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“In my experience young people, especially the post-90s generation, are reluctant to work overtime – they are more self-centered,” says labour rights expert Li

“In my experience young people, especially the post-90s generation, are reluctant to work overtime – they are more self-centered,” says labour rights expert Li Jupeng, one of many who have observed some millennials challenging the 996 concept. self-centered is a funny word. It implies selfish, but is it really selfish if it's self-preservation?

asdfologist 8y ago
Yeah, clearly the employers are not self-centered for demanding grueling work hours.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Someone1234 8y ago
I have to imagine something was lost in translation there? My brain just cannot fathom how "overtime" by the very nature of the word can be anything but an optional extra. You'd just as likely selfishly choose overtime as you would not choose it.
- ddeck 8y ago
  I can't speak to the situation in the mainland, but in Hong Kong, "overtime" for employees in smaller local companies often means the period that you must work beyond your scheduled finish time, and for which you are not paid. It is not optional if you plan on keeping your job
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  There are many ways to make something a "choice" that you really have no choice in.
walshemj 8y ago
Probably a translation from a Confucian concept in English
jsemrau 8y ago
Well, who "wants" to work overtime ? Most European work cultures survive well with a great work-life balance.
- sloxy 8y ago
  sure but it's slowly being eroded by the americanisation of companies & management styles. salaried workers being exempt from paid overtime in most European countries has turned in to a joke. Instead of just being used to deal with "emergency" situations, it's used to coerce extra work for free.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    That's exactly it, overtime is so normalized that planning never takes an 8-hour workday into account, with the obvious result of a frequent need to go to overtime to achieve basic business goals.
- withdavidli 8y ago
  I know many people that are hourly that loves overtime. 1.5x-2x pay means a world of difference to them. Jobs for them ranges from drivers, construction, to programmers. Some are hoarding money for early retirement, just to make more, others are contract basis so earning 2-3x projected amount enables them to take half the year off. This is to the point where many of these friends loathe to take an exempt job because they know their income will likely be cut in half on the initial transition without raises/promotions.
  - chrisper 8y ago
    There is a difference between volunteering for overtime and getting forced to in a way.
    - withdavidli 8y ago
      Of course there is. There’s nothing in my comment or parents comment about forced overtime.
merpnderp 8y ago
Self-preservation is the most selfish thing you can be centered on, and it is absolutely ethically and morally correct. Being self-centered is what makes free markets successful, as in pitting your self interests against others, brings out the most productive aspects of everyone involved.
- ionised 8y ago
  This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff. Free markets are successful because people are self-centred? The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it. It's this naive insistence that the market and holders of capital, if left alone, will direct humanity in the right direction that causes so much of the concentration of wealth, obscene inequality, economic instability and incredibly damaging waste that western economies have experienced since the end of the last world war. Amusing to see the priests of this perverse religion still purveying this post-human fantasy of market democracy and Objectivism though.
  - golergka 8y ago
    Of course people will cooperate: it's in their self-interest. It's rational to recognize positive-sum situations and cooperate. It's also rational and serves your self-interest to act "altruistically", as your empathy is a basic biological instinct that you can't really fight against, just like hunger or sexual desire. But just like with hunger or sexual desire, letting a biological instinct dominate your whole life is unhealthy and, tbh, pretty stupid.
  - ben509 8y ago
    > This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff. Since I tend to skew this way, I'd like to see you lay out what some of the ideological assumptions are. Free market views are pretty well backed by economics, and plenty of nations have tried to implement alternative ideas and crashed pretty hard. > The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it. This is all true. The other side of that coin that frustrates the Progressive vision is that politicians and other government agents are not just altruistic beings who cooperate, according to public choice theory, they have a significant aspect of being self-interested information processors, to use your terms. > It's this naive insistence that the market and holders of capital, if left alone, will direct humanity in the right direction... I'm not sure who is insisting that. I think you have an underlying assumption that the state must provide for the totality of its citizens existence, so you assume that if the government isn't doing this, people must believe that corporations would take over that role. Free market and small government advocates reject that entirely and believe that social structures can be built from the bottom up. Individualists don't think there needs to be a larger direction for humanity because your individual endeavors have intrinsic value.
drzaiusapelord 8y ago
Yet the executives and CEO who all benefit directly from unpaid overtime tool around in Maserati's and vacation on Greek islands, but surely that's not "self centered." Surely, capitalist culture has never, ever idolized self-centeredness and entitlement! China has the same problems the West has. We see labor as this fungible thing done by faceless automatons and its the job of management to extract as much labor as possible to enrich those above them by any means possible. Its considered perfectly normal and moral to have a class of people worrying daily about their bills and keeping a roof in their head and a whole other class who we defend when they scream at the valet or the housekeeper because some trivial thing bothered them. We equate both those situations as the same thus barely being able to feed your kids is on the same level of outrage as 'you scuffed by Maserati's brake pedal with your boots!' I don't envy the Chinese as they seem to have few fewer avenues to labor enrichment than the West, but fundamentally we all share the same problem: the one-sided relationship between capital and labor. Ironically, their country was built on addressing that fundamental problem but now have fallen into the same dirty form of capatalism everyone else has.
- primeblue 8y ago
  Nice work
- prolikewhoa 8y ago
  >Ironically, their country was built on addressing that fundamental problem but now have fallen into the same dirty form of capatalism everyone else has. I laugh when people call it Communist. Do workers own the means of production? No. Not Communist.
gehwartzen 8y ago
OVER-time. As in additional time over what was agreed in the original employee-employer relationship. There is nothing selfish here except maybe on the part of the companies that expect overtime out of their employees.
- arca_vorago 8y ago
  Even better, those who expect ot but have labelled an employee "key" to say they are ot-exempt... I later found out it has a legal definition. Key employee, in the ot law, means you have some profit sharing or stake in the company. Doesn't matter how "key" you are to the operations. FYI. I bet lots of people are getting shafted by this.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Exempt means you don't report hours. My first professional job after college was with one of the big consulting firms. I reported hours, and I got paid overtime after 40. I was expected to log at least 40 hours a week on something -- could be internal/self-training or client billable. In all the other jobs I've had I did not report hours. I am hired to get a job done. If that sometimes takes me 30 hours a week and sometimes takes me 55 that is what I'm expected to do.
    - arca_vorago 8y ago
      That's not how the law on this works. It wasn't changed until around 2015, which is why so many companies started doing funNgames with employee wages and hours around then in anticipation of the change.
  - Thlom 8y ago
    Sounds like there's laws on this in many countries. In Norway you are exempt from overtime regulations if you have an independent position, which is pretty well defined in law and practice. It basically means that you control your own work day and what you work with. Typically C-level. It is of course abused by employers.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

asdfologist 8y ago

Yeah, clearly the employers are not self-centered for demanding grueling work hours.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Someone1234 8y ago

I have to imagine something was lost in translation there? My brain just cannot fathom how "overtime" by the very nature of the word can be anything but an optional extra. You'd just as likely selfishly choose overtime as you would not choose it.

ddeck 8y ago
I can't speak to the situation in the mainland, but in Hong Kong, "overtime" for employees in smaller local companies often means the period that you must work beyond your scheduled finish time, and for which you are not paid. It is not optional if you plan on keeping your job
s73v3r_ 8y ago
There are many ways to make something a "choice" that you really have no choice in.

walshemj 8y ago

Probably a translation from a Confucian concept in English

jsemrau 8y ago

Well, who "wants" to work overtime ? Most European work cultures survive well with a great work-life balance.

sloxy 8y ago
sure but it's slowly being eroded by the americanisation of companies & management styles. salaried workers being exempt from paid overtime in most European countries has turned in to a joke. Instead of just being used to deal with "emergency" situations, it's used to coerce extra work for free.
- pishpash 8y ago
  That's exactly it, overtime is so normalized that planning never takes an 8-hour workday into account, with the obvious result of a frequent need to go to overtime to achieve basic business goals.
withdavidli 8y ago
I know many people that are hourly that loves overtime. 1.5x-2x pay means a world of difference to them. Jobs for them ranges from drivers, construction, to programmers. Some are hoarding money for early retirement, just to make more, others are contract basis so earning 2-3x projected amount enables them to take half the year off. This is to the point where many of these friends loathe to take an exempt job because they know their income will likely be cut in half on the initial transition without raises/promotions.
- chrisper 8y ago
  There is a difference between volunteering for overtime and getting forced to in a way.
  - withdavidli 8y ago
    Of course there is. There’s nothing in my comment or parents comment about forced overtime.

merpnderp 8y ago

Self-preservation is the most selfish thing you can be centered on, and it is absolutely ethically and morally correct. Being self-centered is what makes free markets successful, as in pitting your self interests against others, brings out the most productive aspects of everyone involved.

ionised 8y ago
This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff. Free markets are successful because people are self-centred? The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it. It's this naive insistence that the market and holders of capital, if left alone, will direct humanity in the right direction that causes so much of the concentration of wealth, obscene inequality, economic instability and incredibly damaging waste that western economies have experienced since the end of the last world war. Amusing to see the priests of this perverse religion still purveying this post-human fantasy of market democracy and Objectivism though.
- golergka 8y ago
  Of course people will cooperate: it's in their self-interest. It's rational to recognize positive-sum situations and cooperate. It's also rational and serves your self-interest to act "altruistically", as your empathy is a basic biological instinct that you can't really fight against, just like hunger or sexual desire. But just like with hunger or sexual desire, letting a biological instinct dominate your whole life is unhealthy and, tbh, pretty stupid.
- ben509 8y ago
  > This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff. Since I tend to skew this way, I'd like to see you lay out what some of the ideological assumptions are. Free market views are pretty well backed by economics, and plenty of nations have tried to implement alternative ideas and crashed pretty hard. > The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it. This is all true. The other side of that coin that frustrates the Progressive vision is that politicians and other government agents are not just altruistic beings who cooperate, according to public choice theory, they have a significant aspect of being self-interested information processors, to use your terms. > It's this naive insistence that the market and holders of capital, if left alone, will direct humanity in the right direction... I'm not sure who is insisting that. I think you have an underlying assumption that the state must provide for the totality of its citizens existence, so you assume that if the government isn't doing this, people must believe that corporations would take over that role. Free market and small government advocates reject that entirely and believe that social structures can be built from the bottom up. Individualists don't think there needs to be a larger direction for humanity because your individual endeavors have intrinsic value.

drzaiusapelord 8y ago

Yet the executives and CEO who all benefit directly from unpaid overtime tool around in Maserati's and vacation on Greek islands, but surely that's not "self centered." Surely, capitalist culture has never, ever idolized self-centeredness and entitlement! China has the same problems the West has. We see labor as this fungible thing done by faceless automatons and its the job of management to extract as much labor as possible to enrich those above them by any means possible. Its considered perfectly normal and moral to have a class of people worrying daily about their bills and keeping a roof in their head and a whole other class who we defend when they scream at the valet or the housekeeper because some trivial thing bothered them. We equate both those situations as the same thus barely being able to feed your kids is on the same level of outrage as 'you scuffed by Maserati's brake pedal with your boots!' I don't envy the Chinese as they seem to have few fewer avenues to labor enrichment than the West, but fundamentally we all share the same problem: the one-sided relationship between capital and labor. Ironically, their country was built on addressing that fundamental problem but now have fallen into the same dirty form of capatalism everyone else has.

primeblue 8y ago
Nice work
prolikewhoa 8y ago
>Ironically, their country was built on addressing that fundamental problem but now have fallen into the same dirty form of capatalism everyone else has. I laugh when people call it Communist. Do workers own the means of production? No. Not Communist.

gehwartzen 8y ago

OVER-time. As in additional time over what was agreed in the original employee-employer relationship. There is nothing selfish here except maybe on the part of the companies that expect overtime out of their employees.

arca_vorago 8y ago
Even better, those who expect ot but have labelled an employee "key" to say they are ot-exempt... I later found out it has a legal definition. Key employee, in the ot law, means you have some profit sharing or stake in the company. Doesn't matter how "key" you are to the operations. FYI. I bet lots of people are getting shafted by this.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Exempt means you don't report hours. My first professional job after college was with one of the big consulting firms. I reported hours, and I got paid overtime after 40. I was expected to log at least 40 hours a week on something -- could be internal/self-training or client billable. In all the other jobs I've had I did not report hours. I am hired to get a job done. If that sometimes takes me 30 hours a week and sometimes takes me 55 that is what I'm expected to do.
  - arca_vorago 8y ago
    That's not how the law on this works. It wasn't changed until around 2015, which is why so many companies started doing funNgames with employee wages and hours around then in anticipation of the change.
- Thlom 8y ago
  Sounds like there's laws on this in many countries. In Norway you are exempt from overtime regulations if you have an independent position, which is pretty well defined in law and practice. It basically means that you control your own work day and what you work with. Typically C-level. It is of course abused by employers.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]