996 contributes to brain drain as well. I know several American-educated Chinese engineers whose primary motivation for working in America rather than back home is because they get a sane work-life balance.

It depends. Many top and ambitious talents did go back to China because they may get higher pay and have a higher chance of becoming billionaires. Average Joes like me tend to stay in the US because everything is much easier and less competitive.

>Many top and ambitious talents did go back to China because they may get higher pay and have a higher chance of becoming billionaires.

This is true. The people I know in this category are typically in leadership positions, e.g. scientists under the thousand talents program.

I wonder why developers think they need special protections that other workers do not have. It is not uncommon for waiters to work 12 hour days, with 1 day off for wages far lower.

Other people have it worse so it's okay to remain in a shitty situation? I don't think we should treat this like a victim competition.

I guess it stems from the fact that developers are one of the few groups which CAN dictate some things.

We do forget that other jobs come with 14 hour shifts, no breaks, no health insurance, and constantly being on-call for a 5th of the salary.

That doesn't mean that devs shouldn't push for decent conditions though.

Also, while devs "have it good," it's nothing near what lawyers and doctors made, so before patting ourselves on the shoulder and thinking we made it, we should keep tht in mind.

The other part of the argument is programming doesn't scale the same way. A sleep deprived waiter can fulfill his tasks while a programmer cannot perform on the same acceptable par.

devps use brains a lot

Come to Europe, where it's illegal for waiters to work 12 hour days.

Not uncommon, but still crazy. And there is not much justification to do so. No developer can regularly work for 12 hours.

5 hours should be our target. Less pretending to work would be so much more efficient.

I am not willing to further escalate inferiority complexes with others.

It's not uncommon for them to work one 12 hour shift one or two times a week, and usually done voluntarily for extra pay.

The shit they're talking about violates labor laws in the US and is done 6 days a week. No one is physically capable of that for a non-desk job for very long so if anything, that's not true because its simply unsustainable.

from what i understand, they just want the overtime pay they are legally entitled to according to their interpretation of PRC law.

I wish I could work 12 hour days. :P

It really build discipline, and work ethic that non model citizens envy. Not losing social credit is just a thoughtful bonus.

For those curious: 996 stands for 9a-9p x 6 days a week.

And AFAIK for most of the companies actually do this -- they sort of enforce employees to work as 996. In the meantime do not pay for working overtime or pay very few.

An English translation is now available on https://996.icu/#/en_US as well as GitHub.

As a Chinese developers, 996 is an unspoken rule around in IT companies. When I got interviewed, HR would always ask whether I was OK with 996.

When I was in investment banking, it was more like 727 (7am-2am, 7 days/week).

I work in finance and all I can say is it's not sustainable and not definitely something anyone should be proud of. Literally no one benefits from such long work hour, not even the company itself.

Jesus - its now by stars the number 4 repo in all of GitHub after… 1 week

2nd place now https://github.com/search?utf8=&q=stars%3A%3E10000&type=Repo...

Yeah, many developers are exhausted with their work. This is a good outlet.

mainstream views of a small chinese forum are as follows:

The programers are textile women in the new era.

such a weak resisting.

other workers even work harder and receive less and they said nothing, why these programers so delicate?

and so on

long hours != work hard

so sad people in that forum even don't realize it and are so proud of their so-called "hard work" while getting exploited by their employers.

modern china is definitely odd as it proclaims to be socialist and capitalist, but its a lot like 1920s America. Off the rails capitalism that ate the peoples gubment.

What is this?