996职场文化触发“摸鱼”潮,中国年轻人找到了偷懒的方式
2021-02-04 后羿A射日 31280
正文翻译

An online movement is pushing back against the country’s ferocious work culture of long hours for seemingly little gain

中国正在开展一场反击野蛮的、效率低下的职场加班文化地网上运动。

On the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, enthusiastic slackers share their tips: fill up a thermos with whisky, do planks or stretches in the work pantry at regular intervals, drink litres of water to prompt lots of trips to the toilet on work time and, once there, spend time on social media or playing games on your phone.

中国微博平台,那些激情昂扬的逃避工作的人正在分享他们的小技能:热水壶里装满威士忌,每隔一段时间去午餐室做平板支撑或伸展运动,多喝水多跑厕所,抽空刷一下社交网络或者玩会儿手机游戏。

“Not working hard is everyone’s basic right,” said one netizen. “With or without legal protection, everyone has the right to not work hard.”

一位网友说:“不努力工作是每个人的基本权利。不管有没有法律保护,每个人都有不努力工作的权利。”

Young Chinese people are pushing back against an engrained culture of overwork, and embracing a philosophy of laziness known as “touching fish”. The term is a play on a Chinese proverb: “muddy waters make it easy to catch fish”, and the idea is to take advantage of the Covid crisis drawing management’s focus away from supervising their employees.

中国年轻人正在抵制根深蒂固的加班文化,践行一种被称为“摸鱼”的懒惰哲学。这个说法是由一句中国谚语“水摸鱼”改编而来的,目的是借新冠肺炎疫情的契机,转移监督员工的管理层的注意力。

The author of a viral post at the centre of the conversation, Weibo user Massage Bear, described “touching fish” as a life attitude.
“[It] is a life philosophy of perfunctory living, letting go of oneself and others at the same time… and that’s the key to living in the moment and being relaxed,” she said.

微博用户推拿熊(Massage Bear)的一篇帖子引起了网热议,推拿熊将“摸鱼”描述为一种生活态度。
她说:“摸鱼就是敷衍着随便活一活,放过自己同时也放过他人……这才是活在当下、放松的关键。”

Some make a game of it, Quartz reported, aiming to be the employee who uses the most toilet paper, or getting up from their desk whenever any other colleague does.
The deliberate slowdown at work marks a cultural shift among younger generations who are pushing back against unhealthy work hours for little gain, and not seeing the opportunities for upward mobility experienced by their parents.

Quartz网站报道称,有些人把摸鱼当成一种游戏,游戏目标是成为使用厕纸最多的员工,或者只要其他同事离开办公桌时他就站起身来。
这种故意拖延工作时间的行为标志着年轻一代职场观念的转变,他们正在抵制工作效率低的不健康工作时间,而且看不到他们父母经历过的上升机会。

“The fundamental reason for me to do that is that I no longer believe that I can get a promotion in my current company by hard work and ability,” said one Weibo user.
“There’s a joke in the tech industry, if you work hard before 35 as engineer in a food delivery company, then after 35 you are the delivery guy,” said Suji Yan, a 25-year-old chief executive of a tech startup mask.io.

一名微博用户表示:“我这么做的根本原因是,我不相信现在的公司还能通过努力工作和能力得到晋升。”
“科技行业有个笑话,如果35岁之前在一家送餐公司当工程师,而且努力工作,那么35岁之后你能当送餐员了,”25岁的科技初创公司Mask Network CEO阎晗说。

“I’ve heard of people being fired after 35 because they spent less time in the company, because they have families to look after and they have less energy than the younger people.”

“我听说有人在35岁以后被解雇,因为这个岁数的人在公司待得时间少了,他们要照顾家庭,而且这个年龄的人也不像年轻人那么精力充沛。”

The “touching fish” movement has a sense of humour, but behind it is a deadly serious issue. Recent deaths have again highlighted the dangers in China’s “996” work culture – a reference to working 9am to 9pm, six days a week at a minimum, particularly in the tech industry and among food delivery drivers. The 996 attitude is widespread, despite labour laws saying work should be limited to eight hours a day, for an average of 44 hours a week.

“摸鱼”运动颇有幽默感,但背后却是个极其严肃的问题。最近的死亡事件再次凸显了中国996职场文化的危险,996指的是工作时间从早9点到晚9点,每周至少工作6天,尤其是在科技行业和送餐员。尽管劳动法规定每天工作时间应限制在8小时以内,平均每周工作44小时,但996仍然很普遍。

Media reports include anecdotes of employees being offered bonuses or fold-out beds for under the desk if they work overtime, fines for missing phone calls, and even signal blockers in bathrooms to stop employees using their phones while on their toilet.

媒体的一些报道就提到,如果员工加班就能得到奖金,有的公司会提供行军床放在办公室,员工如果不接电话会被罚款,有的公司甚至在洗手间安装信号屏蔽器,防止员工在上厕所时使用手机。

“It’s not that I don’t do my job well,” said one Weibo user.
“Touching fish to resist 996 is nothing more than a kind of nonviolent non-cooperation in a harsh working environment and a difficult process of safeguarding rights.”

一位微博用户表示:“并不是我工作做得不好。”
“上班摸鱼抵制996,其实是在严厉的工作环境和维权难的背景下的非暴力不合作。”

In December a 23-year-old employee of e-commerce giant Pinduoduo died after working past midnight, the company confirmed earlier this month. While her death hasn’t been formally attributed to overwork, the company attracted furious backlash over the expectations put upon employees, and it was exacerbated further when earlier this month an engineer – surnamed Tan – took his own life.

本月早些时候电子商务巨头拼多多证实,去年12月,该公司一名23岁的员工工作到深夜后死亡。虽然并没有确定是劳累过度导致的死亡,但该公司对员工的要求引起了外界强烈反对,本月早些时候,一名姓谭的工程师自杀,情况进一步恶化。
原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Shortly afterwards Pinduoduo also fired an employee, named as Wang Taixu. Wang said he was fired after posting a photo online of an ambulance parked outside the company’s Shanghai officer building with the caption “another brave Pinduoduo warrior has fallen”. Pinduoduo reportedly disputed his characterisation of the medical incident and said Wang was fired for “extreme comments made with obvious malice”, violating company rules, and unrelated to the ambulance video. But another video which he posted after he was fired, criticising the intense work culture at the company, was viewed nearly half a million times according to Sixth Tone. Pinduoduo denied the accusations in the video.

不久之后,拼多多还解雇了一位名叫王太虚的员工。这位员工说,他是在网上发布了一张救护车停在公司上海办公楼外的照片后被解雇的,他对图片的描述是“又一个勇敢的拼多多战士倒下了”。据报道,拼多多对此进行了否认,称王某被解雇的原因是“发表了带有明显恶意的极端言论”,违反了公司规定,而与救护车视频无关。但据第六声(澎湃新闻国际版)报道,他被解雇后发布的另一条批评该公司紧张的企业文化的视频观看次数达到了近50万次。不过拼多多否认了视频里的指控。

Yan said companies got around labour laws in globally familiar ways: hiring people as contractors rather than employees, and incentivising people like delivery drivers to work long hours more often, with bonuses and games, rather than forcing them to do it.

阎晗说,好多企业都会采用全世界都熟知的方式规避劳动法:尽量聘用合同工,而不是正式工,通过奖金和游戏等方式激励快递员等频繁地加班,而不是强迫他们加班。

He said as a chief executive he understood the pressures companies were under to increase output, but disagreed with the systematic culture of overwork, and saw the touching fish movement as a form of safe resistance.

他表示,作为一名首席执行官,他理解企业面临的提高工作效率的压力,但却不认可加班的系统性职场文化,他认为摸鱼运动只是比较安全的抵抗方式。

“People do that because they have no way of talking to the management.”

“人们没有办法与管理层沟通,所以才出此下策。”

Current leading business people are still fans of 996. Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, has said the practice is key to being successful in competitive industries. Xibei Canyin chief executive, Jia Guolong, said people should in fact be working “715” (15 hours a day, seven days a week). In 2019 a Huawei executive boasted that employees asked to work past 10pm. But it has drawn opposition from state media, including Xinhua news and the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

现在的商界领袖仍然是996的粉丝。阿里巴巴创始人马云表示,996是在竞争激烈的行业取得成功的关键。西贝餐饮的首席执行官贾国龙表示,人们实际上应该工作715(每天15小时,每周7天)。2019年,华为一位高管自豪地说,员工要求工作到晚上10点以后。但这遭到了包括新华社和《人民日报》等官方媒体的抨击。

Yan said the tech industry was having a reckoning with how it was enabling the 996 culture, for example by building the technology which exploits delivery drivers. Github, a software development hosting site, has a project called 996.ICU (work 996 and you’ll end up in the intensive care unit), which documents companies enforcing excessive overtime. Yan suggested the project, co-created by his wife Katt Gu and other IT developers and to which he contributes, was in part a way for engineers to make amends.

阎晗表示,科技行业正在思考如何实现996文化,比如打造剥削快递员的技术。网络开发托管站点Githu有一个名为“996.ICU”项目,如果996,你就会被这个项目记录在案,可以对强制执行加班的公司进行记录归档。这个项目是由阎晗的妻子顾紫翚和其他IT开发人员共同创建的,他也参与其中。阎晗说,这个项目在一定程度上是工程师弥补过错的一种方式。

“There are more and more engineers who are like the Github starters and want to contribute something to society, not to create algorithms to kill more delivery guys,” he said.
“There’s progress. I think my generation, when they become employers and CEOs they’ll have more humane ways of management, they’ll try to fix the system.”

“越来越多的工程师像Github的新手一样,想要为社会做点贡献,而不是创造算法来杀死更多的快递员。”
“有进步。我认为我们这一代成为雇主和首席执行官时,会有更人性化的管理方式,会试图修复这个体系。”

评论翻译
pboddie
Any company that "needs" people to work overtime as part of its basic operating state is just badly run by idiots (and generally terrible people) who use exploitation to compensate for their own poor management practices and, frequently, miserliness.

任何以员工加班作为基本运营状态的公司,管理人员都是一群白痴(通常都是很差劲的人),他们剥削员工来弥补自己糟糕的管理做法,而且通常都比较吝啬。

aldav99
I have lived in China for the last 20 years. You just described a Chinese working environment in a nushell. Overtime is unpaid, mandatory, and many people (including my wife) often work 80-90+ hours per week for a 40 hour salary. She has Master''s Degree and struggles to make more than £1000 a month. It''s awful and I feel for young Chinese trying to make a living and better themselves in such a toxic environment.

我在中国住了20年。你刚才简单地描述了中国的工作环境。无偿加班,强制加班,很多人(包括我妻子)通常每周工作80-90个小时,可是却拿着40个小时的工资。她拥有硕士学位,要很努力工资才能挣超过1000英镑。这太糟糕了,我为中国年轻人在这样恶劣的环境中努力谋生和改善自己感到难过。

JernauGurgeh
715? Utter lunacy.
It sounds like China needs to embrace socialism.

715?完全精神失常。
听起来中国需要社会主义。

Bill254
Asians are very work focussed in general. I have had Indian bosses and I have seen Chinese overseers of construction works (infrastructure projects in Africa) and they are very demanding and think any subordinate that does not see work as the sole purpose of life as lazy. My greatest fear is that this is how it will have to be because it is the only way to produce cheaper things otherwise local companies in Africa and the West will never compete against Asian businesses. I think this is an important reason why globalization has led to falling wages in the west. For whatever reason, people in Asia are willing to work very hard for very long hours for very little pay.

总的来说,亚洲人非常注重工作。我为印度老板工作过,也见过建筑工程上的中国监理(非洲基础设施项目),他们非常苛刻,认为不把工作视为生活唯一目的就是懒惰。我最大的担忧是,他们这么做也是不得已,因为只有这样才能制造出更便宜的产品,这样非洲和西方的本地企业永远不能与亚洲企业竞争。我认为这就是全球化导致西方工资下降的重要原因。不管出于什么原因,亚洲人都愿意工作很辛苦,工作时间很长,工资却很低。

Langsdorff
"I think my generation, when they become employers and CEOs they’ll have more humane ways of management, they’ll try to fix the system.”
If only that was true. Unfortunately, the only way they will achieve becoming CEO''s is by dancing to a different tune than one that''s concerned about the welfare of others.

【我认为我们这一代成为雇主和首席执行官时,会有更人性化的管理方式,会试图修复这个体系。】
要是真那样就好了。不幸的是,唯一能让他们成为CEO的方法就是改变自己的立场,而不是关注他人的福利。

woopsgroink
''Touching fish'' brings to mind my twin daughters when they were toddlers.
There''s a large hot house in the local park. In the house there''s an ornamental pond stocked with large goldfish. A hand held just above the water brings the fish close enough to the surface to be gently touched.
''Can we go and pat the fish, daddy?''
Happy days.

摸鱼让我想起了我的双胞胎女儿蹒跚学步的时候。
当地的公园里有个大温室。温室里有个养着大金鱼的观赏池。手刚好放在水面上就可以把鱼拉到足够接近水面的地方,轻轻抚摸它。
“爸爸,我们能去拍拍这条鱼吗?”
天伦之乐。

klaatu_barada_nikto
I burned out badly around my early thirties. I enjoyed working long hours, but I gradually, and then suddenly, realised that I''d effectively removed any semblance of a personal life from the equation.

我三十出头的时候,每天上完班都精疲力竭。我喜欢长时间工作,逐渐的习惯了这种状态,后来突然地意识到,我可以把我的生活中涉及到私人的生活剔除掉。

After a while it became a vicious cycle––I worked longer hours because I couldn''t bear the emptiness that confronted me whenever I went home, or at weekends.
I regret doing this very much. It took a year off work, as well as medication, to even begin to right the ship.

一段时间后,就形成了恶性循环——我的工作更长时间了,因为我无法忍受下班回到家或者周末向我袭来的空虚感。
我非常后悔这样做。后来休息了一年的时间,吃了点药,我的生活才恢复正常。

MadorKallan
It was discovered in Victorian Britain that the harder and longer people worked after a certain limit, the less productive they became, mistakes, accidents, lack of concentration etc. It seems all that has to be learned again. Over time lessons of the past eventually get forgotten.

在维多利亚时代的英国,人们工作越努力,时间越长,达到一定限度后,生产效率就会变得越低,出错、事故、注意力不集中等问题都会出现。好像这些过去的经验教训需要重新吸取。随着时间的推移,过去的教训最终会被遗忘。

names3
been happening in japan a long time
But there''s one uniquely Japanese term you don''t want to relate to: karoshi, which translates as “death by overwork”. Reports of the nation''s corporate breadwinners, known as “salarymen”, dropping dead from overwork have been making headlines for decades.

这种事在日本已经发生很久了
日本有特有的术语,你肯定不想把两者联系起来,那就是过劳死(karoshi),翻译过来就是“劳累过度而死亡”。几十年来,美国养家糊口的企业“工薪族”因工作过度而猝死的报道一直占据新闻头条。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


macdanny
But Japan is a far far nicer country. In every way

但是日本这个国家要好得多,各个方面都是。

osliving
Don''t be fooled. Depression and anxiety is rife in Japanese daily life but it''s locked away behind closed doors. Tatemae has a lot to answer for when it comes to the nation''s mental health.

别上当了。日本人的日常生活中抑郁和焦虑在很普遍,只不过都被隐藏起来了。谈到国民的心理健康,日本绝对是表里不如一。

Toleco
I don''t think so. Having visited both China and Japan I would say whilst Japanese people are politer, they are less sincere and you can''t form genuine and deep friendships with them like you can with Chinese people.

我不这么想。中国和日本我都去过,我想说的是,虽然日本人很有礼貌,但他们不太真诚,你无法像与中国人那样与日本人建立真诚和深厚的友谊。

John_in_Kent
In every way? I suppose you were being ironic? At least I hope that you were.

在各方面?我想你是在讽刺吧?至少我希望你是。

Michikusa
Yeah, people think that if they visit. Once you''ve lived there for a few years and experienced the sheer brutality of the average workplace, with its long hours and bullying as standard, you soon change your mind.

是啊,如果人们到了日本,确实是这么认为的。不过当你在日本生活了几年,在绝对无情的普通工作场所待过,长时间工作和被欺负成为常态,你很快就会改变主意。

prometheusunbound
One of my earliest memories is of falling into my great-uncle''s pond trying to touch the goldfish. I''ve been disinclined to ambition ever since.

关于这一点,我最早的记忆之一就是掉进叔祖父的池塘去摸鱼。从那以后,我就没有什么远大的志向了。

Serenoa
So you failed to touch fish?

摸鱼失败了?

prometheusunbound
Succeeded in nearly drowning. My dad was minding me at the time and he got a complete bollocking from my mum apparently.

差点淹死。我爸爸当时很关心我,很显然他被我妈妈狠狠地骂了一顿。

graperattle
Having spent some time working with tech companies in China and sometimes working out of their offices, it''s a very strange setup. The 996 seems to be more about appearances rather than actually getting work done - I would say from my perspective there wasn''t any more output than a standard 37.5 hour week here. Lots of long meal breaks, the after-lunch nap (this is probably something that would be actually useful here!) and in general the days felt disjointed and hard to get into a rhythm.

我曾在中国科技公司工作过一段时间,有时在他们的办公室工作,这是一种非常奇怪的安排。996似乎更注重形式而不是实际完成多少工作——我想说,在我看来,没有比标准的每周37.5小时工作时间的效率更好的了。他们的用餐时间很长,午饭后还有午睡(这可能会很有用!),总的来说,这让人感到脱节,很难再进入节奏。
原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The people I worked with were all pleasant and pretty fun - but the workplaces generally a bit depressing, quite poorly lit and with inadequate HVAC to cope with the heat and humidity. The queues for lifts were something else! You''d waste 20 mins every day getting into the building and up to the right floor.

和我一起工作的人都很愉快,也很有趣——但工作场所通常有点沉闷,光线很差,没有足够的暖通空调来应对高温和潮湿。排队等电梯则是另一回事!你每天要花20分钟才能进入大楼,到你想到的楼层。

GerardArduaine
I bet there are many in the Conservative party who would love to impose a 996 culture on the British work force.

我敢打赌,保守党有很多人愿意把996文化强加给英国的打工人。

CongenialOptimist
I lived and worked in China for a couple of years and didn''t come away with the feeling that the Chinese worked hard (at least those in a white collar, office setting). They might be forced to sit at their desks for long hours but, in my experience, at those desks they were frequently asleep, browsing Taobao, or watching videos. Very little work actually seemed to get done!

我在中国生活和工作了几年,我并不觉得中国人工作努力(至少那些在白领、办公室人员)。他们可能会被迫在办公桌上坐上很长时间,但是我遇到的情况是,他们经常在桌子上睡觉、浏览淘宝或观看视频。几乎没有怎么工作!

MrStath
This is because if you expect people to work longer hours, typically less gets done because concentration starts to slip, etc. Shorter shifts tends to enhance productivity, there''s been studies, including stuff like a four day week.

这是因为如果你期望人们工作更长时间,通常会因为注意力不集中而导致完成的工作更少。有研究表明,更短的工作时间可以提高生产力,比如一周工作四天。

UnironicBeard
Workers everywhere, rise up against this needless toil and misery! And the day of the sloth will surely come!

世界各地的工人们,起来反对这种不必要的辛劳和痛苦吧!懒惰的日子一定会到来!

gomshall
Curious that people often complain about being treated like a machine. Machines are lovingly cared for, serviced regularly, not allowed to overheat or subjected to too much strain and turned off at night. I dream of being treated like a machine.

奇怪的是,人们经常抱怨自己被当成机器人。机器会得到细心的照顾,定期维护,不能过热或过度劳累,晚上还得关机。我做梦都想被当成机器一样对待。

stooze
Having lived and worked in China, the saddest thing about this over-working culture is that it turns many innocent, little, happy-go-lucky 3/4 year olds into imagination-less droids by the time they are about 7.

在中国生活和工作过之后,这种过度工作文化带来的问题是,许多天真、无忧无虑的三四岁的孩子到了7岁左右就变成了没有想象力的机器人。

I''ve seen it and even met and talked to a good few.
Really early rise in the morning, school for 7 or 8am, sometimes 12 classes a day (often taught by rote) - home for dinner, study, sleep. Repeat. Even at the weekend.

我就遇到过这种情况,还和好多人聊过。
孩子们每天早上起得很早,早上7点或8点就要到学校,有时一天上12节课(通常是死记硬背),回家吃晚饭,学习,睡觉。日复一日。周末也是这样。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Me and the lady used to play with the little ones in parks - all wide-eyed and hilariously happy, chasing bubbles, playing with toys etc...
A few years later, it''s almost like their childhood is being brainwashed out of them.

以前我和一位女士常常在公园里和小孩子们一起玩,孩子们都睁着大眼睛,开心极了,追逐泡泡,玩玩具……
几年后,他们的脑子里好像被抹去了童年的记忆。

Hassellhoffmeister
My first job out of school was in a warehouse with a satanic "you must be working every millisecond" manager. Down the back of the warehouse, high in the racking was a load of dead or slow-moving stock. So we hollowed out an "igloo" for illicit kips, card games and the odd beer. 25 years later on a plane saw the film "Employee of the month" where the characters were doing the same thing. Made me chuckle.

我毕业后的第一份工作是在仓库里,我们邪恶的经理是那种“你一毫秒都不能闲着”的人。仓库的后面,高高的货架上放着一堆死气沉沉的或移动缓慢的货物。所以我们挖了一个“冰屋”,在里面偷懒睡觉、玩纸牌、喝啤酒。25年后,我在飞机上看到了电影《月度最佳员工》,片中人物都在做着同样的事情。我乐了。

Squarethecircle
It seems to be the same story wherever on this world. People made to work silly hours for the benefit of the upstairs 1 or 10 %, disguised under whatever paint of "incentives for longer hours", making employees self employed aka pushing responsibility downstairs without giving them freedom in decisions, just forcing them "either you do it or you are out of a job". What for, is the question. Only money? More money? Growth of the economy? I am so tired of this, the world is facing climate change and currently Covid ravaging but still upwards faster faster we go. Do we have to?

世界上所有地方的情况似乎都是一样的。不管说得多么天花乱坠,其实就是鼓励人们延长工作时间,为1或10%的社会顶层创造利益,说要让员工自我雇佣,其实就是把责任推给底下的人;让他们自由决定,其实就是告诉他们,要么工作,要么走人。为什么要这么做。只是为了钱吗?为了更多的钱?为了经济增长?我已经厌倦了,世界正面临着气候变化和新冠肺炎的肆虐,但我们仍然在大踏步的往前走。我们有必要这么做吗?

Supermassive
There was a story in China around 10 years ago about a young lady that died from overwork. She was with one of the big four accountancy firms, I don''t remember which one.
But here''s the kicker. When she was in hospital, hooked up to intravenous drips and pretty much on her deathbed and surrounded by her family, her employer visited to bring her the tasks she was behind on. Her family essentially told them to fuck off.

大约10年前,在中国曾经发生过一件事,说是一位年轻女士劳累过度死亡。她在四大会计师事务所之一工作,具体不记得是哪一家了。
让人意想不到的是。她在家人的陪伴下,躺在医院奄奄一息地接受静脉注射时,雇主来看望她,还把她没有做完地工作交给她。她地家人当场就让他们滚蛋了。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


很赞 4
收藏