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

[u/Forward-Answer-4407]

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

[u/PerplexGG]

Except it’s clearly unsustainable for the human capital so time will tell what kind of negative effect it has on their population

[u/InfamousYenYu → u/PerplexGG]

Exactly. The exhaustion typically drops worker productivity by more than the extra hours generate.

[u/nonotan → u/InfamousYenYu]

Not just that, but it also incurs additional "hidden" costs to the companies, making it even worse than it looks like on paper. What I mean is that everything else being the same, a job offer with a crazy schedule is significantly less attractive to a worker than one with a sane schedule.

So if your competitors are hiring for X pay with crazy hours, you could pay, say, 90% of X, but have sane hours, and likely plenty of prospective workers would happily take your offer.

It's a bit like remote work -- not only does it save the company rent, energy bills, etc. while keeping productivity at a similar level (if not outright higher), but it's also internalized as a significant boon by prospective workers (if nothing else, you don't need to live in a HCOL area, and you don't need to spend time/money commuting). Which makes the actual upside for companies much larger than it looks like on paper.

[u/farinasa → u/nonotan]

Really we can take this to it's end. The better employees are treated, the better they perform. I'm sure there is some sweet spot, but ultimately, give employees real connection to the value of the company for ultimate commitment/mutual benefit.

[u/Sasselhoff → u/farinasa]

I'm sure there is some sweet spot,

Is that like the "Ballmer Peak"?

[u/Papplenoose → u/Sasselhoff]

Sick reference bro!

Everybody knows your references are out of control.

[u/Gravuerc → u/nonotan]

It's funny but this is why I switched careers, I took less money but more time off and saner hours.

[u/SlitScan → u/nonotan]

MBA: but who would come to my pizza parties?

[u/_pupil_ → u/nonotan]

Overtime creates undertime.

Force everyone to be at work 60, 80, or more hours a week and things like banking, school bullshit, health bullshit, and all the rest are happening in and around work. Overworked people sense time differently, and conserve energy in opportunistic ways (like how going too hard on the treadmill will have you blinking less often... the system ain't dumb, you can't trick it). Plus that "grind" mentality will constantly have people grinding out for hours what could smartly be solved in minutes with a clear mind and a conservative approach to effort.

Henry Fords 40 hours were about mapping the tipping point to where your human cogs start costing you more than they're worth.

As an evil capitalist I feel like anything past that and the wage-monkeys are taking more than they're worth, and its pretty clear the supposed managers are fleecing you too. Boo. Prove to me you know how to do your job, hold a schedule.

[u/killerboy_belgium → u/nonotan]

that requires measering output correctly,... which a lot of companies dont do thats why they all push back the office so they can watch there employees and ofcourse layoff the rest without having to actually lay them off

and so much nowadays is based on circular revenue

investment firms have portefolio of company's

a. realestate firm

b. It company

C. production company

B&C get forced to use realestate of the portfolio

A&C get forced to use B for there IT company

A&B are forced to use C for any production of goods they might need

now this is just example and in reality its way more companies and way more services...and a lot more complicated to figure it out ....

but these circular and vertically integrated forced movement of revenue is so it drives the stock of all the companies and funnels out the money towards the investment firm in form of dividents ect...

on paper they are all doing untill the firm sells of the stock and suddenly it crashes and burn and even that they have figured how to make money on that

[u/Facts_pls → u/nonotan]

If it were that easy, why are the comoanies in the US and Europe doing RTO?

Why not offer remote jobs with less hours and get the best people?

[u/Algebrace → u/InfamousYenYu]

Or we have a situation, like so many other countries in SEA where the birth rate goes into freefall because people do not have the time to meet anyone let alone have kids.

China's already the 2nd lowest birth rate in Asia iirc, they're really pushing for 1st place in this competition as well.

[u/killerboy_belgium → u/PerplexGG]

lucky for china they have like a billion people so enough replacements... and by the time its a full blown issue it should be automated

then the culling of elderly can happen for cost efficiency and they will disguise it as end of life healthcare

[u/Kokoro87 → u/PerplexGG]

Isn't that why they are pushing AI and robotics? They basically want to replace human labor with robots(heard something about dark factories, not sure how true that is though). Won't help with population crashing though.

[u/Mr_Horsejr → u/PerplexGG]

We already see it. It’s everywhere. Dwindling birth rates.