From 756e3a87ced4e68d3cd8296e8b48183216e8ecd4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: memoz Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 03:58:34 +0800 Subject: [PATCH 1/3] Create readme_en.md initial commit --- readme_en.md | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+) create mode 100644 readme_en.md diff --git a/readme_en.md b/readme_en.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a451bec --- /dev/null +++ b/readme_en.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +# If you want to repost +This was first posted on Zhejiang University's forum cc98.org. If you want to reuse or repost this, please contact cc98.org or the author. The number of total words is over 10k (translator's note: in Chinese). Takes about 10 minutes to read (translator's note: also in Chinese). + +# pdd_3years +The service (my blog) gradually became inaccessible starting from 11:15, and I kept trying to restart and repair it until 11:50. Whenever the port was opened, it (the server) would go down again immediately. I don't know how to analyze the logs, so I'm sharing the log files and hoping that the right people can help me analyze them. + +At present, I have given up on restoring my server, so I'll let it be. Maybe it'll work again when traffic drops. + +In addition, the markdown file pdd_3year.md contains the same content as on cc98.org and my blog. + +# Translator's notes +1. All the dates and times mentioned in this article are in China Standard Time (UTC+8) and 24 hours format. +2. The original article in mandarin Chinese was quite informal, often not conforming to grammar rules, so I took the liberty to interpret and rephrase where, I think, is appropriate. If it sounds strange, it probably was me not thinking in English. +3. The original poster was an information security engineer at Pinduoduo. +4. The original title was "my 3 years at Pinduoduo". + +# License +This English translation of readme.md is marked with [CC0 1.0 Universal](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0?ref=chooser-v1) From 5c57d985960c9eca3a2036f5237db968d5b164c6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: memoz Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 05:47:27 +0800 Subject: [PATCH 2/3] Create pdd_3years_en.md initial commit --- pdd_3years_en.md | 350 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 350 insertions(+) create mode 100644 pdd_3years_en.md diff --git a/pdd_3years_en.md b/pdd_3years_en.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a39d19a --- /dev/null +++ b/pdd_3years_en.md @@ -0,0 +1,350 @@ +# Background +This was first posted on Zhejiang University's forum cc98.org. If you want to reuse or repost this, please contact cc98.org or the author. The number of total words is over 10k (translator's note: in Chinese). Takes about 10 minutes to read (translator's note: also in Chinese). + +My blog went down, so put this on Github on Jan 13, 2021 at 12:00. + +I wrote this article to record the overall changes of the company Pinduoduo from a low-level employee's perspective hoping that [students junior than me would never join Pinduoduo]. This article does not involve technical secrets. It only discusses the administrative system, cultural atmosphere, office experiences and such. It's written at home after I quit to record (my) personal subjective wishes and experiences. Some parts are redacted. + +Identifying myself 1: there's no need to remain anonymous (on the forum) anymore; Pinduoduo have the ability to cross-reference thread's time to find the original poster, which is very easy for them. + +Identifying myself 2: the original poster enrolled in 2013 and graduated in 2017; (he) had been very active on cc98, but gradually moved on after graduation; (he) joined Pinduoduo on June 18, 2018 through social recruitment (translator's note: as opposed to on campus recruitment for students about to graduate, a common arrangement in China), worked there for 2.5 years, then came back to talk about the changes of Pinduoduo over the past 3 years; To sum it up, the company kept getting worse and students junior than me should never join Pinduoduo; also, I already resigned, but haven't received the employment separation certificate (translator's note: 离职证明) and the whole year's overtime pay; human resources promised to send it (the certificate) in 4 to 7 days; if I'm still not receiving the certificate or the tracking number this Wednesday, which is the 8th day, I'll post "How to quit Pinduoduo indecently"; [Update Jan 13, 2021, 12:33:40, received 1 copy of employment separation certificate]; resigning is tenser than daily life (in office). + +Interlude: in the process of writing this article, a Pinduoduo employee was fired for trying to persuade students to stay away from the company in an alumni chat group; fortunately, I already resigned; I wouldn't give them the chance to fire me. + +To clarify my stand, I have been dissatisfied with Pinduoduo for a very very long time. I didn't start this thread to take advantage of people's frustrations. Originally, I submitted my letter of resignation on Dec 9, 2020, hoping that I can leave quietly after 30 days, then write a summary. It turns out the company wouldn't let us rest since Jan 1, 2021, so I didn't even have time to write this article. I stole the time to post this today. + +Pinduoduo's environment in 2018 was normal, getting worse in 2019, turned quite bad in 2020, became evil in 2021, then I quit. If you want to get to the issues directly, start from 2019. + +# 2018 +Generally speaking, Pinduoduo in 2018 was quite good, and I was very happy. + +### Joining +Before I joined Pinduoduo, someone called Xuanyuan (translator's note: 轩辕) (a fancy name. usual name is Flanker) said: "I joined a startup company. They need people. There's a position very suitable for you. Do you want it? The founders graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University." (I) did some investigations and found that an alumnus junior than me joined them too. They work 6 days a week. Employees are held to strict clock-in and -out times. It's not unacceptable. So, since Ant Group didn't send me any offer, I joined Pinduoduo. + +(I) joined Pinduoduo on June 18, 2018. At the time, there were only n (translator's note: redacted by OP) people in the technical security team. I met supervisor Xuanyuan (now resigned. big takeaway: he was Pinduoduo's security team leader), alumnus B (junior than me) that I've known for many years (who quit after internship), alumnus C (senior than me) that I've admired for a long time, person D that I met only once, alumnus E (senior than me) who appeared in the industry news (now resigned). After asking around, I found that there were also guru F who ranked first in the SRC (translator's note: presumably short for Security Response Center, their department in Pinduoduo) and a few other outstanding colleagues. It seemed that I would be the least capable and had a lot to learn. It turned out I wasn't as bad as I suspected and can carry people (translator's note: as in an online video game's sense; OP used the exact word "carry"). + +Feelings of my first day on the job: the office facilities were really quite Spartan--stations were very crowded, no staff canteen; we had to order meals through "Meican (translator's note: 美餐)" app, fetch the meals from the shelf by your own numbers and go back to the seats to eat them. Basically, you could eat when you were hungry. You could pick up the meal at any time between 11:30-12:00. The shelf room was very small, but it was not crowded. The experience was average, but the meals were better than Zhejiang University's. (foreshadow 1 here. there's a policy update in 2019) + +The office did not have seat numbers at the time. When people need to be found, all you could do was roughly describe your own location. It felt very wrong. A few months later, management used "five continents" and seat numbers to solve this knotty problem, which was very nice. + +The "staff dormitory" I stayed in at first was quite average. It's an apartment built in 1990 with 2 bedrooms and no living room. The "living room" was a hallway. The bedroom only had 2 beds and nothing else. The bed next to mine was empty. The 2 roommates were very nice. 1 of them had broadband installed and played online games with me. The hours were long, but I was optimistic. The other roommate left Pinduoduo after 7 days for ByteDance in Shanghai. That apartment is probably the most rundown residence I've seen after graduation. The streets were loud, only barely livable. For short-term interns, it was relatively convenient, but not suited for long-term residence. + +15 days later, newly hired G (now resigned) and I rented an apartment together across the street from the office. It was one of those small and dilapidated apartments built in 1990. We each had a room. You can see the windows from the office. The commute to work only took 3 minutes. Of course, the place was quite shabby. Fortunately, roommate G managed quite well and guided me on living. We bought blackout curtains, electric blankets, water pumps and light bulbs together. We managed to survive and take hot showers. The only advantage of this place was it's very close to the company. Pinduoduo required us to work every Sunday. There's nothing to do on Saturdays, so I (translator's note: OP didn't use any subjective here, so I don't know if it was just him) sat in the office and could use "Meican" to order meals (foreshadow 2). There was also Internet access for free (foreshadow 3). I spent those boring Saturdays with intern H in the office. + +### Becoming familiar +Slowly, more people joined the team and so came more projects. It was fun. Due to the small number of people and the large number of projects, I started and managed projects A, B, C, D, E and more from scratch in 2018 and participated in the company's security emergency responses many times. Some of the better-done work earned me excellent performance reviews. I also received 1 poor performance review from quarrels with developer colleagues in other teams due to disagreements. Although it was the same as in 2020 that I worked 6 days a week, in 2018, I really felt that Pinduoduo was a very good company and (I) could do a lot of practical things. In the security team, (I could) protect Pinduoduo’s servers, users' security, merchants' security and prevent hackers from intruding. It made me very proud to see firm results. + +I met a fellow 98 user @xxx in the lobby at that time who also joined Pinduoduo. I was happy to have 1 more friend, so I have to talk about the experiences of management trainees. + +Xxx was a marketing management trainee and I was a technical staff. The company had entirely different career arrangements for us. One day, I got off work between 21 and 22 o'clock, but was shocked to hear that xxx was still working until 23 o'clock. It turned out that students fresh out of school would work as customer service representatives in the first half of the year. Merchants' customer service clocks off at 23. There were efficiency evaluations, KPIs and strict reporting policies (for xxx). The work content tends to cause mental breakdowns. I already noticed that something was wrong with her, so I lent her my keyboard to ease her pain. Since I don’t have anything to do after work, out of humanitarianism, sometimes I accompany her back home, then walk back to my apartment. + +Because the food at Pinduoduo was better (later found out the takeaways were too greasy), my weight went from 55 kg to 65 kg. So I started thinking about losing weight. 5 colleagues and I changed our avatars to "won't change avatar unless I lose 5 kg". I had time to jog after work. There were a few days when I would jog after 23 o'clock. Now I feel lucky that I didn't die. Later, when the weather turned cold, I would work out indoors. My weight dropped to between 55 kg and 60 kg. Except for the six-day shift, I didn’t seem to have much to complain about. When I was single, it’s really boring on weekends. + +### 11.11 overtimes +Half a year later, Double Eleven came. It was the first time I experienced an event of this scale. Technical staff were split into 3 shifts: Nov 10th at night, Nov 11th during the day and Nov 11th at night. There weren't many people in the security team. Since I lived nearby, I volunteered for the night shift to take the burden off of people living far away. I was quite excited at the time--on the one hand, I wanted to buy stuff myself, on the other hand, I wanted to see if hackers actually intrude during Double Eleven. I left (the office) in early morning, but felt quite satisfied. + +During Double Eleven, it seemed that I worked for 10 days in a row, then got 2 days off. It was then that alumnus E (translator's note: it's a she) brought me to see her bestie (translator's note: also an alumnus, but junior than OP) in Hangzhou. Her bestie became my girlfriend afterwards. Encouraged by love, I had been very happy for the remaining few months (of that year). I worked 6 days a week, then took high-speed trains to dates on the off day, departing in the morning and returning at night, not even feeling tired. + +### All-staff meeting and year-end party +After Pinduoduo went public, (I) heard that there were merchants picketing outside the building as well as other negative opinions. But I was an engineer. It had nothing to do with me. After the quiet period was over, the company held an all-staff meeting to look forward to the future and encourage everyone. I can only remember one sentence (translator's note: technically not true) at the moment: "A colleague asked: 'When can we have weekends off?'," said Huang Zheng (translator's note: 黄峥) while receiving cheers. "When we become the second in China, we can have weekends off." (crowd cheers). + +It's 2021 now. Has the situation improved? No... + +Then there's the year-end party. The shows were ordinary, but the foods were quite satisfactory. I contributed a lot (to the company in this year), so I received the title of annual outstanding employee. Quite a few people received this title, so I presumed each team was given a certain quota. After hearing a few familiar names, I felt that the evaluation was well deserved. + +### Unpleasant episode +I really don't remember the details. Maybe the timeline is mixed with the above. + +(Our) office (collaboration) software was “QQ for enterprise”. There's a chat group of (redacted) members called “Shanghai employees group”. 99% of the people were in that group, chatting and complaining daily. One day, someone from some bank came to issue Hong Kong bank cards. They created a Weixin group, pulled colleagues in. There were about 100 colleagues, myself included. Suddenly, HR joined the Weixin group and asked the group to be disbanded immediately, so I was removed from it. The next day, our office chat group was disbanded. Officially, the reason was: "To prevent personal information leakage, we disbanded the office QQ chat group." This kind of thing was very frequent later on. Disbanded groups included single employee dating group (translator's note: I'm not sure if it's to date or simply know each other, so I chose "date") (there weren't many people chatting there anyway), ball sports group and so on. + +I'm still confused about this matter to this day. I don't know how our internal office software leaked personal information. The group was filled with how employees leaked information to each other. (I think) the company just found a random excuse to disband the big group, shutting employees' mouths. + +# 2019 +Everything changed after that incident... + +### 24/7 shifts triggered by the 100-yuan coupon incident +It was the weekend after Jan 10, 2019. When I woke up, my girlfriend told me: "Something happened in your company. People can freely claim 100-yuan coupons." + +"What are you talking about? Liar." + +"Oh, I didn't get any." + +So, I went to work. I arrived at the office to find it true. It was serious. There were various reports later, but it was just a fuse. + +That was a very big issue. Risk management and broader market (translator's note: I've no idea what "大盘" means; it could be a company slang) were both responsible. I thought the company would order each system connected to risk management, comprehensive API reviews, code refactoring and such to solve it from a technical perspective, but Pinduoduo's actions really stunned me. + +After the Chinese New Year, risk management team started 24/7 shifts. All technical posts (on this team) were subjected to those shifts. Day shift was from 7 to 19 o'clock and night shift was from 19 to 7 o'clock. It didn't make much sense, but it could be regarded as a temporary solution. + +A few days later, all the technical staff started working in 24/7 shifts. I must emphasize it a few times: all the technical staff! all technical staff! all technical staff! + +I remember that night very vividly. The supervisor convened (redacted) people from the team to the conference room and told us in a depressing atmosphere: "(I'm) telling you the bad news--we all have to work in shifts now. the specific rules are (redacted)." Everyone was reluctant. The rules were roughly: +1. 2 shifts per day; +2. Every team sends 1 person; +3. New hires fresh from school do not work in shifts for the first half year; +4. Women do not work in night shifts; +5. New hires from social recruitment do not work in shifts for the first (redacted) months; +6. There's an extra 0.5 day of overtime pay for night shifts; +7. Day shift workers can leave early. + +Since our team had so few people that met any of those requirements, we only arranged night shifts. + +Evaluating this policy from my personal perspective: first, I didn’t have live work (translator's note: OP said "线上业务". I'm not 100% sure what it involved. a transliteration would be "online business"); only a few people had live work; (the company) just can't have everyone stay online 24 hours a day; then, I didn't have any authority to handle other people's work; even if their service went wrong, I wouldn't know how to restore it; finally, my conclusion was that my responsibility was to look at fault alerts and call whoever's in charge when their service went down. + +Night shift was from 19 to 7 o'clock. According to the official explanation, (we) were required to stay in the office, were allowed not to work, were allowed to play on our phones and were allowed to drop whatever we were working on and concentrate on the alarm emails, but considering employees' situation, the company allowed us to clock out at 1 o'clock to go back to our (bed)rooms to continue our shifts. Combining my various experiences on night shifts, (all I) prayed was nothing went wrong, so I could sleep peacefully. + +Here's my memory of my first time on the shift: +Clock in at 19:00. +Work. +Work. +No one else around? Play on my phone. +Clock out at 01:00. +Play on my phone in bed. +Keep playing. +Keep playing. +Go to sleep at 03:00. +Occasionally wake up to check messages. +Get up at 07:00 to sign out. + +Basically, I didn't sleep all night in exchange for 0.5 time the salary. The whole process was very dull. It's just to run us ragged. After seeing that through, out of health considerations, I would leave the shifts to people who could actually use them (such as night owls, not in a derogatory sense). If I really couldn't hand out the shifts, I would take it easy on myself, usually getting through them without incident. + +At first, I still had a fluke mentality, thinking the shifts would end when management found them ineffective after a few months. It's 2021. I didn't see any effect of this policy while it's become a de facto policy. I couldn't find any formal document on this. The initial protection system was gone too. Women and new hires from social recruitment also do shifts now. I have to rub it in here: the decision maker just doesn't have a brain. + +### Relocating stations and overcrowding +As more people were recruited, the original stations ran out, so the whole team had to move out. I moved about 8 times since joining the company. There were 1 small move every 3 months and 1 big move every 6 months. Initially, it really was due to the number of people. But later, I discovered it to be Pinduoduo's tradition to randomly order people around. Frequent station relocations could only indicate poor management. They didn’t know how to plan beforehand. + +Then there's the toilet problem, such as the famous news of "shit" company. Everyone was scolding it, so I won't talk about it here. There's been no improvement over the years. + +### Unfolding foreshadows +As mentioned above, some of the better policies in 2018 were no longer there in 2019. The company was restricting employees further. + +Foreshadow 1: The relaxed meal time was canceled; We were like pigs getting fed. + +One day in 2019, probably because the company realizing some employees went for midnight snacks at 21:30, a new policy suddenly came up: no one's allowed in the shelf room before 12, 18 and 22 o'clock. + +Originally, 9 to 10 o'clock was breakfast time, 12 for lunch and 18 for dinner. You could fetch meals early, finish them early and start working early. There were midnight snacks available at 22:00 on Tuesday and Thursday. + +Optimized policy: times do not change, but no eating early. + +My personal schedule was: + +Get to the office at 9:30. +Eat breakfast. +Not hungry during lunch, so order fruits to eat in the afternoon to lose weight (foreshadow 4). +Starts feeling hungry at 17:00. +Go to dinner when it feels right. + +Because people fetched meals at random, the shelf room was small, but not crowded. + +After the new policy was introduced, people formed a queue before 11:59:59. Staff looking at the watch would not let people in. When the time came, everyone rushed in and started eating. If you were late, waiting for 5 minutes in the queue is the bare minimum. In reality, meal delivery was almost done at 11:30. The foods were getting cold, but the company just wouldn't let you eat them. Do you feel my anger? Do you feel my anger?? + +When the supervision was not strict, this policy would be laxly enforced. People could go in at 11:59:30, but it was often tightened. Example 1: The commissioner was there watching, saying time's not up yet, so you couldn't retrieve (the meals) or the supervisor would scold me. Example 2: Supplier said we couldn't hand you (the meals) early or we would be fined. The former was the company's lackey while the latter was just being skimped on. + +I'd like to call that pig feeding policy. As far as I know, only pigs require such strict schedules, not even 1 second early. + +Foreshadow 2: Meican's fruits and deserts were removed. + +Originally, there were plenty of suppliers to order from. You could order fruits for lunch and dinner, and order deserts for dinner. + +One day, some employees living nearby ordered fruits at noon on Saturday and retrieved them from office to take them home to eat. I would criticize such employees for their conducts. + +Next comes the interesting thing: due to some out of line employees getting free fruits, the company decided to cancel the daily fruit supply. As someone trying to lose weight, I was troubled. After eating breakfast at 9:30, I couldn't eat lunch at all. All I could do was ordering some staple food as a gesture. For this, I just want to curse. + +Foreshadow 3: The office network blocked some websites starting from a certain day. + +I actually supported this policy. It prevented people from watching videos and otherwise not working during office hours. It's kind of normal. The problem was the blocking policy was mysterious. Some important sites were blocked, such as Windows updates, Microsoft store, jetbrains.com, phones' app stores, Huawei logins (incomprehensible), Apple push updates (later unblocked), Apple Store (later unblocked). At first, the administrator said wrongly blocked websites could be whitelisted. Later on, it had to be approved by a supervisor through a process. Then I started using my phone's mobile hotspot (foreshadow 5). + +Let me tell you a joke. One day, a certain app of the big boss was not accessible, so there was amnesty to whitelist that site. My accessing some programming websites was out of formal and legitimate needs, but it was intercepted. I told IT about my suggestions and they said no. Maybe it's because I'm not the big boss. OK, whatever. + +### Company's information flow +None of the 3 foreshadows above was officially notified. It was sent from senior management to supervisors, then supervisors copy-paste it into the chat group to us. If the announcement was prone to cause public opinion backlashes, the company would let it spread by word of mouth and slowly let employees know. Usually only 2 kinds of things were notified officially: someone being fired or next holiday being shortened. + +Here's another joke: there's no announcement of anything happening inside the company; employees can only get announcements from asking around or maimai.cn (translator's note: it's a workplace forum). It's very ironic. We call it export-to-domestic sales. + +As mentioned above, the QQ group and some private Weixin groups were disbanded. Finally, one day, the company doubled down on it. It was around June 2019 when any Weixin groups that human resources were in was disbanded. Departmental Weixin groups were also ordered to disband. Gradually, self-organized Weixin groups disappeared. Only a few very close people would be in the same Weixin group. Once HR found out about those, they were disbanded too. There was no human right. + +Sealing employees' mouths, covering employees' ears and making them concentrate on moving bricks (translator's note: "搬砖" is a Chinese Internet slang that roughly means menial or mind-numbing labor) to collect wages. I guess that's the secret of duty. + +By the way, due to the chronic lack of documentations and search features, everything was done by asking. Technical examples: How to configure the company's (redacted)? What do I do when (redacted) wouldn't output logs? Non-technical examples: What's an employee's handbook? Where are the rules and regulations on 24/7 shifts? What's duty? Is duty a catch-all clause? + +### Classic incident 1: using video surveillance to verify attendance +Pinduoduo require clocking-in and -out before 11 and after 20 o'clock respectively. For example: I arrived at the office at 10. I could use boot log, browser log, git log, chat log, etc. to prove I really was there at the time as long as the supervisor approved. + +One day, it was rumored that there was an employee turning on the computer for someone else. The executives were so furious that they decided all future corrections to clock records were to be carried out by HR according to video surveillance. No other proofs would be accepted. + +I felt sorry for HR at the time, thinking they had to go through videos for such small things. A year later, weird requirements appeared: correcting clock records required a candidate resume; correcting clock records was linked to supervisor's performance reviews. Supervisors began emphasizing that everyone must clock in when they arrive. + +The company did not trust their employees. Everything was taken in a negative way. + +### Classic incident 2: employees collectively fired for absent on duty on a Saturday +On a Saturday, some poorly behaving employees on the day shift (7 to 19 o'clock) left their posts during lunch and didn't come back for hours. A few days later, the company found out, made an announcement and fired all of them. + +Those employees did something wrong, but they didn't deserve to be fired because the only kind of people being fired before was operations who accepted bribery. That was the first time technical staff being fired publicly. + +### Classic incident 3: checking employees' phones and firing an alumnus who questioned the air quality on maimai.cn. + +### Classic incident 4: even more shifts +Pinduoduo has 4 big promotions on June 18, Oct 10, Nov 11 and Dec 12. I thought it would be the same as in 2018. I was too naïve. + +This time, all technical staff were on overtime. All but people who had morning shifts were required to stay in the office until 1 o'clock. + +By the way, this overtime for 2 nights was unpaid, for public welfare. To put it another way, the company cheated us out of our pay. I was doing low level support without any live work, so no matter how late I stayed, it didn't help. A lot of people were the same, but orders were orders. We had to execute them. At 1 o'clock, the elevators were crowded with people. 6 elevators for (redacted) people. When I actually got to the ground floor, it would be 1:30. + +Oh, right. If the promotions were on Monday, the company would require overtime on the 2 weekend days preceding them, which meant 13 days straight: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu and Fri. During that, there would be 2 days clocking out at midnight. Who could live with that! + +I am very disdainful of such arrangement and feel ashamed (for the company). + +### Classic event 5: the company's wiki removed search and recently visited features +Wiki is a place to keep notes and share work. To prevent information leakage, the company removed related features. The price was the connections between various departments and various businesses were cut. I wouldn't know where I put the notes I edited a few days ago or where to find information when a company's component went wrong. I didn't know who to find. Development relied solely on asking around. For new recruits, it was undoubtedly a huge test, but managers did not care about the life and death of technology, and this kind of thing had been going on for a long time. + +### Classic event 6: the company prohibits sideline businesses +One day, the company announced that it was forbidden to engage in sideline businesses and required honest reporting (of such behaviors). To my understanding, sideline businesses refer to signing a labor or labor service contract, which should not be done, but this was another catch-all crime. There were only six words "prohibited to engage in sideline businesses" without detailed explanation. This was also a very common oral notice. For this reason, a colleague was fired for selling things on Weixin. + +I'm sharing this case to show that the company’s original intentions may be good, but the implementation failed to account for practical circumstances. And there were no clear sentences. All depended on the big boss's words. + +### Diaries +"Who, in their right mind, would keep diaries?" Yes, I wasn't in the right mind because I wanted to quit since the end of 2019. So, I took a notebook to record moments when I had mental breakdowns. The following was an excerpt from those diaries. Resigning was always a thought flashing by. When I got really busy, I might be too lazy to resign. Those diaries were a way to memorize the pain. + +Nov 2019 + +Tenosynovitis. My hands were about to break. Went to the hospital. The doctor said do less movements. + +Nov 2019 + +Received assignment. Originally, I were to provide some analyses and references. I knew nothing about network programming. I was teaching what I just learned. Learned a lot of unknown knowledge. Was a huge pressure. I got it done in the end. But such features would've been done a lot better were it handed to a professional. I had nightmares everyday during that time. Felt very awful. + +Nov to Dec 2019 + +Received business test assignment. No account provided. No phone provided. All done out of thin air. + +Dec 2019 + +I got sick. Almost all people got sick, one by one. The office population was too dense. + +There were too many people in queue fetching meals. People pass through infected area when going to eat. The state was worrying. + +I was sick and had a fever. Felt I was dying. At least I have a girlfriend who can take care of me. + +I don't remember anything further back. + +### New Year's Eve overtime +It sounds like a joke again. Dec 31, 2019 was a workday. As a young man, I would certainly take some time off to go on a vacation, so I asked for a leave around Dec 20. What was interesting was that around Dec 25, there was a sudden notification that all employees were required to be in office on 31st until 1 o'clock. No leave was allowed without special reasons. + +I was stunned again when I read the message. It was my first time hearing about a New Year's Eve promotion. And it was only notified a few days prior. It's like the company was screwing us over. Then there was the classic post on maimai.cn: "The whole company was in the office during the New Year's Eve, and everyone loved each other like a big family." That was all too ironic. + +### Epilogue +I was working diligently this year, so I received excellent performance reviews again. But compared with last year, I was no longer willing to recommend Pinduoduo to friends since I wanted to quit; there was no need to bring people in. The company was getting stricter and treating employees worse. + +At the beginning of 2020, an epidemic broke out. The whole world began to reshuffle. My plan to resign was also disrupted. + +# 2020 +Speed up. Speed up. Speed up. (translator's note: this is also a Chinese Internet slang; it roughly mocks at the way the system has been going backwards faster than ever) + +### After the Chinese New Year +After the seventh day (translator's note: Fed 29, 2020) of the first lunar month, due to the opinions of the big bosses, the department heads encouraged Shanghai office's employees to go back to work. I don't feel like talking about this as it's been criticized a lot already. Suffice to say, the company blatantly ignored Shanghai's government policies and the health and safety of its employees. + +After getting back to work, I asked a colleague from Hubei Province. On the surface, the company said the days they were not at work could be covered by weekends and overtimes, implying this month's salaries would be paid as usual. But that colleague told me current month's salaries were already reduced. Fuck that. And if you work overtime, that pay would be given to you at New Year. I didn't feel like working overtime, so I treated it as I took the leave at my own expense. + +### Why I didn't resign +I wanted to, but the great uncertainty brought about by the pandemic in 2020 made me decide that muddling along with it for another year wasn't that hard. As for me personally, I admit that there was a pay raise, my girlfriend wasn't in a hurry and the external environment was confusing, so I decided to stay for a while. This "while" turned into a whole year. I witnessed a lot of history in this year. + +### Unfolding foreshadows +Foreshadow 4: canceling Meican +Maybe it's because the company really liked making employees eat on a fixed schedule, not a second early. Let's assume employees ordered bread for dinner, then they could eat outside and take the bread with them afterwards, bypassing the "slave" meal schedule. + +According to the company’s management experience, going out for dinner was against one's duty as it's saying the company's meals were hard to swallow which was an unruly behavior in itself. So deserts for dinner and the Zhou Hei Ya (translator's note: a duck meat brand based in Wuhan) were canceled. + +Due to the pandemic, Meican was no longer a supplier in 2020. The originally available 20+ suppliers were down to 4, but that's not the point. The point was the company still enforced the strict lunch starting time of 11:59:59. Before, the foods were on a shelf. Now they were handed out by suppliers with even lower efficiency. + +Foreshadow 5: cellphone signals jammed +I'd been using my own data plan for work for months now without any issue. (Our) office Internet only had 10M (translator's note: presumably, it's 10 Mbps) bandwidth. It's so slow to download stuff. + +In Aug 2020, I found that the cellular connection would be nearly unusable after 11 o'clock every day. Since many devices needed Internet access, I had been using my own mobile hotspot during tests. After that, my work was severely hindered. + +At first, I thought it was due to too many subscribers. After some investigation, I found it only affected certain areas. Only my station was affected. Other sections and floors of the building were fine. Slowly, other floors and areas were affected too. More and more evidences indicated it being signal jamming. What can I say? I wish Pinduoduo live long and prosper. + +### Prolonged illness makes the patient a doctor +The company didn't like issuing holiday notices in advance. (Those) usually only came a few days before the holidays. Since I had always taken my duty seriously (translator's note: detecting a faint aura of sarcasm), I already knew the holiday schedule inside out. For example, one day will be deducted for Tomb Sweeping Festival and Dragon Boat Festival, two days will be deducted for National Day, and there will be no off day on weekends preceding big promotions. + +New recruits often came to ask me about holiday schedules and I was on the money every time I made predictions. I even summarized the pattern. Don't know if I should laugh. + +### More diaries +Since 2020, the office network was very slow when accessing foreign websites, especially Github and Github releases. + +Mar 7, 2020 The Nth time I received stupid demands. The big boss lacked sense of security, proving that other big companies' apps didn't steal Pinduoduo's data. + +Mar 7, 2020 Worked for over 12 hours a day, 3 days in a row. My left arm's muscles hurt. + +Mar 7, 2020 Making bricks without straw. Was handed an image. Could not reproduce. Could only guess. Need phones too. Hard. + +May 9, 2020 WIFI was changed agaaaaaaaaaain. Blindly blocked app stores. Had to authenticate once every day. + +May 11, 2020 Office WIFI blocked app store and manufacturer's official website. + +May 11, 2020 Received stupid request. To prevent being smeared, a technical explanation was required for a phenomenon. Such a trivial thing was quite urgent as if it's a live malfunction. + +Aug 17, 2020 Cell connection was very bad every noon. Today, 4G connection dropped completely. F. + +Aug 25, 2020 It really completely jammed the signal. Working without Internet. + +Sep 01, 2020 Gitlab's readme.md was changed to not being shown. Document was not disclosed. Seriously affected productivity. Don't know which moron came up with that. + +Dec 10, 2020 Office was too loud. The next door was like an Internet café. Got neurasthenia. Couldn't go to work. Earplugs and noise-canceling headphones couldn't solve the problem either. Fortunately, I was about to resign. + +### Things that turned public +My feelings for Pinduoduo had dropped sharply in 2020. It's the same as perceived by the public. It boils down to the following events: + +1. Employees were prohibited from wearing slippers in the building; they were choked by security guards and suffered minor injuries; the company has not made any statement; +2. Due to insufficient toilet seats, some men used urinals in desperation; the company has not made any statement; +3. It's circulated online that the company uses a tricky calculation method to issue 0.3 time the Sunday overtime pay (normally, it should be 1 time and labor laws stipulate double); +4. Huang Zheng publicly called for hardcore striving mode; non-technical employees were transferred to Duoduomaicai; there's not a single day off the whole year; even real estate agents would tell me a lot of people left our company recently; +5. Skipping; everyone already knew. (translator's note: OP was referring to employees dying of over work; there were also suicide reports later) + +### Another campus recruitment +Campus recruitment season was here again. Good news and bad news. The good news was this year's new recruits were of much higher skills than the last. The bad news was there were quite a few negative reports about the company. Students would ask about comments and opinions. To be honest, I was very uncomfortable. + +### Frenzied overtimes +After the promotions in 2019, I was no longer surprised by the upcoming stunts. The best of them was in December. + +During the Double Twelve promotion, employees were required to work 13 days straight. All staff were also required to work until 1 o'clock on Dec 11 and Dec 12. Then there's the overtime on Dec 31 to 1 o'clock. Because I had already submitted my resignation, there was no need to work myself to death for the company anymore. The 3 days mentioned above were still without extra pay. To put it bluntly, all the staff worked overtime for nothing. You were just a robot. All you needed to do was follow orders. + +### Deciding to resign +My girlfriend and I had been in different cities for almost two years. It couldn't go on like that. I hated the company's behaviors anyway. Might as well grab the year-end bonuses and leave. + +On Dec 9, 2020, I couldn't bear the company's culture and system anymore. Flanker left. There's nothing left to miss. I also have family reasons. So I decided to leave this hole. It's rumored on the Internet that the company would not let people quit easily. I wrote the letter of resignation and sent it out via EMS that day. Let's just leave it here. I might have a more exciting second article coming out called "how to quit Pinduoduo indecently". (translator's note: OP left Pinduoduo successfully, so no such article incoming). + +### What's duty +I thought I could leave quietly on Jan 10, 2021, but things turned out quite splendid. I don't need to say more than sudden death, jumping off from a building, fired for seeing the ambulance, fired for watching as part of the crowed... From this point onward, Pinduoduo turned completely black in my heart. There's no trace of humanity left. + +Since I've only worked for Tencent and Pinduoduo, I want to praise Tencent here. Their initial training for campus recruits was about history and values. At worst, it was brainwashing. I still remember cooperation, integrity, innovation and progress. I used to think values were useless. Now I think Tencent's values are correct. I thought about what duty was when leaving Pinduoduo. Let me briefly talk about my understanding. It does not represent an official explanation. I hope there will be an official explanation one day. + +(Duty at Pinduoduo) meant: +An emphasis on employees abiding by all the company’s arrangements, be them reasonable or not; +An emphasis on not doing anything unrelated to the company, even during breaks; +An emphasis that you are an indentured worker, a mercenary and a human battery in the company; you do what you are told; + +Pinduoduo has no soul. The word "duty" has long since changed. It's become a tool for enslaving employees, and it's been ridiculed privately. For example: +"Did you do your duty this morning?" +"Did you clock in at 11 today?" +"Will you go to your duty at noon?"--It means: "Will you eat in the office or out?" +"I'm not doing my duty tonight."--It means: "I'm working overtime tonight. Leaving early." +"You are not doing your duty." means "You are making reactionary remarks." +"I won't do my duty this Sunday." means "I won't come to work overtime this Sunday." +"I will never do my duty anymore." means "I'm resigning." + +Quoting a reactionary remark from a colleague: "At Pinduoduo, don't talk about things other than giving money. Don't be surprised if anything happens." It feels quite like the Night City of Cyberpunk 2077. + +# Conclusion +(My) advising students not to join this company was not because of heavy overtimes, but because this place does not treat you as a human being. I think employees (here) are batteries, slaves and indentured workers. This place is a sweatshop, a prison and a concentration camp. Pinduoduo does give you more money than other companies. You can sell your life here if are in desperate need of money. Otherwise, you should look elsewhere. I don’t regret joining Pinduoduo. Each era has its limitations. The Pinduoduo in 2018 was not what it is now. At that time, it was the best choice for me. If I was looking for a job in 2020, I would never consider this place. + +It took (me) 2 days to write this memoir of my past 3 years. Most memories came from the first year after reading it. Those were mostly good memories. The 2 years that came after was painful, but what I wrote above seems to be all that I could recall. I think overtime was so severe that I couldn't think about what I hated. Fortunately, I have a diary to record all that. Other dissatisfactions are about work. There's always this CTO or COO's urgent demands. Or "this plan is unreasonable, but it's what COO said." I can’t say too much for the sake of confidentiality. Reading it now, the last 2 years were more like a running account. It’s nothing but the feelings of a frontline employee. + +How busy was I in the last 2 years? For example, my girlfriend was responsible for shopping and all things big and small around me. She was even in charge of buying the apartment because I was too busy to think about those things. I really appreciate her and love her very much. After I left Pinduoduo, I finally had time to be with her. + +Finally, here are my clock records in 2020. My work hours weren't long (in comparison). All goes without saying. (translator's note: OP posted screenshots originally, but those were not available in this Github repo at the time of translation) + +P.S. 1: Regarding the clock-in records at the end, it is mainly to consider other employees of the company. I personally go to bed early, get up early, arrive in the office between 9 and 10 o'clock and leave the office between 21 and 22 o'clock. But most people's schedule is from 11 to 22 o'clock. Some employees work from 14 o'clock to early morning. It depends on the department. If I caused dissatisfactions among other Pinduoduo employees, I apologize. + +P.S. 2: About buying an apartment. It’s not an apartment in Shanghai, and my parents provided the funds. Please don’t focus on that. The company’s salary is confidential. I have the obligation to keep it confidential regardless of whether I am employed or not. + +# License +This English translation of pdd_3years.md is marked with [CC0 1.0 Universal](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0?ref=chooser-v1) From a99269ada4d6bf221b51cff93cc80b7f52cecdcf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: memoz Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 11:53:46 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Author updated his readme.md, so keeping up --- readme_en.md | 15 ++++++++------- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/readme_en.md b/readme_en.md index a451bec..a181498 100644 --- a/readme_en.md +++ b/readme_en.md @@ -2,17 +2,18 @@ This was first posted on Zhejiang University's forum cc98.org. If you want to reuse or repost this, please contact cc98.org or the author. The number of total words is over 10k (translator's note: in Chinese). Takes about 10 minutes to read (translator's note: also in Chinese). # pdd_3years -The service (my blog) gradually became inaccessible starting from 11:15, and I kept trying to restart and repair it until 11:50. Whenever the port was opened, it (the server) would go down again immediately. I don't know how to analyze the logs, so I'm sharing the log files and hoping that the right people can help me analyze them. -At present, I have given up on restoring my server, so I'll let it be. Maybe it'll work again when traffic drops. +The markdown file pdd_3year.md contains the same content as on cc98.org and my blog. -In addition, the markdown file pdd_3year.md contains the same content as on cc98.org and my blog. +~~The service (my blog) gradually became inaccessible starting from 11:15, and I kept trying to restart and repair it until 11:50. Whenever the port was opened, it (the server) would go down again immediately. I don't know how to analyze the logs, so I'm sharing the log files and hoping that the right people can help me analyze them.~~ + +Jan 15, 2021: I think my little server was shot down by normal traffic, so there's no need to discuss it. Disabling issues permanently. # Translator's notes -1. All the dates and times mentioned in this article are in China Standard Time (UTC+8) and 24 hours format. -2. The original article in mandarin Chinese was quite informal, often not conforming to grammar rules, so I took the liberty to interpret and rephrase where, I think, is appropriate. If it sounds strange, it probably was me not thinking in English. -3. The original poster was an information security engineer at Pinduoduo. -4. The original title was "my 3 years at Pinduoduo". +1. All the dates and times mentioned in this article are in China Standard Time (UTC+8) and 24 hours format. +2. The original article in mandarin Chinese was quite informal, often not conforming to grammar rules, so I took the liberty to interpret and rephrase where, I think, is appropriate. If it sounds strange, it probably was me not thinking in English. +3. The original poster was an information security engineer at Pinduoduo. +4. The original title was "my 3 years at Pinduoduo". # License This English translation of readme.md is marked with [CC0 1.0 Universal](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0?ref=chooser-v1)