NEWS//Touching Fish
Have you ever "touched fish"?
Many in China's Generation Z do it often.
Touching fish
“Touching fish” is a term from a Chinese proverb. For Westerners, the proverb is cryptic. “Muddy waters make it easy to catch fish.” It means one should take advantage of a crisis to chase personal gain.
So how are Chinese Gen-zers taking advantage of a crisis to pursue their own gain?
In the midst of the turmoil that COVID-19 has caused, they are slacking off at work, refusing to work overtime, and rebelling against cultural expectations that career comes first. "Touching fish" is a rebellion, a passive-aggressive rebellion, against long hours at work with no increase in salary.
Gen-Z values
Generation Z is rejecting the "996" work rhythm. "996" refers to shifts that last from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. "996" is the expectation of Chinese tech giants.
Jennifer Feng, chief human resources officer at 51job.com, maintains that "many workers born in the 1970s and 1980s follow the traditional spirit of enduring hardship and working with grit, those born in the 1990s had a very different philosophy. Generation Z placed a high priority on their own interests and other personal benefits."
A survey by another job website, zhaopin.com, in November showed a sense of achievement was the main motivation for young people. The survey found, a sense of achievement was followed by money earned, how interesting the work is, and how new they are to the job. The survey canvassed 3,773 people born after 1990.
Pushback
Employers are pushing back. Some companies have sacked people for poor performance. Allen He, a senior manager at an international financial company in Shanghai, said his employer sacked those who were not performing.
“We have new employees every year, some being outstanding but some ‘touching fish’,” he told the South China Morning Post. “Most of us are busy at work. Those lazy staff will find a bigger and bigger gap between them and their peers. In the end, they will be eliminated.”
An employer in Guangdong, China, fined employees US$3 for taking more than one toilet break per shift. But the Dongguan Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has begun to investigate that practice, with an eye on fining the employer.
Sources: South China Morning Post (1), (2), (3), MSN, Bloomberg