Pay to Work – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.
I report on weird stuff. I mean, this segment is called “The Weird Side of the Internet for a reason. But once in a while the story is so weird I can’t stop thinking about it. These things tend to happen in China, and nine times out of ten, it has to do with the difference between cultures. This is one of those.
In China, there is a new trend in which young unemployed people pay a very small of money to go to a fake company and begin to work. They might pay about $4-$7 American, and maybe more if they want fake tasks, fake managers, and even fake employee revolts. The offices have everything that an office has, the chairs, desks, Wifi, co-workers.
Understanding why this is a thing is tough for an American mind. China’s work culture is very strong, and work means more than clocking a 9 to 5 and paying bills. Work is a ‘good’ in and of itself. The kids that are doing this are mainly doing it out of curiosity, and partly to have somewhere to go. Some of them are hoping that going to “work” will help them get a real job.
So the unemployment rate among 16-24 year-old non-students is 16.5%. Pretty high. So a big part of this might be kids wanting to work but not finding anything.
It’s weird paying someone to pretend to work. But as an indie author, I have spent many hours paying for the ability to work. Editors don’t come cheap.
I do wonder why groups of people would pretend to work, surrounded by other people doing the same, and no one moves their desks around to work on an app or something. If this turned into an actual job, would it bittersweet? Methinks possibly.