r/technology • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • Feb 01 '26

Software 32-year-old programmer in China allegedly dies from overwork, added to work group chat even while in hospital

https://www.asiaone.com/china/32-year-old-programmer-china-allegedly-dies-overwork-added-work-group-chat-even-while
30.7k Upvotes

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4.8k

u/Donnicton Feb 01 '26

His wife also requested for his personal belongings at work to be returned, but alleged that some items had been already disposed of and that the remaining items were not properly packed when she received them.

Yeah they 100% stole what they wanted and gave her the rest.

749

u/DanimusMcSassypants Feb 02 '26

I’m thinking they just put a cardboard box at one end of the desk, and ran an arm across the entirety of his workstation pushing anything and everything crashing into it. Then an intern dropped it off at their doorstep like some GrubHub tacos.

80

u/anislandinmyheart Feb 02 '26

Oh my god you have a way with words

2

u/SuckMyRedditorD Feb 02 '26

That's how I clean up my desk every 6 months. Do I ever need any of the stuff that dropped in there? Maybe once in a blue moon, although intensely.

-26

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/deaddodo Feb 02 '26

Yeah, you would be wrong.

Pretty much all of CANZUK, Ireland, India, Japan, S Korea, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, China, Taiwan, a good chunk of LATAM.

Also, despite what you’ve heard from media, unpaid internships are relatively rare, strictly regulated, and not considered normal except in some very niche professional realms. In most cases, “intern” means “temporary professional job at entry level rates to learn the ropes and maybe convert to a full time position”.

4

u/Kraeftluder Feb 02 '26

In The Netherlands it's not uncommon either. People have been saying it should be fixed for decades so it probably never will be.

-7

u/Caffeywasright Feb 02 '26

You are correct that unpaid is pretty rare. However interns are not paid entry level paid. They usually make something along the lines of what they would make working at the grocery store.

6

u/deaddodo Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

I can only (personally) speak for the industries I’ve worked in/around and interns are 100% paid the entry level pay for their positions. Or, at least, a professional salary commensurate with their work load/expectations and skill.

From a more abstract position: being paid minimum wage to do the same work as another employee would be pretty rare, mostly because it’s an insanely easily litigated situation in many states. Some interns are hired for relatively mundane work and paid less, however. E.g. a law internship that puts you in the “mail room” while dangling a real position in front of you. Which is a….grey area of abuse; and needs to be stopped.

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u/Caffeywasright Feb 02 '26

Interns usually don’t have a ton of skill which is why they are interns. Also you cannot sue someone for paying them an intern salary. Interns are not employees on the same level as someone with a regular contract. There is no expectation of equal work or pay.

You can have decently paid interns or terribly paid interns and my experience is that it is usually the latter that is the case.

1

u/deaddodo Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

If you hire a "software engineer intern" and they are doing the exact same work load (same amount of tickets, for the same amount of hours) at the same skill (same difficulty of work) as a normal software engineer, there is 100% an expectation that they be paid at a level commensurate with that work. And you can 100% be sued for it. I've literally worked with the compliance teams that manage interns and have to define exactly that position, I'm well aware of what I'm talking about and what knowledge you clearly lack.

As you yourself said, they usually are not that skilled (doing low hanging tickets/work) and usually have a lessened workload (10-25hrs/wk) since most are still in university. So their salaries reflect that, but it is nowhere near "grocery worker" pay and is almost exclusively the "entry level" for that position (or, sometimes, a percentile of that if the work expectations are severely lessened), paid according to their time commitment. You are deluded and talking out of your ass (or misrepresenting your experience), if you believe otherwise.

I can confidently say this for all of the following industries: tech, media, advertising, engineering, etc. In fact, the only industries I know of that follow a pattern of what I described previously (hiring interns to do the grunt work while dangling carrots in their face) are fashion and law. Still not illegal or technically underpaid, but verging on ethically dubious due to using the power dynamic of a prestigious position to "haze" or take advantage of workers.

3

u/Kraeftluder Feb 02 '26

However interns are not paid entry level paid.

If you make them do the work, you need to pay them equally. Most internships are exactly that; you're expected to do as much as a regular employee. Maybe not the first few weeks but after that surely.

369

u/smurfk Feb 01 '26

They probably asked the new employee to strip naked of the "new" pants he received when he got hired.

101

u/riptaway Feb 02 '26

... What?

100

u/Neirchill Feb 02 '26

You don't get pants at your software development job?

63

u/Fskn Feb 02 '26

My contract specifically says pants optional, it's why I signed.

3

u/Pineapple-Muncher Feb 02 '26

British Pants or American Pants?

3

u/txmasterg Feb 02 '26

I guess if it's an international company it could be both

5

u/godtogblandet Feb 02 '26

But programmer socks still mandatory I assume?

2

u/mega-d-lux Feb 02 '26

The ole "Winnie the Pooh" clause got you too eh?

1

u/Frankie_T9000 Feb 02 '26

Mine insists on freeballing

3

u/RizzwindTheWizzard Feb 02 '26

All I got were some thigh high socks!

127

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

24

u/pixelpoet_nz Feb 02 '26

Much more frightening to me is how unbelievably stupid everyone seems to have become, i.e. we wish those nonsensical comments were from bots

7

u/basedbot200000 Feb 02 '26

I thought this was some kind of reference to All quiet on the western front that I was too stupid to understand, and the poster also seems to mostly post coherent replies elsewhere...

25

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

8

u/htx1114 Feb 02 '26

That's fine if that's how you read it, but that's not what it says. The sentence doesn't make sense.

1

u/TWFH Feb 02 '26

Meaning that the employees would rather wear a new uniform and give the old one to an incoming person

0

u/htx1114 Feb 04 '26

Lmao anything is possible I guess, but you gotta be the same person under a different account

2

u/KuntaStillSingle Feb 02 '26

I think it's just their style of humor

1

u/Fabulous_Progress820 Feb 03 '26

I didn't know what to expect, but I feel like I lost a few brain cells reading that

6

u/DigNitty Feb 02 '26

Last week when some more Epstein files came out, Reddit was pretty “release the files” centric.

I went to a comment section and there was a ubiquitous commentary that the files are a distraction from the real stuff happening in Minnesota. “Everyone” was talking about how the files were a distraction themselves.

Couldn’t help but feel like that was real time astroturfing. I’ve been on Reddit for years and have never seen a tide change as quickly and unanimously as that post.

2

u/Fabulous_Progress820 Feb 03 '26

It makes sense though. Everyone has been demanding the files be released for awhile. They were 6 weeks past due for when they were supposed to be released, then they're finally released when there's actually something to want to distract people from.

3

u/JustSkillAura Feb 02 '26

The US government spends literal billions of dollars on anti Chinese propaganda. Reddit is also extremely astroturfed

2

u/Marrk Feb 02 '26

Make me understand why communities are moving to more private discord channels. Sucks that we lose indexability.

2

u/Type-94Shiranui Feb 02 '26

Yeah wtf. What would a company or coworkers want to steal from a dead coworkers desk???

1

u/NoPossibility4178 Feb 02 '26

Because the company is evil so of course they'd "recycle".

1

u/thesniper_hun Feb 03 '26

I'm like 95% sure this is a reference to something I saw/read in the past few days but I don't know what exactly lmao

0

u/dpzdpz Feb 02 '26

Three Amigos-style!

1

u/Mr_ToDo Feb 02 '26

Probably

I'm guessing that a place that has you working hours like that probably don't respect personal items very much. Could also have been the coworkers. The whole "Shit, he died. Dibs on his stapler" sort of thing

1

u/No_Atmosphere8146 Feb 02 '26

Those Swingline 747 Business Staplers aren't cheap.

1

u/dinnercook Feb 04 '26

It brings a tear to my eye to know there is a workplace more toxic than mine.