Background

996.ICU is going virally, against the 996, any way out???

“Every existence exists its reason ...【存在的即是合理的...】”

• ~250k**Stars** ~20k**Forks** ~5k**Watches** @github
• 2nd @gitstar-ranking
• Numerous medias including but not limited to the listed

You would instantly know what does all these mean if you are a developer or familiar with open source world.

One step further, if you are one of the folks mentioned above who happens to know the fancy word 996 which is a popular specialized terminology in the morden capital-driven China software industry, you would probably be under the so-called blessing of the crazy 996.

Despite the seemingly unstoppable popularity, ironically, the 996.ICU project has almost nothing to do with software source code. Instead, it's about the radical work schedule, 9am-9pm-6workdays, which has been a de facto standard of conduct among a large majority of the Chinese IT-driven companies. Going back to the year of 2007, I was fortunately under blessing of a project for Alipay, the feelings of the experience is still fresh in my memory like yesterday's. In recent years, it's not rare to hear tragedies of engineers in ICU(Intensive Care Unit) or even death due to the overly fatigue from the intensive working. You wonder how ... I wonder why ... They wonder haha ...

Except the haha, as a person who has been there and done that, let me try to explain.

First and foremost, I think only God may know on earth, so I'm just doing my best to make my litte voice.

Here's the story, as shorten script, in my half-reasoning and half-guessing:

YY: “This is the year of 1999, the great wave of the Internet tide driving mainly by capitalists and engineers, has just been landing on mainland China...”

...

JM the Founder&CEO: “Let be no hard business in the world!!!”

18Lohans the Practitioners: “No idea what is he talking about ... But he has been so passionate and energetic that anything could be distorted ... let's try as hard as we can and see ...”

YY: “After countless days and nights of extremely hard work, a B2B website for engaging sellers and buyers has emerged and started acquiring big attraction. By the way, at the time of being, most Chinese people may not have seen a computer, and far less than those minorities have ever heard of the name of Internet or website.”

JusticeS the Investor: “This relentlessly resourceful tough team and its business sounds great to invest!”

...

YY: “After raising money, the team has been expanding quickly, mainly with engineers ...”

MSN the Engineers: “All our days and nights are paying back, let's go much harder for going really rich, and moreover for the great vision we are settling down!”

KPI the HRs&Managers: “Performance means growth, and growth means everything, let's inspire with much more carrots&sticks and ensures effective propagation of pressures. Work-life Balance? What r u talking about???”

YY: “Time flies ... This is the year of 2007 ... Alibaba B2B IPO ...”

CLS the Society: “Come on! Cheers! Well done, heros!”

DSS the Entrepreneurs: “Oh, this is amazing, let's do anther version of Let be no XXX in the world!!!”

...

YY: “Time flies ... This is the year of 2014 ...大众创业，万众创新...中国梦...”

...

BAT the Engineers: “Oh, sh*t!!! Everywhere 996, our job is too hard to sustain but look, any other chocie out there??? Anyway, we are paid pretty well, and our families are counting on us!!!”

Newbie the Engineer: “...It's 9am in the morning, my first day, I'm glad to be about 15 minutes earlier and almost no other teammates have arrived yet... It's 1pm, I'm so tired and sleepy due to meetings after meetings in the morning and the quick lunch, let me have a snap like other folks before doing the piles of tasks assigned to me... It's 5pm already, time goes like a flying arrow, but thanks to it that I can go home now, oh wait, my leader is still there, his manager is still there, everybody is still there... It's 6pm, the free working dinner is not bad, let me go on to the remaining tasks, like all others... It's 9pm, my girlfriend has called me several times, let me go now since finally there are folks leaving...”

YY: “...梦之蓝...”

...

YG-PF-CJ the Engineer[Outlier]: “...Why should 996 be such a popular program?...The system is in any sense not user-friendly!...Cities have become so crowed, the comute to office has been eating up more and more of my precious scarce time left from 996!...It sounds naive and foolish, anyway, let me try to build out a vision of Let be no hard commute to office and hard office in the world!!!...”

YY: “Time flies ... This is the year of 2019 ... Alipay, Alicloud, Cainiao, ..., Alibaba has become a worldly giant ... Looking at YG-PF-CJ ... Struggled for building virtual office, succeeded a bit on a MVP(Minimum Viable Product) but failed on raising money to continue!... Struggled trying workaround as co-founder for virtual desktop, succeeded a bit as a startup CTO but failed to continue leading it due to lack of interests and skills on dealing with all the complexities of people!... Struggled trying numerous other workarounds but not even a potential success yet... It seems like that the fighting against 996 is way far too heavy to be lifted... Oh wait, one last thing, it comes 996.ICU later on ....”

... To be continued【未完待续】...

I'm an engineer, so bear with me that everything I do tends to have a utility perspective, which regards solution. In another words, is there any way to deal with the problem of 996?

First and foremost, with great respect, the 996.ICU initiative itself has been helping a lot, mainly by raising more reasonable attentions from general public. This is the kind of blessing I believe that most of the 996ers need. By the way, this already big thing going even bigger seems to me was started and has been driven by a single person's great effort, which means everyone like you and I can make a big difference.

Here is my half-opinionated half-reasonable proposal:

• Activating another key which is the tribe of engineers, one by one and everyone, proactively
• • Spreading freelancers which suits software engineers in nature, starting from engineers
• • Developing physical and virtual infrastructures, such as co-working spaces and remote job boards
• Distributing the Distributed, Mobilizing the Mobiled, Individually and Organizationally
• • Distributed Web
• • Virtual Communities
• • Digital Nomads
• Collaboration over Competition, Small over Large, Simplicity over Complexity
• • Spreading the power and spirit of github
• • Extending indie makers and small businesses
• • ...不尚贤...鸡犬之声相闻...无私为大私...

... To be continued【未完待续】...