I’m Tainan, 996, soaking Chinese wolfberry in a thermos cup and so on have become Chinese workplace keywords

After the survey and interview of more than 10000 users, “I am too south”, “996”, “hard core capability”, “just in need of sidelines” and “soaking wolfberry in a warm cup” have become the five key words in China’s workplace.
“Soak Chinese wolfberry in an insulated cup”
This stem and the “bald warning” together broke the circle of friends in 2019. The story comes from a photographer who went to take pictures of the Black Panther Band and saw Zhao Mingyi, a generation of rock drummers, drinking water with a thermos cup. He could not help feeling that “a man like an iron man in those days is coming to me with a thermos cup”. Some netizens teased him about this, “The last stubborn man in the middle age crisis will never take the thermos cup soaked with wolfberry”.
It is not only middle-aged people who want to soak in wolfberry. The health quality and hair volume of young people in the workplace are still in a significant decline channel. The amount of wolfberry purchased and the age of the buyer are in direct proportion to the overtime. 51job’s Resume Data Report shows that the computer major represented by IT has won the first place in professional overtime, and the top five are art design, finance, clinical medicine, and business administration, in which sales, network operation, and personnel recruitment are under the greatest pressure. The interviewees said that insomnia and hair loss have occurred to varying degrees. In the future, workers may not only have wolfberry in their thermos cups, but also need ginseng and angelica.
“I’m too south”
It may be the most popular word in 2019, which is a homonym of “I’m too difficult”. It is used for the speaker’s frustration when encountering difficulties and setbacks. The appearance of “I’m too far south” smoothly expresses the anxiety and powerlessness of the workplace people caused by work pressure, and also provides an outlet for the workplace people in difficult situations to relieve their emotions through self ridicule.
The divine song Feeling Hollow, which was used to brush the screen in the circle of friends, expressed many workplace people’s roast and anxiety about work, such as being called to a meeting by the boss when preparing to pack up things and leave after work; I was so busy in dog days that I felt my body was hollowed out and just wanted to “lie down”. Workplace anxiety, even workplace depression has become a common phenomenon. According to the survey data of workplace depression in China by the Chinese Psychological Association, the prevalence of depression in the workplace is as high as 2.2% to 4.8%, that is, there are one or two patients with depression in a team of 50 people. Middle age crisis, job burnout, fertility impact, increasingly high KPI, company layoffs, career prospects and other problems have become the “big stones” that cause anxiety and depression in the workplace.
“996”
“996” means to go to work at 9 a.m. and get off work at 9 p.m., and work 6 days a week. In fact, the 996 phenomenon has lasted for many years. In March this year, a group of programmers launched a boycott on GitHub called “Work 996, Sick ICU” to oppose the 996 working system implemented by the company, which brought the discussion on 996 to a climax. Earlier, the central media reported that “84 companies were blacklisted for overtime”.
“No overtime, no IT”. According to 51job’s survey, the IT/Internet/communication industry was ranked No. 1 in the industry with the most overtime in 996. 52.3% of the people often need to work overtime, nearly 10 percentage points away from the financial industry, followed by pharmaceutical, medical, real estate and electronic semiconductors. The working system of “996” has almost become the standard configuration of IT/Internet/communication enterprises. Although many employers provide high salaries, free dinners and overtime allowances, there is no doubt that equivalent pressure and long working hours are needed in exchange. “From the initial six day shift of big week and small week, the company went to work at 23:00 every day six days a week. It is normal for the company to work overtime until one or two o’clock in the morning during the project period. Almost everyone is sick in the annual physical examination, and now even if there are weekends occasionally, they just want to lay down Uncle Ge,” said the 996 senior overtime worker roast. The dissatisfaction with 996 is not only from the long work, but also from the resistance to the unnecessary overtime with no overtime pay and low value.
“Hard core capability”
Hard core, originated from English “hardcore”, originally refers to a strong sense of power, strong rhythm of rap music style. Later, its meaning was further extended. People often use “hard core” to describe “very powerful”, “very tough”, “very tough”, “very shocking”, “very different”, such as “hard core regulations”, “hard core games”, “hard core players”, “hard core life”, “hard core annual meeting”, etc.
In recent years, under the trend of enterprise organization agility and digitalization, employers have increasingly “hard core” requirements for employee capability updating. 51job’s latest Report on Human Resources of 2019 China’s Model Employers shows that leading employers have begun to try to reduce the size of their existing organizations. Enterprise operations around projects will become mainstream, and job exchanges within enterprises will become popular. Therefore, in the future, staff unions in organizations will pay more attention to the differences of individual skills. Data shows that 80% of employers preferred “technical backbone”, followed by 59% “project/technical leader” in the functional recruitment demand in the past year. 82% of model employers have improved their composite requirements for employees’ skills, and 62% of employers have improved their professional requirements for employees’ skills. Employers generally believe that the top three skill gaps of employees are “strategic thinking”, “self driving” and “insight and adaptation”, which are crucial to the future business of the enterprise.
“Sideline business just needs”
As the name implies, sideline has become the hidden demand of modern workers. With the increase of living cost, some people say that half of the salary is paid to the landlord, and half is paid to the food. Looking for a sideline has become a strong demand for many workers. This has created a new generation of “slash youth”, “amphibious youth” and “part-time economy”. According to incomplete statistics, at present, the number of amphibious youth in China has exceeded 80 million, of which the population aged 24-28 accounts for half. Some of them work as anchors, some open Taobao stores, some work as lecturers, and some open official account.
Zhen Ronghui, CEO of 51job, once said in the report “Where Are Future Employees?” that China’s population structure makes “talent sharing” more likely than other markets. According to the birth population data of the National Bureau of Statistics over the years, the total population of the post-90s in China is 23% less than that of the post-80s and 16% less than that of the post-90s. With the disappearance of the demographic dividend, China’s recruitment market will soon enter the “era of personal autonomy”, and skills will become a fast moving consumer. Enterprise employees will no longer be full-time employees, and employers and employees will gradually transform from one-to-one employment and employment relationship to flexible employment mode of talent sharing.