Burned out? Can barely function in life outside of work? Tired, frustrated, unhappy because of huge hours of work? Still not making enough, even though you don't spend much because yo are always working?
Laid off. Thank U. Next.
10
Think also about people who do mind-killing or back-breaking drudge work—likely under-represented amongst NYTimes readers. Keynes predicted in the 1930s a 15-hour work week by now and that would be the greatest benefit to them. I’m an academic: I work, in a diffuse way, for most of my waking hours, and that’s fine. In the course of writing a paper and prepping tomorrow’s classes I’m messing around reading and commenting on this piece. In this diffuse way I work not just 996 but 997.
It’s quite another story for most people who do, what is commonly known as ‘real work’: inputting data, working in call centers, cashiering, laying down flooring, cleaning toilets, etc. 996 won’t get them ahead or make them any more productive except in the purely quantitative way of enabling them to scan more groceries or clean more toilets. Work for most people is just daily jail, on the rock pile and 996 is no blessing.
Keeping the hours down isn’t primarily a matter of providing ‘knowledge workers’ like me more family time, but of providing the overwhelming majority of workers whose work is boring, backbreaking, and routine, a chance to do things that are intellectually stimulating and enhancing, including the option to get further education and training so that they can get better work.
13
Why do we have this discussion at all? That 12h work a day idea is for lunatic asylum today, not for any serious discussion.
However, if those folks do do 12h work a day, and face us or Europeans who stopped doing that 100y ago, then we / Europeans will be in trouble since however stupid, unproductive, and debilitating that idea is, it does lead to more products than any sort of normal working hours.
That's what concerns me, competition with people reduced to the status of inhumane contraptions, employed by merciful billionaires, and all hailing from the communistic paradise on Earth, China.
7
Kudos to Ms. Covert and the Times for this essay. One of the insights, that excessive hours working actually leads to poorer career outcomes in the long run, is absolutely true. So many people I grew up with in ad agencies are no longer in the industry due to excessive client demands and often conflicting demands from internal agency managers. This was true even in the 90s before we were all tethered to mobile devices and 24/7 email. When I left the business after 9/11, I saw excessive zealots in nonprofits too, where the board and exec directors do not commit to strategic planning, and create inefficiencies up and down the organization. Many staff are so dedicated and work so hard they ultimately burn out and leave. On a few volunteer boards I serve, some of the more zealous members email and text at all hours - about the most mundane, non-crisis topics. Any delay in reply is perceived to be either a slight or “slacking.” Is it any wonder that trends show meditation apps are proliferating, yoga is surging, therapists are busier than ever, and Americans of *all* ages are losing interest in sex? The workplace will survive without 24/7 enslavement. Let Jack Ma and Elon Musk marinate in their own insanity. Purpose, Pride and Pleasure - that’s what you learn when you’re in your sixties - even if the learning comes the hard way.
5
Jack Ma is hardly the business man to quote or emulate. He was arrested Sept. 5, 2018 by Minneapolis police for the rape of a Chinese student while he was in the city to attend a university program. She recently filed a civil suit. Just "google it" before thinking his ideas are valuable.
7
Atlas Shrugged.
1
Question: A "blessing" to whom? Answer: Only Mr. Ma and Mr. Musk.
8
Basically, the author argues that we shouldn't work more than 48 hours a week, since anything above that will reduce production, not increase it. Beware of "convenient" arguments like this. They are nearly always at odds with reality.
In this case, the author says there's no need to work tremendously hard or to put in long hours; these efforts won't even result in further production. That flies in the face of what I've seen my whole life. Most people I know who are successful work more than 48 hours a week or at least had to do so while they developed expertise in their trade for at least several years.
Career success may not be worth the necessary sacrifices for you, and there's nothing wrong with making that decision (unless you think there is). If you want to prioritize things outside of work like family and friends, that's probably the right decision for you. But if you're looking for a moderate work week, you should expect to see others outwork you and to see that hard work pay off as they outearn you and experience greater career progression.
Every decision in life involves a sacrifice of one thing for another. Thus, you should be very wary of anyone telling you that you can have it all.
2
Nothing in this article says you shouldn't work hard. In fact, the studies mentioned point to harder, more effective work being done at a lower hourly workload.
Sacrifice is necessary to move up in any career, but that sacrifice should be a choice. In too many fields working extra isn't extra, it's required. The choice shouldn't be dedicating your life to a career or having a life. There needs to be some balance.
6
Where we’re getting tripped up, I think, is that’s there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who, like myself (and my wife) are lucky enough to be employed doing something we love. And those who, I suppose like Bryce Covert, tolerate their jobs only in so much as they are paid.
.
For us, those who work in our passion, a 40 hour work week is limiting. For us, work is play. And that’s where I think a lot of people get tripped up.
4
Work is part of life. It is not life itself.
6
Every salaried position I've had comes with the provision that I'm paid for forty hours a week with the expectation that I will work up to 50 hours a week, depending on deadlines, written into my employment contract. No overtime until 50+ hours, but since it's salary and so there's no clock-in, clock-out, that means there's no official documentation--thus, no overtime.
Deck is stacked against us plebeians.
10
@AJ
Perhaps. But the plebeians keep voting for more work and less pay.
3
So, where did all of the productivity gains since the 70's go? These were supposed to free us from wage slavery to pursue more meaningful lives. ALL of us know where they went. ALL of us, not just a select few by virtue of birth, deserve meaningful and joyful lives filled with learning, creativity, and relationships. The old adage is true: If all that you do in your life is pursue money, then at the end of your life, that's all you'll have. It's shameful that our society is so blinded by greed and delusion not to accept this very evident fact.
8
If businesses can hire people who work longer hours, that means they can hire fewer people. If they are on a straight salary, that saves money. It also saves on the cost of any benefits they might offer, as they have fewer people to contribute to health insurance on, for example. Of course the only ones really getting ahead are the companies. They do not consider the burnout, physical and mental toll and family degradation that results from these kinds of attitudes. This applies to all levels of employment. It is still seared into my bran 14 years later an exchange between a couple on a barge cruise I took my mom on. It was a small group, so you ended up chatting with everyone. One of the men was quite a boor and boaster. He clearly dominated the relationship. I don't recall the specifics, but as he was boasting about his businesses and how much he worked, I remember her finally quietly saying "Well, all I know is you were never there. I raised the kids". It was one of the few times on the trip he rather shut up. What was so important now- his business successes or the clear damage done to family life due to his work obsession. I worked long hours too - 9 hour days, weekends, evenings at times. But I also know that after a certain point I just wasn't very productive, my stress level exploded, and I wasn't very nice to be around. Mr. Ma made billions, but how about his workers. I suspect many of them, expected to work very long hours, are just getting by.
9
Working a 12 hour shift ever so often gets you a bit more money; but consonantly working 12 hours days wears you down and is unhealthy in long term .
5
China's "996" certainly seems preferably to 24/7, which is the norm for here, especially in NY, LA and Silicon Valley.
1
I've had a problem with the "look how many hours I work" culture for a long time. I'm not impressed with how many hours you've worked. I'm impressed by those who can get more done in 8 hours then others do in 12. I think the long hours folks are the real slackers if they aren't showing the same productivity/hour as a 40 hour/week person.
10
I suspect that everyone has his/her own optimal work schedule. I learned early on (in grad school) that I couldn't produce anything I could consider meaningful by working 40-hour weeks. Other people might, but 40-hour work weeks were a complete waste of my time. However, working something closer to 80-hour weeks for 3 or 4 weeks, followed by some down-time to bring my average close to 40 hours, allowed me to be highly productive.
Thus MY 12-hour work days were indeed a blessing. I enjoyed them. But ditto for my effectively "zero-hour days" (not entirely zero-hour because I didn't stop thinking altogether). The only down side was that working that way, at my very best, made me not very employable.
1
Almost no one will end up as rich and successful as Elon Musk and Jack Ma. The rest of us want to have families and lives.
Unfortunately, there is a need to make sure everyone else knows how busy we are, lest we be seen as a slacker. Work smarter, not longer.
4
No business, not those managed by Musk or Ma, not those run by others owes employees a life outside of work. You personal choices should become an employers responsibility. The fact is that any interests outside the office/store/shop floor is a distraction that negatively impacts the employer. Unless your spouse and kids are going to pick up a shift here and there, they provide no benefit to your boss. My employer clearly deters such behavior among his managers. As an essential connection to his clients, we absolutely must be available to clients 24/7/365. Since all four of us are single men, there’s no reason all of us cannot fulfill this obligation.
1
Such is the conundrum of modern capitalism. Any entrepreneur will tell you that they put in far more than 40 hours per week to start and nurture their business. Many start-up companies rely on energetic workers working at all hours. In fact, some careers generally require long hours. This hard work does often pay off but comes with consequences. Greater stress, diminished health, less time for family and/or community engagement. Our society loses out when balance is lost. I find some of the happiest people living in medium sized communities that seem to better value both hard work and time away for social interaction. The affordability of these communities also allows these residents avoid the need to maximize their income.
4
You might not like it but it was this approach that took Apple to the top of the heap. Now they're rich. And its the same approach that is enabling the Chinese to leapfrog past the U.S. economically, militarily and in influence around the world. We'll be living under their system if we don't stop partying and start working soon.
2
As a knowledge worker with some experience it's fairly clear there is a law of diminishing returns - certainly for cognitive activities. Once productivity drops off, spending more time beating heads against walls is not going to make much difference. I'm sure there are quite a few deluding themselves to believe they are still productive... or appear productive at least. What's more shocking is that there are still so many people who cannot distinguish between the concepts of quantity and quality.
7
Taking life lessons from corporate chiefs is like taking ethics lessons from the Devil. Or ethics lessons from corporate chiefs. Ma should be nobody's role model.
13
Why live then ? Ma and friends are not only arrogants but ignorants. Too bad unions didn't innovate themselves to adapt to changes affecting work. The trend should be work less and live more. Not only wait until your retirement in a bad health to live. Business innovation should lead to less work and more work for more people. Business failed in that department. And governments also of course.
9
Capitalism is a fraud. Capitalists promote it hysterically as a religion for the obvious reason. They have continually try to fool the masses for hundreds of years. When the capitalist owns a medium like a newspaper or TV station, the promote capitalism on their medium. This is the main stream media; promoting what the capitalists and government want (called "Manufacturing Consent). This propaganda promotes nothing but the profit motive and suppresses and oppresses the workers. No value system involved; no caring about health care effectiveness, cost or access. And profit comes from the war machine, the consumer culture and even our prisons. A corporation cares about profit and its investors; nothing else. Not our schools, our communities our health. It is able to function because the people build the roads for them, the schools, the courts,etc. so they may carry on business. The corporation is run by a narrow group of people who make all the decisions affecting the economics, quality of life of its workers and their psyche with no input from the workers. Corporations buy off our representatives who become their representatives and democracy drops low. An abomination. 12 hour days as a blessing!
6
no one would care what Jack Ma says if he weren't rich. And if what he says is true, everyone who works twelve hour days, like nurses, cab drivers, line cooks, would be as rich as him.
What a bunch of baloney
12
Tell it to George Marshall, Mr. Ma.
1
I like Jack Ma, but more and more he is behaving like a puppet of communist Chinese leaders. May be they put him up there as a face of Chinese (fake) capitalism to start with.
1
This reminds me of an old joke. A greedy man taught his donkey not to eat. By the time he succeeded the donkey was dead.
5
The model I see now in industry is to have more work piled on, and not hire more people who are needed to accomplish the objectives. We need the opposite thinking to 996. We need to have real work/life balance and not just pay lip service to the idea.
3
This comes from a 'human resources' mindset. They view humans as resources to be exploited to the maximum extent possible.
Not only is it unproductive, it's immoral. The whole purpose of civilization is to improve the human condition, not to make it worse.
1
When we’re in our 80s and looking back at our lives (if we live that long on our overheated planet) what will we ask ourselves? Surely not, did I work long enough hours toiling at my job? Hopefully we’ll ask, Did I live a full life full of love and adventure?
3
Reminds me of when one of my managers early in my career told me that money wouldn't make me happy. Even 22 year-old me wasn't having it. I quickly shot back, "well you wouldn't mind giving me all your money then".
Managers who underestimate the intelligence of their staff undercut their own ability to lead when they insult us with self-serving statements like "12-hour days are a blessing".
3
Well, of course. After getting ready for work, commuting to work, working from 8 am to 8 pm, and then commuting home, you just have enough time and energy to microwave dinner from a box and sit in front of the TV vegetating for an hour. And that's if you don't have kids. Now multiply that by six days a week. Long political conversations over a meal? Reading anything more complicated than a Buzzfeed list? Participating in civic causes? Nope, it all goes out the window. And if you don't comply, you're doomed to poverty.
It's really a great way to control vast numbers of people, and minus the modern garb, it's an approach that slave owners throughout history have loved to use.
12
By insisting that their employees dedicate every waking hour to their jobs, guys like Ma and Musk make it impossible for those people to follow their OWN dreams. Who knows how many of those folks working 12 hour days could have created a better world if only they'd had enough free time?
8
Notice these are all men saying this. Working moms are already working a "12,12,7" - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I am still getting up 3-4x a night with a 2 and 4 year old.
7
2) Nothing I hate more than corporate hacks saying stupid, stupid things like "Work Harder and Smarter." Instead, how about, "pay workers a reasonable wage." ACTUALLY care about work/life balance instead of stupid, slavish Soviet-style slogans extolling the virtues of hard work?
How about setting reasonable objectives and goals for people instead of the relentless, soul-killing monotony of demanding more, more, more with less?
Quit treating your workers like a plowhorse on the back 40. And, while I'm at it, treat your plowhorse better!
12
Econ 101
Why Mr. Ma is right, and Ms Covert is wrong
12 hour workdays are not a blessing for Mr. Ma's employees, but they are a blessing for China, that aims to overtake the US technology by 2025
Here are the numbers for the annual sales and annual growth of AliExpress (Mr Ma's company) and Amazon , in Switzerland, a neutral country, with and educated population and open World Trade
Sales , 2017, Switzerland, in Swiss Francs
Amazon 580 Million
Aliexpress 310 Million
Growth rate, sales, in percent, in sales, 2017
Amazon 20%
Aliexpress 185%
Note thar Aliexpress that already has 1/2 the sales is growing nine times faster
Econ 101 is
In a global economy those that work for the least and work the longest, will beat those who work for more, and work shorter.
Free trade is NOT good for everyone.
And , for Mr. Ma's employees, working 12 hrs a day, in the long run will be a blessing, because having put out Amazon
there will be more jobs, better pay, and shorter hours
Data
https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/alibaba-bereitet-schweizer-online-haendlern-mehr-sorgen-als-amazon-ld.1446775
("Swiss online merchants more worried about Alibaba than about Amazon")
1
Read economist Juliet Schor's book, The Overworked American. She identifies the problem and posits a solution: Cut current employees' hours back to 40 hours, and hire new workers who are "given" those extra hours. Everyone works a balanced work week, with the benefit of job creation. Sadly, business leaders aren't paying attention - I don't think they see overwork as a problem. And they won't until lots of superlative candidates start asking about work/life balance, and declining jobs with long hours.
3
How many hours a week does Jack Ma "work"?
1
"Managers who think like Mr. Ma can be found the world over." I don't get it, as your article amply indicates, excessive work is universal; yet, the article is particularly trying to shame China. One more racist article about the country that is going to eat our lunch, breakfast, dinner, and snacks.
996 Only a wildly exploitive billionaire could come up with that one. Needless to say completely idiotic! Why does society think that just because a man(woman) has made a lot of money they are the font of all wisdom? Needless to say this example proves otherwise.
4
J. Ma is TOO RICH to care!
1
One of capitalisms many evils
3
New way of slavery transfusion thru media. Please don’t give credit to discriminative ideocratic ideas that makes only rich richer.
1
You are not helpful. Counterpoint is never as powerful as the original point.
That man is using propaganda to make more money for himself. There are 2 reasons for propaganda: to win power and to make more money selling garbage to brainwashed people.
1
If the field hands of the Information Age — and what’s the work station in a cubicle farm but a reiteration of the washers’ table at a coal mine or a place at the Spinning Jenny in some factory— would learn from their great grandparents, they’d do what their ancestors did: organize every work place. Billionaires dislike unions and work tirelessly to vilify and disparage them which is a strong argument in their favour for their employees.
In the meantime, Microserfs by Douglas Coupland is well worth revisiting, as is Cubed: The Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval.
2
"Elon Musk, a co-founder of Tesla, has argued that “nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week."
Is he right? Has anyone?
1
Why is this read about one man in China?
Look at our own culture.
To survive both spouses have to work! It = 80 hours!
And there are American firms that expect their employees to work 80 hours and more.
Our country's motto is “Live to Work” not “Work to Live” as in other civilized society’s.
Why doesn’t The NY Times do an expose of American firms that over work & abuse their staff?
It shouldn’t be that hard to find.
Medical institutions, Law firms to start with.
5
her meant a blessing ..for himself..in the workers paradise under communism.
the real issue is when these chinese employees will start seeing increased salaries/wages..which make them less competitive..so that jobs can flow back to the US..or other parts of the world
And i'm surprised the labor unions have not started screaming about the exploitation of the workers there.
yes..its a workers paradise.
1
These managers are old school and got it wrong. I work to live, not live to work. They can have my 7.5 hours a day, but not my soul. Long live Unions!!!!
6
The only way that this stupid workaholic attitude is going to change is by enforcing the 40 hour (or even less) workweek by law. Any employer trying to gain profit by working his or her disposable workforce to death should be fined into bankruptcy. The unions were supposed to take care of these kind of excesses but nowadays they are more interested in political power games than in their members.
Btw, this article should also have touched upon the pathetic amount of vacation days in the US. Not taking any vacation is now so ingrained in US work ethics that people actually take pride in never taking vacation.
2
No one on their deathbed has ever said, "I should have worked more"
6
I've been fortunate that my employer (a federal agency) recognizes that we have lives outside the office. I might have been able to work long hours when I was younger, but now in my early 50s, with four children ages 9-16, I have to spend a lot of time and energy as a parent, spouse, and homeowner. I'm grateful that I've never been made to feel I had to choose between the two.
Working 12 hours a day, six days a week, is nuts. What kind of life is that?
5
@MV
The life Corporations want for their workers. And how many workers are answering emails and texts 12 hours a day or longer?
2
Elon Musk is a case study of the downsides of extreme overwork. He’s undoubtedly brilliant, but he’s made one misstep after another in the past year, including a Tweet that got him fined by the SEC. How much more could he accomplish, over time, if he learned to delegate and took time off to take care of himself? What a waste.
Here’s my experience: I am a workaholic. As this piece noted, overwork has serious health consequences. I ran my own business, doing a lot of hard, physical work. In my mid 30s, I realized that I was going to ruin my back and be unable to work if I kept on that way. I also realized that my overwork was ruining my marriage.
So I got help. I went to WA (workaholics-anonymous.org). With help, I was able to cut back my hours.
Here’s what happened: My business prospered in a way it had never done while I was overworking. I left that business and got a job where I negotiated a 4-day workweek instead of five. I also negotiated a higher salary that my peers. I worked at that firm for almost 10 years and got consistently high marks from my supervisors. Now I’m building a new business, working about 35 hours a week and earning a good living.
And, 20 years on, I’m still happily married, too. I don’t think I would be if I’d continued to overwork.
If you’re a highly educated and highly skilled worker, you probably have more latitude to work less than you realize. Please do it. It could save your life. I know it saved mine.
3
The so-called "job creators" have been taking advantage of workers since the dawn of civilization, but there is always a price to be paid.
Unless it is assembly line type work, many of those over-worked and underpaid workers will eventually develop a strategy of pay-back.
It might emerge as less effort, faking results, bad-mouthing the company or boss to others, etc.
On the other hand, "good" employers realize that showing genuine respect for your employees will generate the best efforts and results.
2
The real reason people work hard, smart and longer is to get paid more, a lot more.
Ask someone in the tech world to work 996 hours for weeks, months and years at minimum wage (plus overtime). No bonuses. No stock options and no profit sharing. And see how many would stay on in their jobs. No one!
Working hard and long hours has nothing to do with worker morale or wanting to produce more. It is all about getting a stake in what is perceive to be the big payout, the extra extra large paycheck. At the end of the day or the project.
The sad thing is that these workers or entrepreneurs really believe that they are the brains and laborers behind the vast fortunes made in Silicon Valley firms.
But mostly these firms are get rich quick schemes. Milking the untapped wells of money and commerce in our economy. Often merely tapping into a revenue stream that is based on transactional values, not anything made or delivered.
Just look at the business models of Google and Facebook. Income and earnings are based on a variety of fee structures.
Advertisers, small and large, turn on virtual ad campaigns and the internet behemoths, swipe credit cards. Each swipe is small, but the river of fees turns into billions, when summed across millions and millions of transactions, worldwide.
Amazon does essentially the same, providing an electronic store front for producers and sellers around the globe. And charges mark ups, seller fees, transaction fees, shipping and handling fees. Very smart!
1
What is this? 1899? A corporate CEO billionaire thinks it is great forcing workers to work 12-hour days? Who said it? Morgan, Carnegie or Rockefeller?
5
Just remember that the loyalty arrow in any large organization (companies or unions) goes one way, from you to the organization. You are an instantly replaceable commodity. Even a corporate CEO or union President is replaceable on no notice if they become an embarrassment. Both will get a much better severance package than you, but they are still out the door.
Do what brings you joy, and remember you are responsible for your own joy.
1
Technology has changed the equation. People who think they are working 8 hours are often working 10 hours getting emails when at home. I work on the west coast with a team that includes members in our east coast office. I begin getting emails at 5am and I usually leave the office around 6:30 or 7. My company extols the benefits of work/life balance because we can leave at 5:30. I'm not sure if it is the company or the American work ethic that drives the time on call but I never feel like I am caught up with work so I never really feel like work is off my mind.
1
I note that the U.S. and China are the most productive economies in the world. Interestingly, this author fails to realize that the reason the Europeans are less productive is they work less.
Those of us who have advanced degrees spent more time working than the typical blue or white collar worker. That extra time working at the educational level likely dramatically increased our economic income and output.
1
As a founder and employee of several Silicon Valley startups - I know the impact of 996 - and even more when it comes to a startup. No weekends. No vacation. Family life - non existent.
But we buy into that when we join a startup because - we're going to change the world (which is code for: I'm going to get stinking rich). We all worked, all the time, because we didn't have the war chest to hire more people - and even if we did we wouldn't ask them to do anything we wouldn't do - which meant we sacrificed literally everything for the effort.
Families put up with it because the rewards were theirs too.
We were people who knew how to do nothing else than work. That was the very definition of our lives on earth. Missing children's birthday parties and soccer games was the badge of honor.
There were people who wanted to have an "outside work" life as well as the startup life - and those were the people who failed the interviews. Investors don't want those types of people around.
And frankly, neither did we. It was all or nothing.
In the end - we got nothing. 95% of all startups - fail. And my two were no exception.
15 years of my life evaporated in those efforts along with my children's childhoods and my marriage. (I once heard the CEO of a major semiconductor company brag that his entire staff was single due to divorce).
Was it worth it? Really? Even if we had IPOd. Was it worth the lives it took?
Too late for me.
But not for you.
10
A bearded philosopher stated what you vividly describe 150 years ago. Those who enrich themselves are not the ones who start businesses but the concentrated capital ready to buy cheap on the effort of people like you.
1
The related question is - what's the social outcome of all this "work" that people are doing? Much of it is wasted effort predicated on absolutely reactionary assumptions that humanity just cannot seem to get beyond. The entire advertising industry? How many shoes can you wear or french fries can you eat? The entire defense industry? We already have enough atomic weapons and planes and submarines to deliver them to destroy the world at least 100 times over. Mega-mansions in the middle of nowhere? What about walkable/bike-able urban centers instead of hours spent in gas guzzlers and moving about like benumbed coffee-swilling slugs on concrete ribbons that transform the landscape into a barren, hideous moonscape?
The genius of the market? Not. The utter bankruptcy of the Chicago school and their sort is expressed in the galloping environmental catastrophe. It's the completely unregulated crisis of the commons. Each one looking out for himself/herself and beating the drum to extract the most from all others.
The major problem is that Jack Ma, Robert Mercer, and the Koch brothers will all be dead by the time it really hits. The people with power don't give a hoot. However, no one will remain to lay flowers at their sarcophagi and, in time, they will turn to dust.
9
Of course Jack Ma and others like him are a "big fan of overwork"; it's pure profit. Why incur the expense of hiring an extra worker when you can just dump more work on existing employees "for free"? In fact, think of all the savings if we let John go and have the rest of the team split his workload? Quantifying the increase in John's productivity due to working a sane schedule is hard to do, particularly if he is a knowledge worker. Quantifying the cost savings by firing him and offloading his work to others is easy.
Jack Ma and his ilk have no incentive to change by themselves; the social contract needs to be restructured.
2
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
5
@NYT Reader Colonel Saito....”Be happy in your work!”
So China is the perfect market for those Soylent Squared "mini meals" created for Silicon Valley workaholics too busy to bother with eating real food. [NY Times, April 18, 2019]
Seems like a match made in heaven for hellish lifestyles.
1
Years ago I took a job as a "hands-on supervisor" in a high-production company. That meant pounding the concrete floors all day with the rest of the crew, but with an additional two hours of meetings and paperwork: Fourteen-hour days, six days a week. My previous plant, after four takeovers - this was the 80's - had closed, I still had kids at home and I was desperate for work. Salaried with overtime pay, but only for Saturdays. The best part was being told a month in that we supervisors were required to work one Saturday per month for free, to "give back to the company out of gratitude". I will never forget those words, and left within four months. To show my true gratitude to the company, I did not give them notice.
8
Make Feudalism Great Again
Oligarchs United 2019
These billionaires need psychiatric help.
8
Working his employees to death is a blessing for no one but Jack Ma. I spent the last five years of my husband's life working 12-14 hour days, sometimes 7 days a week. Of course I did not know it was his last five years. All I knew is that I had deadlines to meet and consequences for not meeting them. I worked 55 hours a week even during my husband's final illness, including attending teleconferences in his room in the ICU while he lay unconscious after a stroke.
I ended up burnt out to the point that I didn't even know what I was looking at anymore, sitting at my desk at home after working 36 hours straight at age 62 being yelled at by my manager over the phone for "not delegating" when I had no one I could delegate to without spending hours explaining what to do. That night I gave notice, left six weeks later, and filed for survivor benefits.. I am now happier and healthier than ever. No one should have to work 72 hours a week so some guy can be a billionaire.
229
@Jill C. Good for you!
10
Your story reminds me of the time my husband and I took a,weekday off from work to have a fun day out in NYC & ran into an old acquaintance on the train on the way in. After some friendly chitchat and getting caught up, she was on her phone, still on the train, doing a conference call, while on the way in to work, before even arriving at her office. That seems to be a ridiculous way to live & work. I work three 12-hour shifts as an RN, but get plenty of vacation and rest so I can be at my best to care for my patients. I love my work. but I love my family & friends more. Pathetic that those who spend most of their waking hours working dare look down on or feel superior to those of us who have found a way to balance it all.
67
@Jill C.
That's a very sad story, but it's great that you've come out of it feeling stronger and better than ever.
I see a lot of what you're describing in myself. I'm younger (35 - which really isn't that young), and I've put off almost everything in my life to facilitate my career. I recently got engaged, but besides the occasional meal and an hour or so of TV or reading before bed, I hardly see my fiance. I work nights and weekends, miss holidays and birthdays, and see my aging parents less and less, when I want to see them more than ever.
I am compensated very well for my efforts, but even so, I've been wondering whether it's worth it. When I look back on it some day in the not too distant future, and think of all the nights and full months lost to nothing but work, will sitting on a pile of cash at retirement make my life feel worthwhile? It will certainly be comfortable financially, but I can't say if that will be enough.
18
The "Ten Commandments" was on Saturday night. Moses points out that slaves who are fed well and have a day of rest are better workers than famished, exhausted slaves. Or dead ones.
2
Make Feudalism Great Again !
Billionaires United !
Nice people.
3
A comment like Ma's usually comes from some clown whose "job" includes four hours on the links three days each week and five-figure dinner tabs, because they're necessary to "grease the wheels of commerce." Yeah, his commerce, while the grease comes from the blood, sweat, and tears of the workers.
2
12 hour days are half good and half bad.
Good for rich. Bad for workers.
5
Capitalism believes people should work until they are neither alive nor dead.
4
Betsy Devos: Educating the future workers of America.
When the machine part gives out, just replace it.
2
Here’s the thing......my life does not belong to someone who has decided that the only important thing for his employees is serving as a natural and exhaustible resource for hm. This is not living.
Those who worship at this altar, or claim to be the deity proclaiming this commandment of “work is life”, are incredibly greedy, amoral, and heartless, as well as dangerous to human civilization. They are a cancer on the human spirit.....and that is a kind description as what I would really like to say about them is not suitable for print.
3
My response to Elon Musk:
If you cant change the world on 40 hours a week, you're doing something wrong. People who work smart get their job done in 40 hours. People who work dumb have to stay late. That includes employers who make their employees the consequences of their own mismanagement. If Musk or Ma are routinely keeping their employees late, they are bad managers. I would honestly look to replace them with someone who can get the project done and still send everyone home on time.
That's a good manager.
4
Bryce Covert is absolutely right. What we need today is SHORTENING, not increasing, the workweek. In 1930 the famous Keynes predicted that within 100 years the technologies of leading economies would be advanced enough to allow a 15-hour week. Although not many noticed, such technologies already exist - nanotechnologies, the Internet, smartphones, clouds, AI, etc. In fact, these technologies not only allow workweek shortening, but also REQUIRE it. By definition, advanced technologies reduce human labor - it called the 'Luditt problem'. Billionaires such as Jack Ma benefit from this problem - twice: it allows them to keep less workers - and at the same time reduce wages to those who do work - because of the chronic unemployment it causes (THIS is the reason for the US labor force participation decline in the last 20 years).
At the same time, wages for the shortened week shouldn’t decrease - but INCREASE - it required economically (to maintain strong demand), and it required humanistically (to allow reasonable life quality for everyone).
And who will pay the difference? The American government - through money printing. It’s absolutely possible, and if you don't believe, just look here: https://urpe.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/is-mmt-america-first-economics/
So Mr. Ma says that those who work hard get "the rewards of hard work," apparently meaning that, for the workers, hard work is its own reward, which is rather absurd, while I suppose he gets the rewards of their supposedly increased output. Nice guy! As for increased injury, anyone who has done any physical work knows that when people are tired they hurt themselves or others, whether by banging a thumb with a hammer or cutting fingers off with a power tool.
1
Years of working for video game developers taught me the dangers of unpaid overtime. Crunch time means you have no wife, children or friends. But no more money or time off.
61
Ma. Typical let them eat cake 'economic royalist' in the words of FDR. Isn't this why they literally have to put nets on the sides of buildings in China? People are jumping out of windows to end their lives due to their work situation.
Ma's point of view is not new as the author points out. This is what happens most often when human beings attain a wealth/power so far out of the realm of normalcy that they lose touch with reality. Kings, CEO's, trust fund babies. They all to often suffer from the same delusions. Unfortunately, history shows us that they end up losing their heads. Sometimes quite literally.
1
There are additional elements to consider: power over your professional & family life, an individual's ability to change the rules of the game, and conflicts of social-labor policies between business leaders and national governments with different cultures. Some say - the most successful people work less than 30 hours on the job and spend the rest of their time thinking and acting strategically . The second most successful group works 60 hours per week in jobs where they have an appreciated & somewhat measurable impact. The least successful group works + 60 hours, repeatedly as yes-persons & in gender type-caste positions. Can we resolve these conflicts for the benefit of societies and the plurality of workers?
I spent 35 years in a career where some people regularly put in excessive hours. They were the only people considered for management, but the ones who didn't make it to management earned no more than the rest of us. It was normal to extra hours during the occasional crunches, but other times we usually worked about 40 hours a week.
It's a gamble: if you want to rise, you have to give the company free hours. The company gets a lot of free work, a few people get promoted and paid more than everyone else, and the people in charge all believe in working extra hours.
I'm not management material, so I didn't have to play it that way. I did well for an individual contributor without wrecking my personal life or my health.
1
Walmart and McD's want this system. Only, paying their workers even less. And no breaks.
2
this does seem to be a natural line of thinking from what I have observed. basically there seem to be two approaches to making a business run properly. there's the efficiency way, getting employees to produce as much in an hour as possible, and the brute force way, working employees as much as possible to get as much product as possible. every company lies on a spectrum for how much they use each method. but excessive use of the later is, in my experience, usually due to a failure in management, engineering, greed on behalf of the owner, or some combination of the three. and once that balance is set towards brute force, it seems all but impossible to set back to efficiency. I'd be curious to know why its stable in that manor, and what could be done to overcome that stability.
I have worked twelve hr days in many different ways... in the USN it was six on and six off with the occasional gq drill or fire drill or unrep to ensure yo only got about 5 hrs sleep a day. When I went to work in the civilian world it was a 12 hr shift for seven days on and seven off and the rotate to nights for a month of the same. Then there is the wonderful DuPont schedule. With its super seven and rotate back and forth. Days to nights. All this does is make the share holders more money and any mistakes that are made are a calculated risk that is factored into the overall business equation. Glad I retired it’s nice knowing what day it is
3
I've worked 80-hour weeks, and for me, this is not even close to sustainable. There are people that can do it. There are even people that want to do it. But a word to those who control the means of production...this is not normal and it is unreasonable to demand this from your people.
Plan your business around people working 40 hours a week with good wages and good benefits. Take the profits you get for working within normal work schedules. Maybe you don't need a yacht. Maybe you don't need to be #1 on the Forbes list.
Treat your people well or prepare for a return of unions in a big way.
7
There is a reason the FAA puts limits on the work schedules of pilots and mechanics, they recognize that past a certain number of hours people become counter productive. It’s easy to encourage to have people work themselves to death while sitting on your yacht sipping a cocktail.
6
From what I've seen, even this article severely overestimates how much time people can really put in at work without both dropping in productivity and seriously compromising their health.
The cutoff for peak focus and productivity seems to be about six hours a day, no more than five days a week (and in many cases only four days a week). Beyond that, you've run through your natural resources and start to accrue a deficit. It's no wonder so many offices now offer free caffeine and sugary snacks - they want people to give themselves an artificial boost to keep churning out the work.
Six hours a day also just happens to be about the amount of time (and remember, including lunch and commute a six-hour work day is closer to eight for many people), that people can spend at a job and still have a reasonable chance of fitting all the things they need to stay truly healthy - exercise, time with friends and family, time alone, time to pursue outside interests, time to take care of the details of daily life (housework, food prep, etc.) and time to give back.
No amount of money in the world can compensate for not having time to do these things, just like no amount of money in the world can turn us into automatons that work tirelessly and consistently for long stretches of time without a need for significant rest and refueling.
5
Anyone who reaches middle age and is not a cyborg will agree: the optimal work day, at full focus/effort, is, at maximum, FOUR HOURS. Any more and inefficiencies / diminishing returns begin to take hold.
The world has the wealth to support this -- a 20 hour workweek for a proper middle class wage. But how would the robber barons enter the stratosphere of unbelievable wealth, then?
7
52 million children were abandoned for years in rural areas while their parents sought work in urban centers. Siblings raising children. Grandparents pitched in. Sometimes neither. This lapse creates a generation of dysfunctional and disaffected young adults confronting an ever watchful police state that demands conformity and loyalty. Good luck with that.
1
As a medical resident regularly working 80 hours a week, I would argue the author is not recognizing the most basic argument.
The simple fact is that with knowledge-based jobs and jobs that require building expertise over time to solve complex problems, there IS a clear advantage to working all the time. If you are a computer science engineer working on a totally novel problem, there will be a clear advantage to long work hours. If you are a young doctor learning the nuances of medicine and how to diagnose and treat diseases, the more you do it, the more you will see, and the better you will be in the long-run (although you may be tired in the moment and providing worse care at the end of a 24 hour shift). However, if you are doing rote work that is not innovating or complex, then there is no advantage to working longer. Not acknowledging this basic distinction weakens your arguments for better work hours.
That said, I would do anything to have basic labor protections. I would do anything to be able to choose to work 40 hours a week. I would do anything to see family and loved ones and pursue the hobbies I used to love. I would do anything to not be exploited and called uncommitted because I don't want to dive headfirst into the depression, burn-out and jadedness of my colleagues who embrace the 80 hour work week as the only way to do things.
Alas, the capitalistic for-profit and "non-profit" hospitals profit handsomely off us. Jack Ma would be proud. Please help us.
227
@S R L
The doctors I see, the GP's are all on the road to burnout. If it wasn't for the extremely poor level of care they provide by staring at their screens during most of the visit performing data entry, rather than engaging the patient, I'd feel sorry for them. They are all at the mercy of the Jack Ma's of the "Health Care" world, who judge the health of the system by the size of their compensation packages. I'm sure the lord of manor spouted the same tripe to his serfs as Ma does to his minions and Health Care CEO's do to harried physicians.
85
@S R L
Then there are the vastly under-par results of American medical treatment vis-a-vis for other advanced industrial societies--which in addition costs far, far less to the country, and consumer.
38
I have always thought the long hospital hour were insane. I do not make my best decisions when over tired. In fact the solution is often clear after walking away and picking it up after a nights sleep. Who do you want to look at your loved one, the doctor at the end of an all nighter or the one who freshly on duty?
41
This article hits close to home as I'm now on day 25 without a day off, and probably averaging between 12-16 hours a day during this time. I'm in an industry where long hours are the norm, but this has been extreme, even for my field. During this span I've lost sense of time passing and every aspect of my life that isn't work related has essentially ceased to exist. Not only that, my work has gotten progressively worse and less efficient.
I'll echo what others are saying in that, while wildly lucrative for my employers, working this amount has been horrible for my health, both mental and physical, my relationships, and even my professional development in some ways. This is not a lifestyle that should be sought after or bragged about.
13
If one doesn't like one's working environment, one can always quit to find another suitable place. Since we have more job openings than available workers, we have choice. Until China's economy reaches the technical level we have now, then they still have uphill battle to fight.
I am retired now. But I still remember the days I routinely put in 50 to 60 hours a week to survive in the up-and-down oil industry.
It is easy to say that 996 is not humane or right until one day you need the job and salary to support your family and may be some saving for retirement.
@Usok I for one am quite tired of the "if you don't like where you work, quit" argument. Not just because it reveals disdain for the people without whom a business/organization couldn't survive, but because it ignores the facts that A) that's a lot easier said than done when there are bills to pay and income isn't rising for everyone, and B) if every company is taking the (clearly counter-intuitive) stance that people should work longer hours, where does that get you?
15
The slavish workaholics seem to have lost the point of working. Unless you have equity in the outcome, there's no benefit to the absurd 996 mentality except for your boss, and his boss and certainly the CEO. Living to work is a one-dimensional, selfish life. Working to live gives one a multifaceted life with generosity to family, hobbies, personal growth and humanity.
5
But, but, but that’s how you keep the commoners working so the fatcats can get mo money. Make work virtuous.
5
Jack Ma clearly subscribes to the idea that Work Makes You Free.
Of course, this was the motto over the entry to the worst death camp in history, Auschwitz--"Arbeit Macht Frei"
Ma has the kind of greed that goes beyond productive to become destructive.
George Orwell warned of Ma's thinking in "Animal Farm" where the hard-working horse's solution to everything is "I will work harder" and when he breaks down, the bosses sell him to a glue factory.
But Ma is not alone. WalMart, Amazon, EDS, have all been cited for over-working and under-paying employees while their owners became not just rich, but super-rich. The President is notorious for not paying people for the work they performed for him. Somehow, thousands of small contractors did "poor" work for him so he could stiff them, but others seemed to be able to find capable contractors and subs with out a problem.
Ford, for all his myriad faults, still understood he needed to pay his workers enough to buy the cars they built for him. How hard is that to understand?
Ma, like too many "captains of industry" really sees his workers as slaves, treats them as such, and has no problem with that.
14
It's too bad critical thinking isn't really taught or encouraged anymore; the ability to think for oneself and having the tools with which to do so, are the hallmarks of a free and enlightened society. And the absence of which,seem to be demonstrated in this article.
There's so much value in a cautionary tale, that we should have make it so hard to find. To be able to recognize that "... there's one born every minute...", would be a valuable lesson for anyone to learn. Where's Aesop when you need him?
https://youtu.be/N2c0b9xZIB0
Almost any career for which you have a passion requires well more than 40 hours per week (and much closer to 996)....and the true blessing in this modern world is that these opportunities exist, not for everyone in the world, but for the fortunate few who live in developed countries...and this now includes Jack Ma’s China.
Doctor
Architect
Lawyer
NY Times reporter
Professor
Software engineer
Entrepreneur
Banker
Investor
Artist
Author
Musician
Actor
Chef
Hotel manager
Astronaut
Aerospace engineer
Oceanographer
Tax accountant
President of the United States
The list goes on and on...
My one wish for my children is that they each find a career for which they have a passion, and if it requires a commitment akin to 996 (particularly in their early years), then all the better....(anything to keep them off of social media)
1
@Chin C —That list of aspirational mostly degreed professions is a lie. Mr Ma employs a sliver of professionals. His work ethic supposes peonage, with himself as the chief landholder. China subjugates and imprisons nations and minorities—think only of Tibet and the Islamic religious being subjugated relentlessly. His nations is micromanaging populations through sidewalk camera identification, in the hope of total control. China is not a free market. It is a near-slave state, now banning or prohibiting access to religion. That should be withdrawn free market agreements. We made a huge mistake—President Clinton’s decision, against American labor protests, to give free access to this communist regime. Let’s clamp down on the mind set that “Work Will Make You Free.”
China is not, and apparently is becoming less, free market.
And so it would be better if Alibaba didn’t exist.
Maybe think twice before you place your Western values on another country....
What has happened in China over the past twenty five years is nothing short of a miracle and the older generations would have all leaped at the chance for upwardly mobile 996 jobs....
Every time I hear a boss extol the virtues of 12 hour shifts all I can think about is “so who’s raising the kids?”
62
@Gerry
Well if Silicon Valley had its way, the kids would be taken care of via machine learning robots and small teams of remotely operated "caretakers" overseeing these bots also working 12 hour days. Efficiency!!
3
People like Jack Ma, don't go grocery shopping or do any other type of work regarding to upkeep your household. He has people of it.
Most people don't have that luxury.
Also, I question how much "work" these Jack Ma's actually do. They count every business dinner work, you can't hardly compare that to somebody who actually has to assemble a 737 Max or build a concrete foundation.
12
Jack Ma is arrogant and ignorant in making such statement supporting 996 culture. It shows he is a man without empathy and compassion. He should take a look at Japan's notorious long work culture and how the government has stepped in in recent years to regulate this practice to save their citizen's life and the country's declining population.
2
This is really out of context.
Who are we competing with as the planet is becoming more "linked"?
What is the rush? Is Climate Change on everybody's mind or not? Is income inequality important or not? Are workers-owned companies where we need to go? Wouldn't breaking monopolies and the Ma's, Koch's, Musk's, and others be a more rational approach to avoid oligarchies and feudal overlords?
Many people, seemingly dazzled by the pace of technology, are making the jump of thinking that everything old is worthless. I believe this attitude is a side-show that will engulf them.
In the meantime, acting rationally (whatever the meaning), we still have a plethora of battles to fight.
3
Two parts: agree that the schedule is grinding. Second, grew up with it farming and ranching where there are any number of 12 hour days. Worked a 40 hour a week job and attended both high school and college which worked out to a 16 hour day or longer, 12 hour days were a luxurious short day when I was in the military and field ecological research in the far north is like that all summer when the days are long. Sorry, there are some occupations where it is likely. It is not for everybody.
@tom
I think that farming and ranching is a different kind of work with a different kind of grind. I've spent long days caring for horses and it is physically exhausting, but the work is varied. It's a dynamic thing to work outdoors. It's not easy, and it does weed people out (or like farming, you are generally born into that lifestyle).
There is something very different about 12 hour days for a nameless corporation, spent in a cube, in front of a screen. In a climate controlled, fluourescent environment. Brain fried is a whole different type of fatigue than a worn out body. And there is no real mission when you are slugging out 12 hour days for a corporation, you are just a part of someone else making money. It's dispiriting.
My last long day with the horses, I remember having them all put up in the barn, eating their night hay. It was satisfying to turn out the lights knowing they were all settled. The end of a long day in a cube has zero reward like that.
9
The loveliest comment so far!
It’s scary to think that so many young workers spend their days in front of screens, only to go home and spend more time on screens.
And more sad, many of them don’t even realize how scary that is!
"Business leaders seem to have forgotten the lessons they learned in the past: Humane schedules benefit employee and employer alike. "
Learning is probably a bit of a euphemism for the process by which business leaders changed their product in the past. Henry Ford notwithstanding, It took a violent struggle, a massive solidarity movement, and organized legislative pressure to win concessions for the worker.
As soon as they could, business leaders fought to weaken unions and found their man in Reagan. So, I think a few did learn this, but Google and Microsoft just put foosball tables in a warm and fuzzy environment and reached right into people's pockets 24/7 so they are almost always *at work*.
Ma is not an outlying anomaly. He's a representative capitalist in long tradition that continues to this day. Just look at that odious 'the French take all of August off' Cadillac commercial.
Also, one should not discount other explanations besides the profit motive for the squeezing of workers for more sweat and blood from their brow: sadism and the pleasure of domination. Adam Smith was very good on the distortions of human psychology that led people to admire the rich and loathe the poor. If you are a worker you deserve to toil making billions for the master. 'Workers, don't you want to be like the master? You can if you work harder.'
The essential impulse of owners is (Frederick) Taylorism. In this the darker edge of human psychology and the economics of the firm coincide.
72
Henry Ford bitterly resisted unionization of his work force. On March 3, 1932, thousands of unemployed demanding work demonstrated outside Ford's giant River Rouge factory. Ford Company security thugs opened fire on the workers.
Twenty three workers were injured. Four were killed. Not coincidentally Henry Ford was awarded the highest medal a non German could receive by the Nazi government in 1938. When General Motors agreed to accept the United Auto Workers after a famous sit down strike and Chrysler did as well, Ford did not.
It was only in in 1941, when FDR threatened to give them no war contracts if they did not, that Ford finally accepted the UAW. . . . It is not through the good will of capitalists, but through workers organizing themselves and fighting the bosses, that progress for the working class can take place.
28
@Brendan
Taylor, as it turned out, fudged most of his findings, to please his corporate masters, build his reputation, and turn despised workers into frenzied automatons. If you want to see the true incarnation of Taylorism, watch Charlie Chaplin's hilarious take on it from "Modern Times".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_1apYo6-Ow
3
@stan continople
This is awesome. I was not aware of Taylor making it up. This is another great public intervention like redallover's above.
Funny, amazon is not mentioned in detail in the article.
2
Hmm. Is it any coincidence that the people making the claim that extreme over-working is a good thing are both men? Who both have stay-at-home wives?
11
Twelve hour, six day work weeks for salaried workers is only a blessing for the billionaire business' owner. It is slavery for the workers.
9
There should be no mandate for working long hours. But people who view work as a punishment need not apply for high-pressure, high-paying positions. A perfect employee should be a person who needs to be told to go home and rest, not somebody who cannot wait to get back to his Netflix. Your work should be your reason to live, and if it’s not, you’ll never be successful. I am familiar with the incredible work ethics of Chinese people, and I find it insulting and condescending for an American to offer unsolicited advice to the country who is so far ahead of the lazy, obese, opioid-ridden American workforce. Mr. Ma has created a highly successful international media empire, and I’d leave it out to his compatriots to sort out how long and how hard they want to work in his companies.
1
@Mor
You know what, I am PROUD to work an 8 hour day. I go home to work out, pursue hobbies and volunteer. I go home to walk my dogs. I take vacations to see my family and explore the world. I work on my faith and spirituality.
Success to me is having a well rounded life.
I could certainly work a 12 hour day, but I don't quite see what more I would be offering to society by being an unhealthy, anxiety written worker bee.
8
@Mor Ever been to the Peoples Republic of China? Might be time for a visit.
1
What is the point of existence if all one does is work?
6
Here is a worker's point of view on overtime. I once worked in a US Postal Service facility in Los Angeles. The men and women there had been working ten hour shifts, six days a week, mandatory overtime for three years. They couldn't afford to quit. One guy complained to me: "I see more of you than I do my daughter." . . . A worker there was killed when he fell through a hole in the floor and was ground up by the machinery. He didn't look where he was going because he was dead on his feet and half asleep from overwork. His friends told me, "Pedro was killed by O.T."!
5
The slavish workaholics seem to have lost the point of working. Unless you have equity in the outcome, there's no benefit to the absurd 996 mentality except for your boss, and his boss and certainly the CEO. Living to work is a one-dimensional, selfish life. Working to live gives one a multifaceted life with generosity to family, hobbies, personal growth and humanity.
4
That's true, NYtimes- someone has to sit home and watch Netflix and fritter away time on social media, and buy stuff on Alibaba to make the workers rich.
2
Musk “no body ever change the world on 40 hour week”
Should be “the forty hour week changed the world” The middle class society is based on work, education, welfare standards, more equitable distribution of wealth. And Why is it we don’t know the name of Toyota inventors of the electric hybrid vehicle? Musk should thank them.
5
996 does not work economically, I hope, and it does not yield a society of liberté, égalité, and fraternité, but rather a society of slavery, disparity, and hatred.
3
For endlessly decrying and fearing Socialism, these pathologically greedy, callous business leaders are only making it more and more attractive for millions.
3
So much for the proletariat rising up against the bourgeois.
1
Jack Ma's statement is like the 'cri du coeur' of communist-style capitalism - a new vision for the happiness of the masses. It is truly... irresistible.
3
Lets examine health care, shall we? Do you want that icu nurse run off her feet for eight hours? Guess what, she works 12 hours, not 8. The problem is worse than you think.
And how about the surgeon-in-training who works 24 hour shifts 80 hours per week? Do you want them cutting you open and then handing you off to the exhausted icu nurse?
Oh, by the way, the work hour restrictions that keep the resident surgeon from working longer than 24 hours in a row don’t apply to trained physicians. How about me cutting you open when I’ve been awake for 36 hours? Or longer? How about my 90-100 hour work weeks? Two reasons for this: culture (a culture of macho idiocy) and demand. The severe physician shortage in my specialty ensures that I work long hours taking care of people who need care.
4
12-hour days are a blessing. Not for the employee but for the employer. Jack Ma is an employer.
China is communist in name only. A few people, people like Jack Ma, accumulate wealth while the common man and woman work long hours to make people like Jack Ma rich.
3
12 hour days only work if you work 3 days a week.
2
Welcome to the Chinese future! And you thought Tiger Moms were scary. It was nice knowing a world dominated after the Cold War for thirty years by America, but as a recent book's title suggests, "The Future is Asian." Better read up on Amy Chua before it's too late.
1
"It even prompted a response from Chinese state media, which reminded everyone, “The mandatory enforcement of 996 overtime culture not only reflects the arrogance of business managers, but also is unfair and impractical.”" This is the response of Chinese state media? The Chinese state should be reminded that it is run by a Communist Party which is supposed to represent and protect the working people from capitalist exploitation, especially from this sort of 19th-century super-exploitation specifically denounced by Marx in Das Kapital. Outlaw the 12 hour day, Chinese billionaires are not your constituency!
1
If Ma wants his employees to work twelve hour days, he should also pay them accordingly. And as executives like to argue that they deserve their millions, because they work so hard, that should also be in the millions. Of course he won't, because the arguments about their own worths are all a lie. They just want all the money (and I mean all) and have others work for it.
65
Best comment yet!
Most tech billionaires and hedge fund managers would say the same. That they deserved their wealth and that they earned it the hard way.
But it’s a lie and they know it.
Most wealth throughout the ages was not created through hard work. Rather it was reaped from tapping into markets or revenue streams with opportunity to extract market rents.
That is excess fees or profits above and beyond the normal rate of return on your investment.
5
@Christiaan Hofman
I disagree that "he should pay them accordingly". I mean yes, overtime, but that must also have a limit. Because we all know in this world there is always someone hungrier that is willing to put in the hours.
Working so much has a pernicious effect on society as a whole. It should be allowed only exceptionally (as is the case in my country)
3
How can this article even be written -- "debating" the worth of overwork is preposterous to begin with. Overwork is the invention of the masters of out of control capitalism, those whose fortunes expand exponentially the more people who actually do the work are run into the ground. Have we forgotten we are human beings? That our forebears called "hunter-gatherers" for hundreds of thousands of years labored no more than several hours a week? They did so in an egalitarian context where all cared for all. With the advent of so-called civilization came slavery. Many wage-earners of today are not far removed from slavery despite all the high tech bells and whistles.
2
This is the exact mentality that leads to failure in life. People may wonder why Jack Ma or Elon Musk are experiencing such remarkable financial success while also on the frontlines of enacting significant change in the world. It is not because they are smarter because they themselves have admitted that they are not. It is not because they had more privileges than the rest of us because they did not. It is simply because they worked and continue to work harder and longer than the rest of us. Few are willing to accept this fact because it means that our own shortcomings in relation to these titans of industry are because of things completely within our own control like how much and how long we were willing to work. These mantras of self-care and balance are creating people unwilling to work hard and take responsibility for their own success.
7
@Jeremy They put in those hours for companies they own where they have workers who put in even more work for them. They don't do it toiling hours and hours as a mere engineering or manager for a big company where they're just another cog in the wheel.
30
Yes in the beginning the Jack Mas and Elon Musks of this world worked hard. Once they were wealthy enough to hire others the bulk of their fortunes are made on the backs of hourly workers who very rarely share in the profits even if they work 12 hour days six days a week. The workers only wind up paying more taxes on their increased paychecks while the wealthy pay nothing through loopholes their money has bought them.
98
@Jeremy: yes, if you want to start and own a company like Alibaba or Tesla, you need to log the hours and put in those hours... but the wage laborers they employ..... no. Logging extra hours so the owner can acquire an increased share of your surplus labor value.... praising this kind of work ethic is pure propaganda put forth by the corporate overlords.
Our ethics need to be put into their proper place, yes, hard work and sweat in the service of earnings we gain through ownership of our own labor output or in the creation of our own enterprise, yes, but not as a waged employee. If they want to put their money where their mouth is, convert the company into one co-owned by their employees, then the co-owners can decide to be more motivated in investing more of their time and energy in an enterprise in which they share ownership.
49
Ma says if you like you’re work, 12 hour days are not a problem. He never says that long hours should be mandatory. What he says is, if that’s what you want, it can be good. Everybody distorts his words and makes him into a monster. Fun and games in unfairly attacking the wealthy.
1
He must be criticized over this, as well as Elon Musk. Some people does thrive over this and that’s good but most people don’t: even if they do their wage does not guarantee anything beyond basic survival.
It’s the wealthy like him and others judging those who works 3 jobs over 14-15 hours per day on minimum wage to support their family on basic survival level « you are poor because you don’t work long enough ».
Encouraging this is only means cheap labour who works for many unpaid or barely paid extra hour to fill Mr Ma’s pocket.
22
@michjas
Oh, my! That's not what he meant and you know it. The 996 system he praised is a norm which has to be adhered to by multitudes of workers. They aren't volunteering for it, it's the price of having an income.
22:10 EDT, 4/21
3
Oh, poor poor Jack Ma. I’m sure he’s just heartbroken about being “attacked” in this column.
1
I dont believe in 996, but even in your article you write "After about 48 hours a week, a worker’s output drops sharply, according to a Stanford economist. Other research has appeared to support this finding. While there may be an initial burst of activity from overworking, people who work more than 55 hours a week perform worse than those who go home at a normal hour and get some rest." You use 25% and 33% more than 40 hrs a week as a baseline. Nobody (in this day) can work 40 hrs a week (except in the public sector) and expect to own a home, put kids through college, have some savings. Every private sector job is exposed to competition from hungrier and lower cost ares of the world and must adjust, we can no long pretend to have recently won World War 2 as our parents did(with the rest of the world blown up). I would save 5 10 hour days and maybe another 5 of research and/or on call is necessary (again with no competition public sector can and does offer overtime but only because no competition and we know there are literally 10s of trillions of unfunded pensions so that is not really working)
1
As said in the article, I don’t believe grinding that much will make one’s salary goes up significantly.
10
@arthur - Nobody (in this day) can work 40 hrs a week (except in the public sector) and expect to own a home, put kids through college, have some savings.
There are many people who are "salaried" and whether they work 40 hours or 80 hours they get the same paycheck. And in many of these industries there is little if any reward for the extra time as there is pool for annual increases and and average bosses aren't expected to exceed. Promotions are few. So they work longer, don't get paid more and don't get to enjoy what they do have.
3
When I practiced neurology, I routinely worked 12-14 hour days, not counting the seven or eight times a month I was on night call, where I may or may not have gotten sleep. I was the only one in my group who took Monday afternoon off after working on call the whole weekend: Friday morning-Monday morning. I was chronically tired, irritable, often downright nasty. I said then that lack of sleep was dangerous (after 24 hours awake, performance is akin to being legally drunk), but my colleagues told me "good doctors" could learn to do without eating or sleeping. I often wonder what errors I made that I didn't know about (like OKing orders at 3 am that I never remembered until I had to sign them a week or two later.) I burned out, left practice at 44 and never looked back. I'm sorry I couldn't see every patient who needed to be seen. I couldn't do that, find a balance, and remain sane at the same time. I was human, not a SuperDoc.
8
Never underestimate the ability of capitalists to exploit labor.
6
If you don't love what you do, this overwork practice just spells burnout, bad health, and inevitable work errors and wasted time. Or worse, a permanent resentment. And if you love what you do, this same practice spells the end of your creativity. The truth is no matter what you do, doing too much of it closes your mind, both because of the exhaustion that comes with an unbalanced life, but also because you have no time to expose yourself to other fields and topics that might inspire innovation. You don't get innovation by thinking about and doing the same things every day all day.
On a more practical note, working 9 to 9 means you're basically not sleeping, unless you also live at the office.
7
I've worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week and was paid very well for it with time and a half for OT. If I had an offer that paid more per hour I would ask was there OT. If there wasn't wouldn't take the job. It was miserable and exhausting but I had something to show for it when the job was over. It beat working paycheck to paycheck on a 40hr work weeks. I did what I had to do.
I found a bit of resentment regarding what I was making. A bank manager was once furious with me because I was what she described as a plumber had a larger base pay than her. I don't know as much as a plumbers so I took it as a compliment.
Can this be why so many progressive in the Democratic party resent people like auto workers and coal miners? Obama even went after contract workers. Their proper educations don't get them higher pay than a plumber?
@JoeG
Good for your hard work.
I'm a progressive Democrat who has no resentment of autoworkers, coal miners or or other hourly workers, except for when those workers vote for Republicans who consistently attack labor laws and refuse to raise the minimum wage.
Your suggestion that Barack Obama somehow 'went after contract workers' ignores the body and context of his work in fighting for better labor laws for workers.
The Republican Party's dream is to Make Feudalism and Slave Labor Great Again....and they're succeeding.
Wake up.
https://www.workforce.com/2017/01/17/workplace-legacy-barack-obama/
9
I was a senior programmer (snappy title, eh? All it means is I was salaried and couldn’t earn overtime) at a large corporation. Our paying clients were charged based on our working 40 hours / week, but project deadlines usually required 60 hour weeks, followed by 80 hour bursts near the end. The result? Predictably unreliable systems, admonitions from management, and no pay increase. Thank goodness I didn’t work for a hospital; my sloppy work only cost people money.
I missed a lot of my children’s important milestones.
The takeaway? My kids have taken lower-paying 40 hour jobs and have a life.
16
I think the key here is doing what you enjoy doing. If your work involves the talents you have, you will work with zeal and produce good results. If you are doing a job that you don't find inherently interesting or rewarding, you are working only for the paycheck. Those kinds of jobs are the ones that need forty hour weeks, plenty of vacation time, and extra pay for extra work. I've done both kinds of jobs while following my father's advice: whatever you do, do the best job you can, and you will never regret it.
2
@Jerry Blanton As general advice, I think "do what you love," is worthwhile. However, in this context it carries the implication that if employees take issue with being worked into the ground, there is something wrong with their character, rather than an issue with workplace practices. I think it is safe to say that there are bounds to what can be considered ethical workplace culture, and we ought not relieve employers of an expectation to stay inside those bounds by placing blame on employees lacking passion.
2
What a myopic view. You must be in the professional or creative class.
My question is this: how did Jack Ma go from being portrayed as a ultra benevolent boss...who treated his workers with respect...took large numbers of workers on free paid holidays etc. And was subsequently vilified by the government to becoming a member of the Communist Party and now it seems spokesperson for regressive work policies.
4
I often walk through an expensive sub-division of multi-thousand square foot homes with lovely views over the water. Only problem is that I hardly ever see any people. They are away working.
11
Let those who want to work 996 do so.
However, don't call it a blessing, nor hand out bromides about how working 996 allows you to change the world.
Most of these capitalist demigods seek to maximally exploit labor in order to achieve their fame and fortune. Some of these moguls seek to maximally exploit labor to achieve their personal dreams.
Don't believe the old lie that work will set you free.
Tell that to the worker fumbling in a dank factory or the hunched office drone in front of a backlit screen. We have mass automatization, yet we seek to return to the work hours of feudal peasantry.
What of art and theatre? What of family and friends? What of community service? The human brain is the pinnacle of mammalian evolution -- why must we pretend that we are robots?
10
There is a wide gap between workers toiling away making someone else rich and the 'pension' workers we all see, barely managing to get anything done, punching out at 3pm and collecting a lifetime pension after loafing for 20 years.
You know there’s a big difference between working 12 hours a day on your own stuff and working 12 hours a day at someone else’s stuff.
Musk (for example) is doing cool projects all the time. He makes the decisions. It’s his life. The people working for Musk are just implementing his vision.
As work, it’s qualitatively different.
Do you think Musk or Ma spend 12 hours a day staring at the same spreadsheet? No, they jump from one thing to another, their brains working on different problems constantly. The people who work for them, however, don’t have that luxury.
When I manage large projects and it’s MY project, I work longer and harder because it’s energizing and fun. But the people who work for me often have repetitive or boring jobs, where they need a break (you can’t make every job exciting, unfortunately).
Seeing that everyone has different needs seems obvious to me, but then again, I’m not a clueless billionaire.
54
@Serrated Thoughts Your first sentence articulates exactly what I was about to say.
Entrepreneurs working their own projects are driven by their own goals. They can also stop for lunch, doctor, or a kids school play on a whim.
I am an employee presently specifically because I want to work an 8 or 9 hour day, deliver as promised and go home.
I've done the 12 hour day thing as an employee. No one noticed.
12
@Serrated Thoughts
Indeed, it's a question of who does your work yield for. Ma, Bezos, Musk et al are willing -maybe must- put in the hours because they are creating something that belongs to them and yields entirely for them. Not so employees.
I saw this as a senior law associate: I quit the firm that put me through the grinder and (ironically, from a few clients that the same office asked me to take care of for a while after) realized that my hours paid my salary on the 8th day of the month. That's not counting major deals where the office received sizeable paychecks, without us partaking in any of the additional profit made through our additional work.
If Mr. Ma and his ilk think 12 hour days for 6 days a week are great, then make this an option and pay employees for this work. Oh, but that's right. Salaried employees don't get paid any extra for these hours. We used to shake our heads when we were salaried. Dividing our pay by the hours actually worked, we might as well worked at Starbucks. Getting people to do things they normally would not want to do has been the age-old task of management but now, more than ever, we see where the spoils of this toil goes; right back to the 1% and executive management. When will the American worker finally wake up?
27
I read several comments that you have to work to get it done. That extra time is required to meet a deadline or to get quantity of work done within a fixed time period.
To counter Mr. Ma there is an eons old saying that is true: Rome wasn't built in a day.
The problem is not that people aren't working enough it is that the expectations of what can accomplished within a period of time by a fixed number of people can be unreasonable.
The other thing is that it is cheaper for the company to hire one person to do 80 hours worth of work than it is to hire two. They see this as bargain even if two people would be more productive because they aren't paying for the additional time the one work spends. Typically the person isn't paid any more and they save the overhead of the second person.
Change the expectations and you change the working conditions. Reasonable expectations of what can be done in a given amount of time. Hire more people and not only will more people be employed but there will be more people who can buy the output and will want to because they will have the time to use it.
7
Mr. Ma's thinking ie 12 hour days, six days a week is what created unions to give worker rights in this country, like 8 hour work days and a living wage. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I hope that when the workers in China rise up to unionize it goes a lot more smoothly for them.
18
@Libby. The Chinese have been there done that. It didn't go well.
2
It's fascinating how Progressives continue to promote a system that promotes prosperity without personal accountability. Pay people to not work is now the latest version of this. We live in a hypercompetitive world. Of course it is not necessary to constantly work. It all depends on what your personal goals are. Progressives seek to tax work to force everyone into the lower middle. As a serial entrepreneur with a degree of success, I tell my kids, become educated, never stop learning, be the 1st at work and the last to leave, be an A+ at your jo and u will be amazed at the outcome. As a 1st gen American, work was simply not a burden. My father retired at 79 and my mother at 73. They loved working. Growing up, they relished their careers. Unlike, the "Fred Flintstone" mentality of work is bad, clock out at 5:00pm and look for early retirement, the drive for success is not a burden. I work 60 hours/6 days per week no longer for financial reasons. I started at 14 delivering 100 papers a day at 4:30am . I dont suggest that everyone will be as fortunate as I have been but the underlying theme of the entire debate needs to change. Work is 1/2 of your waking life. To keep promoting that it is somehow bad and burden, undermines, demeans and is simply not the path for the average person to succeed. Instead, we will have a group of entitled people, outsourcing their success to some fantasy world that won't come to pass.
2
@Chris You really need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. It has hardly been suggested that people get "paid not to work". Rather, increasing efficiencies which will sharply reduce demand for workers is what is driving this idea. In other words, there will be fewer jobs available, so we, as a society need to find a way to allow folks to live a basic life when no jobs are available.
As for your working six days a week. Are you actually working? Or are you avoiding other aspects of your life?
27
@Chris . "They relished their careers." Career is different than Job. Working in an Amazon warehouse is a Job. Building a business, or working on your latest book is a Career. The intellectual activity involved in a career provides constant replenishment of energy and pleasure at pushing the project forward. Pushing boxes around will get tiresome after about 30 minutes, one would guess.
11
@ Chris, I'm happy for that you have found your personal fulfillment in all those 60 hour work weeks. I only hope you don't hold a grudge against those who also work to support themselves and family, but at a less frantic pace. Not everyone uses the same yardstick to measure their life. Personally, I hope to retire early and use that time to pile up more life experiences vs. pulling up more money.
7
Seems to me, these individuals, whom by the way benefit the most from their employees subscribing the "work more" theory, hold a belief that we "live to work". I personally don't accept that theory and fear that a society that does will eventually self-destruct. I am not sure I every understood the mindset that follows this believe. Shouldn't we instead "work to live". Meaning that we work just enough so that we can provide the means required for a fulfilling and meaningful live outside or work with family and friends. Is it important to create more widgets or to share more experiences with those we love?
12
@Joe Agree with your sentiment, but unfortunately the countries that have the most commercial success are all those with a "live to work" culture. None of the European countries, where "work to live" cultures predominate, are close to being world leaders, and in fact are falling further behind (Germany the exception). The challenge is that in a world that is competitive globally, those societies whose people work the hardest/most are the most productive. Whether they are happier is another question.
So, what jobs are we talking about? Who gets this 'good' jobs? As technology, robotics and automation take over more things we 'do' in the future, how will we employ this world?
Ah, the self-proud billionaires that never have anyone say 'no' to them (and if they do, that person is fired, demoted, investigated, etc.). We're a joke of a world led by billionaires. If we're so lazy and apathetic politically, then maybe we deserve this madness.
The 40-hour workweek was fought for over 100 years ago. Workers, unions, real citizens bled and died in the streets. Surely we've progressed more and probably could use a shorter workweek of say, 30 hours or so. Life is so much more than work (sorry, billionaires).
Fight for people. Fight for a balanced life, even self-actualization. Together. Equal. And maybe, to do this, we'll need to tax billionaires out of existence (they've gamed this system long enough).
25
I absolutely love my job and have for years - and work 60+ hours a week. And I have a great family too.
Where does this argument fit for people like us who love our work?
2
@Putter. I wonder how your family likes this. Who takes care of things at home, especially if you have underage children(?)
While I was busting my hump each day so I could get out by six, I was often bothered by the idle chit-chat of those who would stay until 8.
22
While I agree in general, I also think that it is pure nonsense to ignore how in the private sector many who are salaried put in more than 40 hours. I do, and so do my peers. While success does not exactly match hours put it, failure to push (so working only the set hours and then going home) will lead to career failure.
Also in purely hourly environments, where overtime is paid, workers definitely make more if they work more. When I was much younger, I enjoyed the extra dollars I earned with overtime.
Of course some jobs like nursing may really push one to the limits. But this piece simply does not acknowledge or accept the real world.
2
In my career in information technology, every time managers demanded long hours, a lot of short-sighted decisions happened, and productivity and moral declined.
14
Mr. Ma obviously has never had to look after children and hold down a full time job at the same time. As a mom, I can say I work a 12 hour day everyday - 8 to 9 hours at my full time job plus my early morning and evening shifts as a mom for 4 to 5 hours.
30
To have just a 40-hour work week a lot of things would have to change in society, not just in business. For one, working parents would need to be able to manage personal life complexities that must be done during the day: so being at work, and actually work - two different things. Compound this over the entire team, and what you have? Effective 4 to 6 hours a day at best. Let the business allow the time out, and let the society organize such that one can handle the personal chaos. Then talk.
But do not mis-represent the view of those who started up some things with their passion. Would you criticize DaVinci or Picasso for "always working"? The Meek shall inherit the Earth... Let's acknowledge that the mediocre will find a glib argument to preserve their middleness.
1
@Marek Minta Remind me: which corporations did DaVinci and Picasso work for?
Not everyone wants to make work their life. Many can balance their work and personal lives if their employers drop the expectation that more hours equals better results.
16
@Marek Minta
Actually, if you look at Picasso and other high achievers you will find they actually don't work long hours at a stretch (especially writers). They work hard, with great concentration but the real reason for their productivity is that they have control of over their time/schedule. They can pace themselves to do their best. This is not something the workers are Alibaba and other companies can do.
32
Well said, Marek!
.
What nobody seem to realize, or care about, is that for every person who says “I’m done” and bolts right at 5 every day, there’s someone else in the office who has to pick up their work and carry it to the finish line. That other person would LOVE to eat lunch with friends and dinner with family every day; go to little league games and tuck in the kids (or go out dancing or whatever it is the bolters do). But we can’t because we’re doing their job!
1
British experience during World War II also supports Bryce Covert's argument.
The British government required 70 hour workweeks when it began spinning up its economy for World War II.
It later lowered weekly hours toward 40 hours. Result: total production increased.
You can't get blood from a stone.
So why do so many corporate managers push 996 culture? Alan Haigh, who comments below, has an important insight: employees working 996 may get less done, but they also are less able to organize. Managers want a docile workforce, and will work their employees to exhaustion to get it, despite some lost short-term efficiency.
29
In the United States, thanks largely to the American labor movement, the 40 hour week and a requirement for overtime pay became law in 1940. Like the rest of the New Deal's safety net, there are those who would love to strip them away and return to days of the late 19th century when 996 was the norm across the industrial world. We have a "weekend" because of unions and their ability to get laws like that passed. It's been 80 years, and watching people being forced to work multiple low paying jobs to survive I don't think it will last another 80. Without collective bargaining, without the ability to hold owners and management accountable and bring equity to a negotiating table the average American worker is pretty much defenseless. We've even seen trial balloons over the last few years to roll back child labor protections. This may well be our brave new world for the workers, especially since unions have become so effectively demonized. Welcome back to the time of Charles Dickens.
34
Changing the world by buying more plastic junk from Amazon or Alibaba that I don’t really need is not the type of change I want to contribute to.
14
This made me laugh out loud!
So heartily agree. Already astonished at the amount of ‘junk’ accumulated in my home already.
In fact, it’s scary going to the store and seeing only the same things, sold over and over again. In different colors and styles.
I speak from first-hand knowledge. Employees in China put up with these insane hours because they have no choice if they want to keep their jobs in a very competitive work environment.
Top level managers at one prominent Chinese tech company all bring sleeping bags to the office, saying they are too tired to travel home at night on the weekdays.
People who work for Jack Ma, China's slave driver par excellence, are known to bring tents and sleep in the plaza in front of Alibaba headquarters.
One story though really sums this up for me. Someone very close to me was working as senior management in a company in Beijing. Several top managers went on a business trip to Australia with the boss.
The boss of the company was shocked when the company they were doing business with in Australia told him they couldn't meet on Sunday because it was a day off.
Consequently, the boss and the management of the Chinese company decided to take a trip out to the seaside. They came to a beach resort where people were swimming and sunbathing. The boss' comment? "Look at all those poor people laying there with nothing to do. They must be out of work."
Need I say anymore?
45
@JHM True, but China's attitude towards work is the reason their economy saw the most rapid growth the world has ever seen and brought hundreds of millions out of poverty. Better to work 60 hours a week making money than 80 hours a week farming and making none.
Over the 41 years of my working life, there were many times when I worked 50 and 60 hour weeks because I enjoyed what I was doing and the challenge of getting a positive result. I also have worked in a job where technical staff were pushed continuously to work ridiculous hours, as one "high priority" projected turned into another, then another and so on. Eventually, staff started to burnout and become less effective or quit to work in a less stressful environment. I took me a while to see the truth in the saying that "No one's tombstone will ever read "I wish I had worked more"".
48
The real benefit of exhausted workers is they have no time or energy to organize for fair wages or even sort out lies from facts when deciding who do vote for in a democracy, IF they find time and energy to vote.
If per worker productivity declines somewhat, it is more than made up for in saved wages.
Remember kids, what's good for plutocracy is good for America!
42
"If we find things we like, 996 is not a problem," Ma said in a blog post Sunday on Chinese social media site Weibo. "If you don't like [your work], every minute is torture," he added.
I don't see anything wrong with this statement. When I worked in some top American companies as a researcher, we routinely worked 996 on project deadlines. Nobody forced us to - we just loved our work.
1
@Madre You might have worked 996 on some projects - as did I - but it's doubtful you did so for 12 months per year and for decades. I know I did not. And actually, come to think of it, on projects that I enjoyed it was more like 5 & 1/2 days; rarely full 6 days.
7
@Madret, check your privilege. He’s not talking about projects with deadlines and working extra hours on those occasions. He’s talking about 996 being year-round, for even (or especially) the lowest-paid employees, the ones who typically don’t love their work but merely rely on it for their family’s existence. It’s completely ridiculous and inhumane and is something US workers had to fight tooth and nail to change in this country about 100 years ago.
2
@Madre. If you loved it so much, why did you limit yourself to working so much only when projects were due?
1
I live in Beijing China. I moved here because I couldn't find any good opportunities in America, but was given an offer straight out of grad school to teach at a private company. When I got here, I started working essentially 996 because I saw opportunities to grow the business through that work that I would not have been able to do on a normal schedule. I was recently promoted to manager after 20 months because of success during that time. I received no raise for this. At the same time, there was a crackdown on hours worked to try to get back to only 40 hours per week, and during that time I found I just could not do my job duties effectively, so I've gone back to working 6-7 days a week and closer to 60 hours than 40. Things are getting back on track again.
From outside the rat race, obviously its bad. From inside the rat-race, if I want to better my life, what choice do I actually have? If I want to move up in the world, I have to work this hard, and all I can do is hope one day maybe I'll be compensated appropriately. The alternative is just to give up and accept that there is no opportunity to ever rise above my caste. I'll take the pseudo-hyperreal version of social mobility in the hope that one day, times will change and it will mean something for me too.
6
@ Danny P who lives in Warrenburg and Peking— nice commute there— says he’s a member of a caste. Odd for one. And his stated heads down under the lash attitude is highly difficult. Is he actually Mr Ma?
1
@Danny P
At some time in the future, when and if you have time to think beyond the destination of "corporate success", you will realize the journey sucked and beyond a fancy office, you really have nothing meaningful to show for it. All the money in that Jack Ma now has was not made by his working 996, but rather when he could con or cow others to work 996 for him. His workers, i.e. you, are simply replaceable widgets. He may throw you a bone here and there, but he is not about to share his billions with robotic widgets who do his bidding. Rather, learn the trade and do your own thing if it's money and glory you seek. If its family and personal emotional enrichment, jump off the hamster wheel and run away as fast as you can.
@Danny P
At some time in the future, when and if you have time to think beyond the destination of "corporate success", you will realize the journey sucked and beyond a fancy office, you really have nothing meaningful to show for it. All the money in that Jack Ma now has was not made by his working 996, but rather when he could con or cow others to work 996 for him. His workers, i.e. you, are simply replaceable widgets. He may throw you a bone here and there, but he is not about to share his billions with robotic widgets who do his bidding. Rather, learn the trade and do your own thing if it's money and glory you seek. If its family and personal emotional enrichment, jump off the hamster wheel and run away as fast as you can.
There are many different reasons why people work long hours.
Obviously mandating the '996' practice as a company policy doesn't seem exactly inviting, but forcing people to work less isn't the solution either. Statements such as "Business leaders like Jack Ma have to get with the program, too." seems just as draconian.
I, for one, work long hours simply because I enjoy (for the most part) what I do. I would feel listless with all the free time if I were to only work 9 to 5.
3
@Tim - "forcing people to work less"
"forcing people to work less"
I had to read that several times. Especially as it located in "Europe" where vacations are a much more serious matter than in the US.
Forcing people to work less. How dare they?
Of course the real issue isn't forcing people to work less its those who are forcing people to work more than is productive, reasonable, and healthy. There is simply no logic in it.
9
One should also consider the masses of Americans forced to take one or more 'side hustles' in addition to their full time jobs just in order to survive. Everyone knows about wage stagnation affecting the majority for literally decades. The founder of Ali Baba is surely an unsavoury slave driver, but it's all really par for the course for millions of Americans who have no choice but to submit to extortionate rate hikes on the part of landlords, institutions of higher (l)earning and internet providers, just to name three.
17
Amidst all the condemnation of Ma and a sterling work ethic, there isn’t a single mention in the article nor the comments acknowledging the fact that Alibaba just repelled the mighty Amazon from a large sector of the online retail market in China. Jack and his workers must be doing something right.
2
@From Where I Sit
What Alibaba did right was get a long head start on Amazon, which was very slow to get really serious about building its business in China. By the time Amazon got started, Alibaba and others already controlled the market. Perhaps Amazon was counting on the cachet of its brand, but why would people in a country as large as China want to buy domestically produced products from a foreign company when a local one is already providing good service? Sometimes big American companies seem to think that their brand name is all that's needed to take over a new market, but that is often not the case.
7
Yes they enlist the communist party elite through shareholding and the state bureaucracy to protect Chinese tech startups from America competition, from whom they copied the “inventions”. Ma may like to play the Guru, but the thrush is more nuanced.
1
I work in a high pressure business environment where from time to time we have to close deals worth hundreds of millions, and people in my team work 12 or 13 hours; with business travel I’ve often packed in 14 hour days.
But there’s a thing - we have a short burst of energy with the high motivation and adrenaline that comes from the big business deal (and the rewards to follow). We’re not grinding 12 hours a day, every day, for little money and no hope it will ever end, like Jack Ma expects his people to work non-stop while he becomes obscenely rich. That’s what people like Ma or Musk don’t understand - that given a big incentive and a clear goal, anyone can put in a big burst of working hours. To expect people to grind away every day of their lives with no respite, no goals, no hope for a better future - that’s just slavery.
This culture of overworking is totally unnatural and exists only to make billionaires richer, it has nothing to do with achieving better outcomes or “changing the world”.
130
@Andy
Ma refers to workers involved in production. Those on managerial or sales obviously have different time and spaces required by the nature of their functions: supervision or larger scale deals. These fluctuate with flexibility. Not so much for the people involved in assembly, manufacture, or now days the health care industry
6
@Andy
I agree with the short bursts are OK, but extended overwork is not. Once a very important project on top of my usual responsibilities required long hours seven days a week for an entire month. By the end of it, I could hardly think straight, and my work depends on a clear and agile brain. I never again underestimated the importance of time off for productivity, to say nothing of sanity.
25
What Ma and Musk want is to increase the absolute surplus labor time (or the time that employees work gratis despite the appearance of being paid). This method was used throughout England before the introduction of large scale industry. Machinery and assembly line increase the relative surplus labor by means of increased productivity, which has the advantage of increasing profits to those who introduce new technology first. When everyone catches up, this advantage disappears and the rate of profit goes down.
To boost the rate of profit, now that relative little investment goes into new technology given enormous capital available, these tycoons want to revert to 19th century methods and increase the absolute surplus labor.
11
Oh, it's a "blessing" all right - to Jack Ma and others like him insanely hoarding wealth for no reason that they have ever articulated in any sensible way.
The rich will grind us all down in the service of their never-ending greed until nothing is left. Then they will will wake up the next morning with the same thought: MORE
49
This article and others take Jack Ma's comments out of context. He says people who work 996 are people who are trying to change the world, like the folks at Alibaba. He said if you don't want to work 996, then don't come to Alibaba, one of the top companies in China. He's not saying it's for everyone, but that people who can work at Alibaba, who want to change the world, are the lucky ones. I'd agree.
3
@Robin Not really seeing how that's taking Mr. Ma's comments out of context. The implication in Mr. Ma's message, as short as it was, is that those who can't keep up with the draconian 996 can't work at prosperous companies, can't be as successful as Mr. Ma, can't change the world. I'd say that's a pretty harmful message and simplifies work to quantity over quality.
20
@Robin Not really seeing how that's taking Mr. Ma's comments out of context. The implication in Mr. Ma's message, as short as it was, is that those who can't keep up with the draconian 996 can't work at prosperous companies, can't be as successful as Mr. Ma, can't change the world. I'd say that's a pretty harmful message and simplifies work to quantity as quality.
1
@Robin How are the folks at Alibaba changing the world? Jack Ma's employees are assisting him in keeping his wealth. How is that changing the world?
1
I have recently been on a project in a branch of my firm that prouds themselves of being hard workers, working overtime, working almost every weekend, and 12 hours a day.
The colleagues were tired. They drowned in work items, but weren't able to take a step back and look at the big picture. They got sick and cured themselves with heavy medicines instead of curing themselves by allowing their bodies and minds the rest they needed.
My team was able to maneuver out of the project and not too heavily contaminate our other work with it. After a short while we figured that this project will be a train wreck, because Noone was there to think clearly, prioritize correctly, and work productively on the defined requirements. Instead things were done half heartedly, repeatedly, and often thrown away.
My team was happy when it was back to 40 hours, "doing" less, but getting done more, while having a better life at the same time.
28
Want full employment?
Try 20 hour weeks for truly livable wages, 20 hour weeks for "service" (there is enough to be done, certainly!) and the remaining 128 hours in a week for rest, family, recreation.
Gosh, a humane society! I would never work for an Alibaba...
19
Jack Ma’s 996 ethos reflects what we have done in the US in earlier eras, in which we encouraged the first immigrant generation to sacrifice itself for the benefit of later generations. I abhor Ma’s ethos while also acknowledging that I would not be here were it not for my grandparents’ sacrifices.
7
This sort of lunacy is not unique to any culture, except that of wealth.
Many years ago a newly elected state leader of Victoria proposed that workers should be required to work back-to-back 12 hour shifts with no overtime or penalty rates. He suggested that after an eight hour break workers should repeat the exercise as long as required. This was to meet shortages of professional and semi-professional workers such as nurses and public health scientists.
The 'grand initiative' only failed because he had no way of coercing people to his will. The same shortages he was trying to alleviate prevented his victims being fired and replaced.
18
SO much for "work harder, not smarter." What we should be asking iw: why not a 30-hour week. Example: Decades ago, I learned to program a computer on punch cards, then wait to review printed output. The productivity gain made with the switch to terminals for input and for viewing out put increased productivity by hours a day. None of this was reflected in our pay.
15
Well said. With all this new technology, we ought to be happy to restrict the hours needed to make a living, given that there are so many other things (call then hobbies) to enjoy life. If Jack Ma wants to sacrifice himself to the altar of 'slavishly' hard work suggests to us he has no family life and no interest in intermingling socially to improve his community. This would be a sad precedent after the Unions sacrificed so much in installing human rights and decency at work.
13
Who cares what a card-carrying member of the Chinese Communist Party thinks? Any supposed business acumen that he might claim to possess is belied by his active participation in an oppressive dictatorship. His business success is as unremarkable as that of the Sultan of Brunei, and his supposed work ethic more resembles Mao’s memorably disastrous Great Leap Forward than any wisdom to be received by an actual business leader in a free market.
34
@NorthernVirginia In other words, he's not supposed to be winning because he has an incorrect ideology. But like it or not, he is.
1
@Edward Why is he winning, because he's wealthy? At what cost? He hasn't won anything.
4
I believe the issue is that Elon Musk and many of his type of tycoons in the US believe this. I doubt any of them are Chinese Communist. And in addition to this, the Communist Party’s official communication doesncondemn the 996,
1
Some context is required here....
Alibaba is a Chinese company, and prior to twenty years ago there were no opportunities for upward mobility at all in the country. None.
As such, I can imagine the older generation of Chinese rolling their eyes when they read of the complaints regarding 996. I have no doubt that everyone from the older generation would gladly trade places with the younger generation. Opportunities to work at Alibaba and Tencent (and Facebook, Google, Snap, Tesla, etc) are indeed a privilege and one not to be taken for granted...
3
@Chin C
Likewise, the opportunity for a business owner to have a skilled (or even a semi-skilled) labor force is a privilege that should not be taken for granted. The right way to determine what is best for both the owner and the employees is for them to sit down and work it out together. It sounds like Ma never asked any of his employees anything.
14
@NeilG
How do you and anyone who never visited Alibaba know ANYTHING about their corporate culture? Not everyone in China works 996 but in the top tech companies they often do - just like in top American tech companies!
Maybe you should read about Jack Ma, and the circumstances from which he arose? And learn more about his commitment to the company and his fellow employees, the hours he and his team put in, the ingenuity, judgment and execution they brought...
Through sheer grit and determination he provided rewarding careers and financial opportunities for literally tens of thousands of people...opportunities that no Chinese could imagine in prior decades....
It’s always the mega-rich who push long work days and work weeks, and it them who vastly profit from them as well. The ‘inspiration’ is a modern form of whipping the workers to work more, with the false belief they will obtain riches by working longer. But they themselves did not get rich from working longer. All of them made a ton of money at a young age by putting together a great unicorn deal and the right time in history. Their competitors failed, dozens of dead businesses lining the gutters, and they naturally developed the survivor bias, attributing their vast luck to more some idea of hard work rather than skill. If they would have quite working after they made their vast bundle they would be sitting around bored on a beach with only their fifty years ahead of them reflecting on how lucky they were instead of how hard working they were.
40
I own a successful small business and even for me after about 50 hours per week I’m not productive. I’ve also found that happy employees are productive employees. I pay my employees the highest wages possible because after all, they’re also consumers. It’s good for the economy. They all share in any bonuses as it’s a team effort. I strongly suggest they take a vacation every 6 months (they get 2 weeks a year plus 2 personal days). I pay for furthering their education plus they get their salary while attending any professional courses. I’ve seen my business grow a third in size in just 3 years after I implemented these policies. People like Mr Ma have no life aside from their business and that’s their problem. How can you have a life working 996?
87
@Mike L I love most of your comment, but 10 days per year plus two personal/sick days is not enough vacation! I don't see why US companies can't catch up with the rest of the world - average in Europe is 4 weeks per year.
9
@Mike L
Don't worry. Perhaps Mr Ma can develop a 'side hustle' in the form of a pharmaceutical stimulant his ant workers can take to remain swift and productive. He could take a cue from another totalitarian state -- Nazi Germany -- whose immoral scientists developed methamphetamines to allow bomber pilots longer missions up in the air.
3
Don't pat yourself on the back for 2 weeks a year. 4 weeks minimum is a start. People have lives, if you can't afford to start them at 4 weeks, perhaps question why your employees' time is worth making you personally richer.
1
The answer to the problem can be found in one sentence: :" As strong unions pushed for a 40-hour workweek in the 1800s, business leaders who acquiesced found that their companies became significantly more profitable and productive." And everywhere in the United States we have found the systematic destruction of Unions,beginning with Reagan's breaking of the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981 and eventually resulting in the rise of the current gig economy - from Uber and their ilk to the adjunctification of teaching. But I guess it is okay because we are now all "independent contractors," "entrepreneurs," or running so hard we don't have time to think about organizing and fighting back.
73
@tomg " or running so hard we don't have time to think about organizing and fighting back." Spot on! even before the recession, there was this attitude by employers that employees should just be so glad to have a job that they should be willing to do anything and everything asked of them with no question.
Consider an employee working in a company where their Department used to have 6 people, and then 3 are laid off, and the remaining 3 are expected to do the work of 6 people with no additional compensation. The psychological warfare is making the 3 remaining people think they're fortunate having to do the work of two people for one salary because it's better than having no job. There's also the implied fear of asking for a raise that comes when employees see older, higher-paid workers being pushed out & replaced with kids so desperate to pay their rent and student loan payments they'll work for the bare minimum.
8
May, 1886, Chicago: Haymarket Square, Chicago police martyred workers who struck for the 8-hour workday and for decent working conditions.
Decent working conditions were won at the cost of martyred lives. It is ironic that a Chinese industrialist would go back with 996 to exploitative times, when Karl Marx had called to humanize the workplace.
29
A nonprofit I work for used to not give merit pay. Everyone got the same 3% cost of living raise every year. Then they switched to merit pay and for that first year I took on more tasks, worked more hours. My initiative was rewarded with a 1% raise.
Now I push my chair away promptly at 5 and go home. You want to pay me the bare minimum, that's precisely what you'll get in return.
118
@JB
JB merit pay doesn’t mean more hours and more tasks - it has to do with the quality of what is produced. Working more hours on more tasks with mediocre results isn’t going to get you a merit pay increase.
2
@JB Interesting comment. I work for a company that's about to embrace high performance work teams. I've thought since the beginning that this is a terrible idea and still do. They're busy telling people that if you learn how to do a bunch of things, you'll make a lot of money. In the first place we don't have the ability to train folks...not enough employees, and then there's the question of the criteria that will be used for pay increases. Whole thing sounds great for the corporation, not so much for us.
8
@H Silk - If you have a good team you might make more money. Every team I was ever on was given one or two low-producers for us to drag around. The company got their production based on the rest of us working like maniacs, and our team-based pay was kept down at the same time, due to 'points' lost each week for their mistakes. Win/Win for the company. When I proposed the low-producers be put together on their own team, it was explained to me they'd have to fire them then. They always showed up to work, and therefore could do "enough" as long as we carried them.
Cross-training can also be great for, and it can also be terrible if you're in manufacturing. Some jobs and machines are so complex, with raw materials everchanging, it takes years of doing them every day to become expert. Employees in constant rotation is a nightmare in those circumstances. The crosstraining upside for employees is variety, and in the right company (huge point) they will be valued. It took me thirty five years to find a company like that, and we got good pay hikes with every skill we added to our repertoire. I stayed with them until I retired. Best of luck to you.
3
There is also a fallacy of aggregation: If all workers in all firms work "996", who is going to buy all the output that these firms produce.
For any one firm, it is better if workers produce more. Though it is doubtful if they do if they work until dropping just about dead. But, if all firms make workers work "996", workers with no time to enjoy leisure, or vacation, or education, or free time, will probaly spend less.
15
Long hours are encouraged by the
senior managers to get more out of few.
They don't want to hire more people,
pay full salaries and benefits. Salaried
workforce doesn't get overtime. Long
hours decrease pay/per hour. However,
it is unproductive. Tired employee with
tired mind loses ability to think clearly
and make more mistakes. Correcting
the mistakes is a waste of time. Fresh
and energetic employees are more
productive.Family life has to be sacrificed to keep the job in private
corporations. Imagine an executive
leaving work at 9PM gets home by
9:30. Young children are asleep by
then. Children don't get to bond with
father or mother or both ( if both are
working professionals).What negative effects it will have on children? It is
a high cost to pay at the alter of capitalism.
29
@s.khan. Exactly! Several years ago I was paid a yearly salary, but on an hourly wage. I had to punch a clock everyday. When I was promoted, I was placed on salary. I was still required to punch a clock, but was now expected to work additional uncompensated hours. An average of 15-20 extra hours per week plus travel time on court days. My increased salary worked out to an extra 75 to $80 per week after taxes. But almost all of that went to additional child care and dry cleaning since I had to trade my wash and wear wardrobe for business suits. After about a year, I realized that my promotion and raise had left me exhausted and in a bit of a financial hole. And I still couldn't afford health insurance . Ironically, I made that same extra $80 working four hours of overtime on a Saturday before the "promotion."
1
Alibaba has flourished in a country with an abundance of desparate people who are willing to sacrifice their lives to escape the poverty of the countryside. This paper's stories about factory conditions a few years back was quite an indictment of China's private-public economy where workers live in dorms, are required to work whenever product arrives, and then long shifts without vacation days. Jack Ma obviously devalues human life because the suicide rates at these factories is much greater than Japan or the USA.
This is what happens when the CEO is disconnected from the experiences of his/her employees.
22
This “996” work week is obviously only a blessing to the vulture capitalists. An entrepreneur might want to work that hard to grow his/her business but an employee working for somebody like Jack Ma? Seriously, what planet are these people from?
We have entered a period of increasing environmental catastrophe, likely irreversible, and likely ending in our species extinction. The last thing we need is ever more production. What we really need is a 954 week, 9-5 work day, four days a week, followed by one day to do chores, buy groceries, etc, and a 2-day weekend sabbath for earth’s sake with no commercial activity and only emergency services open. I know, I can hear the capitalists saying, what planet is HE from?
142
I do remember when all stores - all stores-were closed on Sundays. It was a law then, maybe? I wish we would go back to that. I like your idea.
26
@Itsnotrocketscience When I was a kid in the 60s, all stores were closed on Sundays, and I asked my parents why. "The 'blue' laws," they said.
12
@J. Palmieri Exactly. Why work so hard to make someone else rich? Much better to use the extra time to build your own skills and/or business.
9
There is work and there is work. The occasional "do not stop until it gets done" is OK, but as a constant work diet, it will produce just the opposite and what is desired.
A worker who identifies with company, product or institution, who is treated well and respected, and given a chance to catch his or her breath will produce more than one who works non-stop. That will just kill the worker, but breed hatred and contempt before that; that is more expensive for everybody
8
Jack Ma is absolutely right, but in fact 14 hour or 16 hour work days are even better. These are the hours that ALL members of the richest .01 percent should have to work, to address income inequality across the globe. Bravo to Jack Ma for advancing this progressive policy issue and I would happily volunteer to oversee his hourly contribution.
22
The problem is that company managers have all the power and workers can either "deal with it" or go find a new job.
That's why companies will then promote clerks to "assistant managers" and then force them to work 80 hours a week doing the exact same job as before.
18
This “40 hours a week and I bolt” mentality is actually very damaging. I’m not arguing for a 70 or 80 or more hour week. But there is a number of hours needed to do a job and do it well. Shortchanging it is a recipe for disaster. Doing a slipshod job so you can dash away from your desk right at 5 will come back to bite you; and if it doesn’t bite you it will bite your boss, or your successor in the firm. (I’m speaking from experience here).
.
And what about teamwork? Refusing to take on a project or a task because you need your beauty rest, or you think it’s beneath you, or whatever, only means someone else will have to pick up your slack. I know because I’ve been that person on too many occasions. I vowed that when I am an employer, this won’t be tolerated.
.
Again i am not arguing for 70, 80, or 90 hour weeks. I’m only saying that shortchanging your work is bad, too. If you need 45 or 50 hours a week to do a good job: take it! Don’t try to rush to get done in 40. Don’t refuse to do the work and leave it in your teammates hands. Do the work and take the time to do it right!
4
@ZAW The work that needs to be done is determined by the boss, no? When the boss messes up and sets a deadline that works for him/her but not the employees, exactly how is the boss punished for the mistake if the employees keep bailing him/her out every time?
25
@ZAW, I have done activity based
analysis. The main finding was that
lot of time is wasted on activities
that don't add value.In many
companies there are umpteenth
meetings. Managers often rush
from meeting to meeting. The
subordinates don't get to see their
suprivors to discuss issues and
get guidance. Decisions don't get made in a timely fashions. These
managers try to catch up later
in the evening working till 9PM.
They are considered hard workers.
They waste times sitting in meetings
whole day. companies need to
examine what is being done and how. Eliminate wasteful activites
and spend time for real work. Get more done in fewer hours.
12
@ZAW wrong, wrong, wrong. My experinece in office work is that anything over 30 hours a week is dawdling. When I reduced my hours from full time to 24 to 32 hours a week, for which I was rewarded with increase health insurance cost and reduced in-time service credit, my work load stayed the same, and it got done. When I'd leave the office, co-workers would josh me, "luck!" to which I relied "wanna trade paychecks?" as far as I was concerned I was paying my employer to go home. In terms of quality of life,it was worth, btw, I was very good at what I did.
11
Once people win something that improves their quality of life, it never stays won, unless the victory is remembered and defended from one generation to the next.
The benefits of the New Deal, the Great Society and Civil Rights have been under attack since the plutocracy remembered what use to be and began reclaiming the share of wealth, income and status that they considered to be rightfully theirs, as laid out in the Powell Memorandum of 1971.
22:00 EDT, 4/21
32
It can't be true for all jobs, but I think many people, including myself, could accomplish the same amount in a more focused 4-day workweek. A company in NZ recently tried a 4 day week while paying employees the same, to great results. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/02/no-downside-new-zealand-firm-adopts-four-day-week-after-successful-trial
The 5-day week was an incredible labor victory at the time. But why stop there? So many of us would surely benefit from more time with friends, family, or simply time alone outside of work.
16
Fine, spread the word around Silicon Valley, but does the author or anyone commenting about their opinions actually know any Chinese? My in-laws are Chinese as are a significant population of my city. The Chinese work constantly, even those I know do not have to still do, for their work is their identity. Many are surprised when I tell them I am going on vacation, as it seems to them a complete waste of time.
2
@Paulo I somehow doubt this, considering that the Chinese now comprise the largest segment of tourists. This would not be possible if they considered travel a waste of time. The case of your in-laws might be anecdotal.
1
I propose the next generation of the Ice Bucket Challenge: CEO's spend one entire week doing the job of their median paid employee, live-streamed for the world to see. If they can't even survive a week then they surely don't deserve their salary and can donate it to the nonprofit of their choice (or better yet, their company's labor union).
37
@Carrie "CEO's spend one entire week doing the job of their median paid"
Actually there was a TV show that provided great insight into the "skilled" CEO and "unskilled" work that supported his and his fellow executives pay: Undercover Boss. A business book was also published with the same title.
While the boss may have thought of it as a way to find problems and problem employees it was often revealed that the boss often didn't understand what it really took to do what C-suite expected and the conditions people worked in and that most problems originated at the top and flowed down, but at the bottom.
7
@Carrie
You know there was a TV show that did just that, called "Undercover Boss" and it was amazing how inept at basic jobs the CEO was, like the Norwegian Cruise Lines CEO who couldn't handle the simplest jobs on his own cruise ships.
3
Many studies show that fatigue clouds thought. It's why we enforce rest breaks for air crews and truck drivers.
One good example is Elon Musk. To get Tesla Model 3 production going, he put in longer and longer hours - and his decision-making ability suffered.
As we automate more and more tasks, humans are expected to be more and more creative and innovative. That's simply not possible when you're routinely working 996. Fatigue errors mount, and poor decisions result when one works those kinds of hours.
If Mr. Ma is himself is working those kind of hours, his judgement is affected - which may be why he thinks such work hours are a "blessing."
8
Working very hard for extended periods can be a kind of blessing, or a curse, depending on why one is doing it. The Jack Mas of the world have everything to gain and nothing to lose by encouraging their workers to spend every last ounce of time and effort in their service. But for what? To make it worthwhile to devote that much to any enterprise, one has to have a motivation beyond simply hoping Jack Ma agrees one is a is a hard worker. One must be genuinely and personally invested in the process, must genuinely want to be there. Time and the ability to exert effort are all we really ever have. Working oneself to death so that some zillionaire thinks you have a good enough work ethic is, when you step back from it, ..... kind of crazy, and pretty sad.
11
I think what these business leaders really are saying is that to be really successful at anything, you have to work really, really hard. Whether it means playing basketball non-stop, practicing ballet until you can’t stand, going to school for that extra degree and sleeping 5 hours, or looking at excel spreadsheets until your eyes are bloodshot. It does not mean being a drone, doing the same repetitive job that anyone can do. It means taking your life by the horns and controlling it. It is a lot easier to allow life to control you. I I think a lot of the commenters here realize that, but don’t like what that implies.
3
@John Visco Uh, no. Ma absolutely wants the drones in his company to work hard to make "him" money. He couldn't care less about their self-actualization.
This is one more example of vulture capitalism. And this is yet one more reason why we need to constrain it and push back with the help of regulations and unions and public opinion.
What is needed is not untrammeled capitalism but progressive capitalism. Markets work wonders, but they need oversight. This is beautifully captured by an accompanying column in today's NYT by Joseph Stiglitz:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/opinion/sunday/progressive-capitalism.html?
18
I wanted to comment on this as I see it everyday. In my residential relationship, I see the abuses an employer can put a person through because, as you age, finding new jobs is really hard, especially if you get a better wage than most.
My outlook of getting more education and going for success for you and a nuclear group does not ring well over here, it is a totally different culture that has been well bedded in "do as you are told". The fanaticism of China's Jack Ma is shared by some of the really wealthy but SE Asia is not like China, it is not do it or die like in some Chinese areas.
I am a proponent of hard, smart and long work but only by me, for me and not asking it of others. I still want to be more successful but would never work for a Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk et al. I work, study and exercise strenuously 7 days a week - for me, my personal enjoyment of knowledge and getting things done. I have enough capital and resources I can tell those oligarchs to get lost.
Normal people should have time to wind down, most need it. There truly is a loss of top management people who see healthy balanced employees as the best assets a company can have. In my opinion. A really good leader wants that.
12
See what happens when you take the Calvinist mentality to its logical extreme?
You're only worthy of having a decent life if you're willing to work you fingers to the bone and beyond. If not, you don't deserve it, and no one will help you obtain it--if you're not rich, or at least affluent, it's your own fault, as you are obviously not working hard or smart enough.
And so the holders of this mindset--the oligarchic Social Darwinist libertarian types who think they've made it entirely through hard and smart effort, without any acknowledgement of the structural supports, inherited wealth/privilege, and even luck, that contribute--think the rest of us should be thankful we're even allowed to exist (mostly to serve them), because we certainly aren't going to improve the world--though we might improve their wallets (the real goal all along).
114
@Glenn Ribotsky The great irony behind the Calvinist mentality is that work is our punishment for Adam having eaten of the apple. If not for that, we would not have to toil for our bread.
1
Whenever someone brags about how his success is due to hard work, it is always worth asking "whose hard work?"
285
@sjs - certainly one point of view and i respect that sjs. it's true that anyone's success based on hard work always involves others but my experience, with white collar workers at least, is based on 1/3 working really hard, 1/3 doing enough to not get fired, and the last 1/3 making life miserable for the other 2/3. and finally, most of the hard workers i encountered were "rowing too hard" to be bragging about much of anything.
2
My father knows what Mr Ma means, and also what Mr Ma knows but does not say. My father used to work long hour as an employee early in his career. His salary did not increase much if any over his grind.
When he finally decided to open his own company he puts in a lot of hour at first until he can hire a lot of people doing the grind for him and he can do a 4 hours workday for decades, all while his personal wealth goes up significantly. He tells me never to grind if one is a mere employee.
From my father’s experience, all those who grind those long hours as employee does not gain the benefit of the industry, one barely survive. Only the owner of the company does.
Don’t ever accept anyone coerce you to work crazy hours, sacrifice your life and health, it doesn’t worth it for most part except if it’s your own company.
183
@Charlene Exactly. You echo what I mentioned above. Work hard for yourself - and do what you need to achieve your goals as an employee, but don't kill yourself for someone else's company.
14
It's a blessing for The Man's bank account, not for the workers. America's culture of living to work, instead of working to live, isn't much better. Too many employees are treated like cogs in the wheel, are threatened with replacement if they try to stand up for themselves, and often pushed out after age 50.
67
Blessing indeed, for whom? For Ma and his ilk, of course!
I can't believe in this day and age there are influential people who even think like this! Think nothing of exploiting fellow human beings for personal gain. Cannot or would not see beyond quarterly earnings.
One could argue, this relentless march to automation and artificial intelligence is driven by this desire for endless productivity benefiting a few. I am not saying this is a conspiracy, but the result of the values that drive the capitalists is looking and smelling like one. The monarchies, the oligarchies, the slave owners, the industrialists, all seem consumed by this mantra of exploiting labor like a piece of machinery, to be simply replaced when broken. Skimping on the 'grease' that makes it work better, longer and more efficiently. Seemingly not realizing that they are your very customers, ultimately!
Naturally, the worsening inequality foments anger, resistance, even revolutions. You have to wonder, does it have to be like this? Does it?
Whatever admiration I had for this man is gone. Not that he cares anyway!
12
I worked 996 for 30 plus yrs.
It worked for me.
My best W2 was 986 k.
I also know the 2,000 employees below me were not and would not have been rewarded or lived well that way.
Jack Ma is right in that HE found and finds it rewarding.
He is WRONG if he thinks the 99% are rewarded by his plan.
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It's been my experience that employees with well-rounded lives do the best jobs at work. They are efficient and creative and get the job done. That means that they have lives outside of work, but when they come to work they bring a freshness to it.
Spending too many hours at work leads to inefficiency, burnout, and a lack of creativity. People need sufficient time off to renew themselves --- develop hobbies, be with people they love, get physical exercise to stay in shape. Now that I've retired I will never say, "If only I spent more time at work." On the contrary. I wish I'd had more balance in my life.
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@FiddlerPhoebe
I work hard, but I know that I reach a point where I am just spinning my wheels. I can't get any of the brain/creative work done that I'm paid to do. I usually switch to the more brainless jobs like filing, etc, but after doing that for a while I start making mistakes there too. Then I go home, get something to eat, take a walk, do a little reading, and get a good nights sleep. You can't keep up a relentless pace; you make mistakes. I wonder how many disasters were cause by overwork, exhausted workers.
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@sjs Not exactly the same thing, but you are correct, some of the worst industrial disasters (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, Union Carbide in India) happened at around the 3 am mark, which is when the human body is at its lowest in terms of biology, and we should all be asleep. And driving while tired is similar to driving while drunk. Humans are not robots.
10
Completely agree. It’s pointless in the long run.
I believe grinding on long hours just to grind like in Alibaba’s case means overworked and tired workers for most part, causing possibly high rate of burnout, constant tiredness and lack of productivity. Some people do thrive in it, but not all. This should never be forced on everyone. We are undoing all social progress done in the last century. This is not okay, this is not what makes a country to progress, this is pure exploitation of workers that does not get Mr Ma’s income no matter how many hours they will be able to squeeze.
I disagree completely with Mr Ma’s philosophy and had decided accordingly to stop any future purchase on Alibaba or any company associated with Mr Ma.
22
I do agree with the sentiment in the opinion piece that working 12 hour days can be counter productive but I have found that not to be the case for me. I work in accounting for a big box retailer here in the Seattle area for 8 hours and then I report to my "side hustle" in the afternoon for the local public transit outfit and do another 4 hours. I've been at my full time gig most of my working life and added the part time work about 9 years ago. It may not be ideal but both jobs pay well and in addition to my 401k from the full time work I'm adding a part time state pension from the part time job. The additional income has done wonders for my wage earning bottom line and my schedule is consistent and predictable with every weekend off. I have also been able to invest in some rental property as well. And the fact that conservatives are working overtime to destroy what's left of the social safety net (Medicare/Social Security} it gives me a sense of well being to be preparing for my future in these uncertain times. Former President Bush would have called me uniquely American.
6
That’s good for you but not everyone thrive on this condition, not everyone has the liberty to do this. Some people goes home and have to take care of their kids, aging parents, disabled spouse, or are battling with illness that makes it difficult to put on 70h week.
It’s a good idea to give extra compensation to workers who choose to do this voluntarily but this must never be forced on everyone like what Mr Ma is implying. A living wage on reasonable hour, and extra pay for those who chooses to commit to longer hour. That makes more sense.
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Thank you Charlene and you are correct it's not for everyone. And I have been fortunate that I have been able to make this work.
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@Craig D. Eakins
Once I had a crazy schedule like yours and I know there is a big difference working 12 hours at 2 difference jobs than working 12 at one job.
6
We’ll, the concept is a good one for the owner of a company, not necessarily all the minions working in the trenches. The American workers pay has continued to go down over the past thirty years, while productivity has gone up. Who’s the real winner in the 996 scheme. Maybe one guy in a million ends up getting the brass ring. The other 999,999 folks wake up one day and say, “Where did my life go?”.
Ma and his ilk are latter day P.T. Barnum’s scamming the masses. Except they’re not scamming someone out of a quarter, they’re scamming someone out of their life.
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I agree... when I first read his remarks I thought, who doesn’t enjoy that kind of “slave worker” when you can underpay them and make off with most of the profits. Your employees live in tiny apartments while your high rise is cared for by a fleet of people. He doesn’t cook his own meals ...buy groceries, wash clothes or run his kids around. He is a perfect picture of a modern day Marie Antoinette. Total and complete separation from reality.
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@J
Sounds a lot like Trump!
6
Most people who put in 12 hour workdays are not changing the world; I doubt if they're even changing their underwear. Among them are those who do so out of some necessity, or more likely, coercion, but there are also the true believers, the chumps who wake up every morning chanting the company mantra. These are the ones you've got to watch out for, the quislings and backstabbers.
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@stan continople - what a sad commentary on your work experience stan. for 42 years i woke up looking for opportunity for myself and my clients; my company would benefit as well. and when i ran into malcontents and negative thinkers - i stabbed them in the front looking right at them - and they deserved it. finally, some people - like those on commission-based compensation - have to work long hours. perhaps you could consider their point of view.
It is so comedic when "writers" (think BoyNee) pontificate on big new firms .. without having actually created said big new firms.
You don't think you have big ideas, fine, find a regular job and follow. And get out of the way of others, please. Thanks.