Finally, we have spent four week to talk about the scientific rest has come to the end, and here is a little reflection. We understand that the essence of rest is to relieve stress. If you really enjoy working and don’t feel stressed at all, you can probably work as long as you want. However, for ordinary people, the 996 working system is obviously inappropriate.
The 996 work system, which refers to working from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week, has been a topic of controversy in the workplace. Some argue that it is necessary for companies to remain competitive, while others view it as a backward value that disregards the importance of work-life balance.
In recent years, the 996 work system has become increasingly popular in China’s tech industry. Many companies, including Alibaba and Tencent, have adopted this system to keep up with the fast-paced nature of the industry. However, this has sparked debate among employees and the public, with some questioning the impact of such long working hours on people’s health and well-being.
If the results of the four-day workweek in the UK are correct, it means that working too many hours will reduce work efficiency. It is not good for the work itself to stay in the company and work overtime until the end of work. In fact, it is a kind of performance art done for the boss and colleagues to see. It is a prisoner’s dilemma. Those who work 996 all day should be ashamed.
The longer the working hours, the more honorable it is, and it is a backward value to regard non-rest as dedication. Didn’t Deng Xiaoping say it? “As leaders, we should not be too busy. The busier we are, the worse things will happen.” The higher the level of work, the more we should talk about rest.
The work style advocated in today’s world should be enthusiastic, energetic, efficient, aggressive, energetic, and creative, instead of wasting progress bars. But look at the people around you, look at your leaders, your colleagues, and your subordinates. Do you have such a good atmosphere? Can you inspire it?
Taking a rest with confidence is also part of modern people’s sense of boundaries. To separate work from rest is to separate work from life and to be a person with multiple identities. You are not only a member of the company, but also a member of a certain interest club; you are not only the parent of a child but also yourself. You are an all-round person with a career, life, hobbies, and self.
This sense of boundary requires basic etiquette, that is, not to make work calls to people during non-working hours. Some companies require mobile phones to be turned on 24 hours a day to answer calls at any time. How long does it take for leaders to reply to WeChat messages? This kind of thinking is too rustic and outdated. Not only is it disrespectful to the employee, but it’s also not good for the job. If your organization requires people to be online all the time, it is tantamount to admitting that your job does not require creativity, enthusiasm, and energy. As long as someone is present at all times, then it means that you are doing a very low-end job- isn’t it also self-deprecating?
We can also relate work/rest switching to “mindfulness”. The biggest benefit of mindfulness training is that people learn to live in the moment. Research shows that such a person has the best job satisfaction and control of various emotions.
This is a state of freedom to advance and retreat. You can immediately enter the working state when you want to work, and you can leave the working state immediately when you want to rest, which is very refreshing. If you keep thinking about family affairs when you are working and worry about work when you get home and you can’t take it or let it go, it’s not because you are hardworking, it means that your practice is not enough.
In fact, human beings are not fully adapted to office work. We have mentioned in our column that when office culture has developed to a certain level, everyone should regard tanning as beautiful; but now China is still in the initial stage of whitening as beautiful. In fact, a large number of people in China are engaged in office work for one or two generations, and we are still adapting.
The eight-hour work system and the like are all settings for manual labor in factories in the past. How should mental workers treat work and rest scientifically? This topic is still ongoing. I believe in a healthier workplace culture in the future.