4 ms·

I was contacted this week for a position that was openly 6 days a week. We need to end H1B in this country as soon as possible and keep the 996 schedule firmly

I was contacted this week for a position that was openly 6 days a week. We need to end H1B in this country as soon as possible and keep the 996 schedule firmly out of the United States. They call you lazy for not wanting to compete against the entire world in your own country.

archagon 5mo ago
Quite a leap to attribute corporate greed to H1B. Think again: this is entirely homegrown.
- shermantanktop 5mo ago
  Is there not a connection between the two? You'll have to spell out what you're suggesting here. "Think again" only works on LLMs, and then only sometimes.
  - Tadpole9181 5mo ago
    The top comment seems to insinuate the 996 (or any overwork scheme) is being brought over because of H1B visa workers. The responder is saying that domestic American capitalists do not need foreign influence to abuse or exploit labor. The H1B visa program has absolutely nothing to do, for example, with Walmart telling their full time employees how to apply for government assistance programs because they refuse to pay a livable wage.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - declan_roberts 5mo ago
      Software talent doesn't compete against Walmart greeters. That's the connection you're missing for h1b.
      - Tadpole9181 5mo ago
        I don't see how that's relevant to the discussion. The parent's point is that companies in America do not need to import cruelty or an acceptance thereof, they are more than capable and more than willing to do it themselves. I brought up Walmart as an example, it was never intended to be a 1:1 analog with H1Bs.
- genxy 5mo ago
  You give away your bias when it is the other way around. The H1B is a byproduct and a tool of corporate greed.
  - ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
    Or it’s a way for the less fortunate (geographically) to seek a better future. They more or less got rid of it last September, yet the job market has only worsened. Scapegoating minorities, whether it be trans people, brown people, Muslims or immigrants, doesn’t work. All it does is destroy lives. > You give away your bias when it is the other way around. How so?
    - declan_roberts 5mo ago
      No country is ever going to be able to create a functional local software economy if every good engineer get sucked out of the country. In many ways the current system is cruel to every international company which forces their local wages to compete with the United States.
      - ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
        I don't care about "every international company" or any company. Kicking out immigrants is cruel to people.
      - ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
        Also, why shouldn't those companies be forced to compete with US wages? Do only Americans get to have nice things and a strong purchasing power?
    - raincom 5mo ago
      Why not both? It is a feedback loop. When the US allowed railroad/mine workers from China, it is true that Chinese labor wanted a better future and that capitalists want to use Chinese labor to suppress American wages. For instance, look at the animosity towards Chinese workers in Wyoming by European workers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
randycupertino 5mo ago
My company currently has roles open for "5-6 days per week in the office" - we used to be 100% remote! It's awful.
rented_mule 5mo ago
Chinese tech companies' 996 policies, and large Chinese tech companies in general, are newer than that ethic in the US. What I hear about 995.5 (every other Saturday off) from my friend at Xiaohongshu in Beijing sounds remarkably consistent with what I heard from my Google friends 20-25 years ago, from working hours to on-site amenities that kept you at work. You're spotting a correlation, but I think causality probably goes in the US -> China direction on this. In the early to mid 90s, I worked at a Silicon Valley based software startup. We had something called "The Century Club". You made the club if you'd done 3 consecutive months in the last year without working less than 100 hours in any week of those months (averaging 100 hours was not good enough). More engineers were in the club than not. We were told that making the club was not mandatory, but nobody in the club was ever fired and most not in the club were eventually fired. The next startup I was at had a similar culture without the cute name. I remember my most exhausting stretch there was coming in on a Saturday morning, for a database migration that had to happen outside business hours, and working straight through without sleep (other than nodding off at the keyboard) until Monday afternoon. Our CEO was kind enough to bring us food. Even in regular times there, I would go exercise from 10-11 PM, and more often than not I'd go back to the office after. A decade later I was at Amazon. Our entire group of ~100 engineers was required by our VP to work weekends, in the office, for months at a time when approaching ship dates. The VP would send an email every Friday during this period to remind us to be there. Of course he wasn't there. Those were all pretty counterproductive, but didn't seem that unusual. The difference in the US back then was that even asking about such things during an interview would often result in no offer because the candidate didn't have a "good" work ethic. Things have gotten a lot better in the US in the last 10-15 years, but a lot of that came from competition for talent. The more that competition eases, the more likely it is that we'll go backwards on this. Relating back to the article... For the last 3 years of my career (I retired a few years ago), I worked 4-day weeks, and it was all remote. This is just as anecdotal as the article, but I felt I got far more done, with higher quality, than at any point in my career. It was such a revelation.
- skybrian 5mo ago
  I guess you had bad luck working for teams that worked long hours. But as another datapoint, I worked at Google for more than a decade around that time period, for several different teams. Google did have a lot of amenities and people would say that it was to keep you at work, but I didn't see much evidence of that. It didn't keep anyone I knew from going home when they wanted. Being single, I'd stay for dinner or even come in on a weekend to do my laundry. But some weekdays I'd either work from home or get in around 11. Or maybe go for a bike ride at lunch. Nobody kept track. I have little idea how many hours I worked, but there was plenty of time while waiting on compiles to check Memegen and Hacker News. It wasn't a high-stress job. It's a big company, though, so other teams might be different.
akomtu 5mo ago
6 am, 6 pm, 6 days a week. Why is it called 996?
- nouveaux 5mo ago
  9a-9p 6 days a week
- rcxdude 5mo ago
  9AM to 9PM
- stubish 5mo ago
  The term '666 schedule' got nixed by marketing.
szatkus 5mo ago
And at the same time the very same people are 10x more productive because of AI, right?

archagon 5mo ago

Quite a leap to attribute corporate greed to H1B. Think again: this is entirely homegrown.

shermantanktop 5mo ago
Is there not a connection between the two? You'll have to spell out what you're suggesting here. "Think again" only works on LLMs, and then only sometimes.
- Tadpole9181 5mo ago
  The top comment seems to insinuate the 996 (or any overwork scheme) is being brought over because of H1B visa workers. The responder is saying that domestic American capitalists do not need foreign influence to abuse or exploit labor. The H1B visa program has absolutely nothing to do, for example, with Walmart telling their full time employees how to apply for government assistance programs because they refuse to pay a livable wage.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - declan_roberts 5mo ago
    Software talent doesn't compete against Walmart greeters. That's the connection you're missing for h1b.
    - Tadpole9181 5mo ago
      I don't see how that's relevant to the discussion. The parent's point is that companies in America do not need to import cruelty or an acceptance thereof, they are more than capable and more than willing to do it themselves. I brought up Walmart as an example, it was never intended to be a 1:1 analog with H1Bs.
genxy 5mo ago
You give away your bias when it is the other way around. The H1B is a byproduct and a tool of corporate greed.
- ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
  Or it’s a way for the less fortunate (geographically) to seek a better future. They more or less got rid of it last September, yet the job market has only worsened. Scapegoating minorities, whether it be trans people, brown people, Muslims or immigrants, doesn’t work. All it does is destroy lives. > You give away your bias when it is the other way around. How so?
  - declan_roberts 5mo ago
    No country is ever going to be able to create a functional local software economy if every good engineer get sucked out of the country. In many ways the current system is cruel to every international company which forces their local wages to compete with the United States.
    - ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
      I don't care about "every international company" or any company. Kicking out immigrants is cruel to people.
    - ycombinator_acc 5mo ago
      Also, why shouldn't those companies be forced to compete with US wages? Do only Americans get to have nice things and a strong purchasing power?
  - raincom 5mo ago
    Why not both? It is a feedback loop. When the US allowed railroad/mine workers from China, it is true that Chinese labor wanted a better future and that capitalists want to use Chinese labor to suppress American wages. For instance, look at the animosity towards Chinese workers in Wyoming by European workers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre

randycupertino 5mo ago

My company currently has roles open for "5-6 days per week in the office" - we used to be 100% remote! It's awful.

rented_mule 5mo ago

Chinese tech companies' 996 policies, and large Chinese tech companies in general, are newer than that ethic in the US. What I hear about 995.5 (every other Saturday off) from my friend at Xiaohongshu in Beijing sounds remarkably consistent with what I heard from my Google friends 20-25 years ago, from working hours to on-site amenities that kept you at work. You're spotting a correlation, but I think causality probably goes in the US -> China direction on this. In the early to mid 90s, I worked at a Silicon Valley based software startup. We had something called "The Century Club". You made the club if you'd done 3 consecutive months in the last year without working less than 100 hours in any week of those months (averaging 100 hours was not good enough). More engineers were in the club than not. We were told that making the club was not mandatory, but nobody in the club was ever fired and most not in the club were eventually fired. The next startup I was at had a similar culture without the cute name. I remember my most exhausting stretch there was coming in on a Saturday morning, for a database migration that had to happen outside business hours, and working straight through without sleep (other than nodding off at the keyboard) until Monday afternoon. Our CEO was kind enough to bring us food. Even in regular times there, I would go exercise from 10-11 PM, and more often than not I'd go back to the office after. A decade later I was at Amazon. Our entire group of ~100 engineers was required by our VP to work weekends, in the office, for months at a time when approaching ship dates. The VP would send an email every Friday during this period to remind us to be there. Of course he wasn't there. Those were all pretty counterproductive, but didn't seem that unusual. The difference in the US back then was that even asking about such things during an interview would often result in no offer because the candidate didn't have a "good" work ethic. Things have gotten a lot better in the US in the last 10-15 years, but a lot of that came from competition for talent. The more that competition eases, the more likely it is that we'll go backwards on this. Relating back to the article... For the last 3 years of my career (I retired a few years ago), I worked 4-day weeks, and it was all remote. This is just as anecdotal as the article, but I felt I got far more done, with higher quality, than at any point in my career. It was such a revelation.

skybrian 5mo ago
I guess you had bad luck working for teams that worked long hours. But as another datapoint, I worked at Google for more than a decade around that time period, for several different teams. Google did have a lot of amenities and people would say that it was to keep you at work, but I didn't see much evidence of that. It didn't keep anyone I knew from going home when they wanted. Being single, I'd stay for dinner or even come in on a weekend to do my laundry. But some weekdays I'd either work from home or get in around 11. Or maybe go for a bike ride at lunch. Nobody kept track. I have little idea how many hours I worked, but there was plenty of time while waiting on compiles to check Memegen and Hacker News. It wasn't a high-stress job. It's a big company, though, so other teams might be different.

akomtu 5mo ago

6 am, 6 pm, 6 days a week. Why is it called 996?

nouveaux 5mo ago
9a-9p 6 days a week
rcxdude 5mo ago
9AM to 9PM
stubish 5mo ago
The term '666 schedule' got nixed by marketing.

szatkus 5mo ago

And at the same time the very same people are 10x more productive because of AI, right?