Jack Forsdyke, a 28-year-old British man who has been working for a game developer in Guangzhou, China for the past two years, gained unexpected fame online and began complaining about what he sees as the country's terrible Chinese work culture. Social media posts. His posts about this have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, and his story by South China Morning Post and It was also covered by Business Insider.
Forsdyke is from Manchester, England, studied Chinese at university, and after graduating, moved to China in 2022, where he was hired as a translator by a large technology company. On the other hand, he was more interested in game design, so he felt like his dream had come true when he was offered a development job at the same company in January this year.
As a translator, Forsdyke was usually able to get home from work on time, and he accepted the developer job despite being told by HR that the workload expected of him would increase dramatically. This is how it happened: Although it wasn't written into his contract, from then on he was expected to work 12 hours a day, six days a week – from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
At first he thought that this expectation actually meant that his work was being recognized, and that the work that had been done was actually what mattered, says Forsdyke. He soon realized that this was not the case – Business enthusiast writeswhich examined documents related to his employment.
According to Forsdyk, at first he did not take the 72-hour workweek seriously, and asked his boss to let him go home early on certain days, sometimes skipping work days on Saturdays. His boss agreed on the condition that he could complete the tasks assigned to him.
Forsdyke agreed, but soon realized that more and more tasks loomed before him. He started working overtime, would visit every Saturday and sometimes Sundays, and there were times when he would come home from work in the middle of the night.
In China, unlike Europe, a 72-hour work week is normal, which is called 996 work organization. That is, working hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week.
For Forsdyke, it started at 10 a.m. when they ate breakfast at work and then went to work. At 1:30 there was an hour and a half lunch break, which he says was one of the reasons he survived a 72-hour week. In the evening, they can go out for a quick dinner and then work late into the night: according to Forsdyke, business meetings often start at 9 p.m.
The man reports that in addition to working 12 hours a day, he barely saw his wife and stopped exercising and all his other hobbies. Because of this, his muscles began to break down and his weight began to increase. According to Forsdyke, the worst part of it all is the lack of a final deadline: while in Europe many people work overtime to get a bonus or a promotion, this is simply the minimum expectation in China.
Forsdyke was finally able to go on an extended vacation in May, but was forced to return to the company only to be fired along with most of his team. Although their project was nearing completion, the company decided to revert to an earlier version of the developed game, so their work was no longer needed.
At first, the British man was disappointed that he had to work unnecessarily so much on a development, but he was later relieved to be freed from the 996 system. After being fired, he realized how much of a burden he had on his shoulders, and now hopes to get back to work on game development – without… He is assigned to another similar job.
