be true even for assembly line work a hundred years ago, and this is considerably more complicated and requires orders of magnitude more creativity than assembly line work.
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I was able to get 8 hours of productive time with an hour-long nap in between. I haven't tried doing 12 hours with 2 naps, though that might be possible.
I'll bet that doesn't fly at these 996 companies though.
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How long did bugfixing take after than 48-hour long programming session?
Getting into a position of strength (Score:2)
You only need one of these 2 things to have the upper hand with regard to excessive working time:
1. Be an expert in some skillset which is extremely hard for the employer to replace easily.
2. Enough money in the bank, no debt, and low living expenses to weather being fired for refusal to work long hours.
If you have neither, you can be easily expoited.
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Either of those two work, but there are other options. Like being part of a union.
Think it's bad now, China? (Score:2)
You just wait until we infect your working class with socialism and dreams of a UBI. Then you'll be lucky to get any productivity out of your population.
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I think they were already infected with socialism back in 1949. They might've developed an immunity.
996 is a lot better than Seattle Hundreds! (Score:2)
It's only 72 hours a week as compared to 16 Mon-Thu and 12 Fri-Sun.
China ( and the World ) is in for a rude awakening (Score:2)
When the Chinese workforce finally gets tired of being treated like slaves, the era of cheap labor in China will come to an abrupt end.
Companies and Markets the World over will feel the repercussions and it will not be pretty.
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The era of cheap labour is already coming to an end. In Shanghai and Beijing the wages are currently exceeding those in the EU, for freelance jobs at least. This isn't a general trend yet, but there is a real labour shortage starting and Chinese are very pragmatic: if they competition pays 1 cent more, they up and leave.
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Are the wages comparable given there are labor laws in the EU with teeth? It's still cheap labor if you're asking for twice as many work hours for the same wage.
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The people I know there work hard, but not twice as hard. 60 hour work weeks, sure. But not much more. This changes with people in small shops or those store ladies that they have dozens of. They work double shifts and basically live in the office.
What I see is that skilled labour is approaching Western style wages. The unskilled labour force, however, is still struggling to get by.
Nope (Score:2)
Yeah, no. Some other person might be willing to sacrifice everything for the job, but some people actually have families that matter to them, and actually want to be able to spend the money they make at work doing things they enjoy rather than just wasting all day at work.
Is Richard Liu working 996? (Score:2)
He should work that long if not like everyone else.
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hehe (Score:1)
Same boat and it's sinking (Score:1)
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I've got news for you: For any kind of labor intensive work, returns go down drastically after 7 hours a day also.
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