Assembly Line And "KPI Machine": Blindfolded By Indifference

"People in the crowd don't care about others at all, they just care about themselves. Efficiency is the most important thing. "

Indifference is the first feeling of life read out by Benjamin in Baudelaire's poems, and this modern experience in the 19th century still reappears more than 200 years later.

"I suddenly felt that if I saw it, I might be numb, because I only care about whether my KPI (key performance indicator) has been completed." When talking about the scene of "Alibaba female employees defending their rights in the canteen", many employees of giant technology companies told the reporter of the 21st century economic report that "they are full of work and numbers, so it is difficult to care about some other things."

For Alibaba, the lesson of this incident is painful and will not be repeated. And in the whole incident, there is one detail that is worrying. The injured female employees failed to communicate with many leaders for several times. After the company group exposure event was forced to withdraw, they had to print publicity banners and carry loudspeakers to the company canteen for on-site exposure.

However, such an "uncivilized" way of expression has not been found, and it was finally exposed in social media that ignited public opinion. In the whole incident, from Li Yonghe (Huaming laoding), President of the same city retail business group who can't read it back, HRG Xu Kun who claims "can't deal with it", and down to the responsible persons in Bu, personnel and even the indifferent employees in the company's canteen... This avalanche of public opinion, no snowflake is innocent.

Behind the indifference, in fact, is the distorted competition situation brought about by the Internet companies' extremely optimistic about the business model of the city's life track. The direct result is the distortion of the working and living style caused by the high-intensity work pressure and strong result orientation of each company.

"Emotional KPI machine"

"For a while, I felt very confused."

Ms. Qiu has been in a number of Internet leading enterprises and technology start-ups for ten years, but after ten years, she chose to flee“ High intensity of overtime, great work pressure, strong anxiety flooded me, and later I found that this was not the life I wanted. " She told 21st century business reporter.

In the past, Ms. Qiu's business was mostly oriented to the C-end market. "The pace of projects is extremely fast. 996 and even 007 are common affairs.". After saying goodbye to the past, she chose an enterprise that focuses on b-end business, has high industry barriers, and has a traditional style. "Although the salary is not as high as in the past, but her life has stabilized.".

In the past 20 years, especially in the mobile Internet era of the last 10 years, Chinese Internet companies, which once accompanied the rapid development of China's economy, have fought, snatched and conquered cities and territories. A large number of myths of wealth creation have also set a dazzling halo on these giant companies.

This does not mean, however, that there is no shadow under the halo. In the past two years, 35 year old age line, involution and even "007" are triggering waves of emotional rebound“ It feels like an emotionless KPI machine. " Someone complained.

The so-called age line of 35 has become a hidden rule in many Internet enterprises. A person from a leading domestic Internet company told the 21st century economic report that in his own company, middle and low-level employees over 35 years old will not be promoted. To a certain extent, being 35 means that you can "see the end" in the future.

"See the end at a glance" is still the best case. Another result is that in a high-intensity involution culture, it is likely to be swept out after the age of 35“ It's not that they will directly dismiss 35 year old employees, but there is a low potential. " "I have a lot of 36 year old P6 employees around me, so the labor union will not be renewed," another employee from a newly listed Internet company told the 21st century economic report

It also forces employees to run at full speed and even sacrifice everything, including their subordinates, before they are 35 years old. Alibaba is suspected of being infringed upon the wine table culture of female employees. To a certain extent, it has been "sacrificed" by its superiors.

In this context, the promotion of overtime culture is not difficult to understand. But the tragedy behind it is also heartbreaking. At the end of December 2020, a 22-year-old girl died suddenly in pinduoduo.

"Heart and byte, only one beat. Life and wages, can only fight more than one. " After the sudden death of pinduoduo girl broke out, some netizens summed up the above two sentences, with a horizontal commentary: "continuous blessing".

"Ability and age need to be matched, which is fundamentally wrong. Even a little bit of such an idea is the beginning of the tragedy, "the employees of the aforementioned Internet factory told the 21st century economic reporter," however, the fact is that not all people can become experts. "

The end of the business model

Internet companies were not. In the early years, the big internet factories were enviable. People flocked to them for their unrestrained clothes, various kinds of afternoon tea, overtime meals, taxi reimbursement, and fitness centers.

However, in recent years, with the flow dividend gradually peaked, the business of each company was seriously assimilated, and the phenomenon of personal hand to hand combat and bayonet fighting between enterprises occurred frequently.

City life is a race track that every company aspires to win, but it is relatively difficult to make obvious segmentation. As a community group purchase service platform, no matter pinduoduo, meituan or Alibaba, the business models of city life almost all start from fresh products with high frequency and just need, focusing on the mainstream scenes of daily household consumption, making use of the flow profits of small programs and wechat groups, to form a new family consumption social e-commerce mode.

Because there is no middleman, strong supply chain resources and free distribution of the company, it can be claimed that the products of the platform will guarantee certain benefits; And because the products are directly delivered to the delivery point of the community, it greatly facilitates the community residents. So it has a strong attraction.

However, a very important feature of this mode is that a lot of work needs to be done in the early stage of offline channels. The case of pinduoduo's sudden death tells us that the intensity of this work is totally beyond the imagination of the outside world. For example, the monthly working time reaches 400 hours, and it is almost 134 hours of continuous work every day; For example, we can't help but transfer new employees from Shanghai to Xinjiang. The more exaggerated detail is that even at headquarters, only one toilet pit is allocated to every 100 employees.

However, the experience of Ali's female employees has opened up a more cruel competition situation behind this business model competition. The competition is actually the limit of people. When the boundary that can be infinitely expanded online returns to offline, the space narrows sharply. For example, the "classic question" encountered by Ali female employees: "do you think it is possible to talk about the business of not drinking?" The subtext behind it is: "I have to travel frequently. I knew there would be problems."

Fundamentally speaking, business model is not necessarily just a "neutral word". At the other end, which is invisible to the naked eye, it is likely to be connected with some dark desire.

When Internet companies come to this stage, brain drain is inevitable“ Two or three years ago, I thought about whether to go to bat and other big factories, but I gave up because I didn't conform to my idea. " A senior technical personnel of a foreign enterprise told the reporter of the 21st century economic report. On balance, he believes that work is not all he has.

According to the "talent flow and migration 2021" report released earlier, for the middle-level employees at the grass-roots level, salary income is the priority factor in choosing their next job, but personal development opportunities, stability and industry development will also be taken into account.

Senior employees put personal development opportunities in the first place, and they also pay more attention to corporate values and corporate culture. 42.9% of senior employees quit because of problems in corporate values and corporate culture.

"Internet enterprises should have been very dynamic enterprises, advocating some idealistic goals," Pan Helin, executive director of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Central South University of Finance and law, told 21st century economic reporter. However, with the expansion of employees and scale, Internet technology enterprises are beginning to use the traditional enterprise model to manage, Promoting wolf culture and obedience mechanism within enterprises "is not in line with the characteristics of the Internet, and even violates the principles of openness, sharing and equality of the Internet itself."

In Pan Helin's view, Internet enterprises should realize more independent business development, instead of expanding various businesses through reception and local promotion, as traditional enterprises do“ Once an enterprise begins to enter the stage of relationship and business, it is no longer an Internet enterprise. At present, technical staff and programmers pay more attention to the platform. For talents with professional skills, they hope to join an enterprise with real technical characteristics. "

At the same time, the current disputes about the development of Internet enterprises are caused by the lack of suitable enterprise management mode after the scale of enterprises“ In fact, Internet companies should maintain the characteristics of their Internet technology enterprises. To see that Internet companies should ultimately rely on technology to solve problems, rather than sales driven. " Pan Helin thinks, "to live like a technology company, not like a factory assembly line."

(Intern Li Wendan also contributed to this paper.)

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