#tech worker

“For years China’s white-collar tech workers have been some of the most privileged in the country—and were prepared to put in any number of working hours in return. Now, as the economy slows and tech giants announce layoffs, pent-up anger over working hours is bubbling over. The most prominent protest over work hours is the 996.ICU project launched at the end of March on Microsoft’s GitHub code-sharing community. In days, the attempt to catalog companies who demand a 996 schedule—9 am to 9 pm, six days a week—became the site’s most book-marked or ‘starred’ project, racking up more than 190,000 stars.”

“More than 90 projects on GitHub have adopted the ‘anti-996′ license template, which was drafted by Katt Gu, a lawyer focused on advanced technologies who works with Shanghai-based digital privacy start-up Dimension, and Suji Yan, the startup’s CEO. ... The license requires companies who wants to use open-source software from those projects to commit to complying with local labor laws and International Labour Organization standards.”

Quartz, April 9, 2019: “How GitHub became a bulletin board for Chinese tech worker complaints,” by Tracy Qu

GItHub difficult to censor

“The Chinese government is normally quick to censor discussion of protest. However, in this case it is the internet companies themselves that seem to be taking the initiative. Users say that web browsers including those of Alibaba, Qihoo 360 and Tencent have failed to load the 996.icu pages. The irony has not been lost on social-media users. ‘So 996 developers at 996 companies had to work 996 to block a website about 996,’ one wrote on Weibo, a Twitter-like service. Jeffrey Knockel of Citizen Lab, an internet research group at the University of Toronto, says that tech firms must fear that the protesters have clout.”

“The 996.icu page has been GitHub’s most popular for weeks. That is because Chinese developers are such avid users of the platform for work purposes: their contributions are second only to those of Americans. They also know how useful it is for spreading sensitive information and evading China’s vast web-filtering system. Because GitHub is encrypted, it is harder for the state to censor bits of it selectively. Blocking it entirely would cripple China’s technology champions, whose programmers rely heavily on code shared on GitHub. In 2013 the government did try blocking the platform. Complaints from developers brought it back online within days. Its appeal is not limited to techies. Mengyang Zhao, who researches tech activism at the University of Pennsylvania, says that Chinese NGO workers now use GitHub to back up articles posted on WeChat that are at risk of being censored.”

The Economist, April 20, 2019: “Office workers in China organise a rare online labour movement”

Wired, April 4, 2019: “How Github is helping overworked Chinese Programmers,” by Klint Finley

996.ICU Project Repository

Travel Tips for H1B Visa Holders 🌍 #shorts#h1b#h1bvisa

🌐 Planning international travel on an H1B visa can be stressful, especially with changing immigration policies and documentation requirements. In this video, we break down essential travel tips for H1B visa holders to help you navigate your journey with confidence. Whether it’s understanding the latest H1B visa stamping rules, checking your visa status, or preparing documents for reentry to the USA, these insights will keep you informed and prepared.

If you're currently on an H1B, F1 visa, or transitioning through the H1B visa process, we also cover common challenges faced by visa holders during international travel. Learn how to avoid delays, plan around USCIS timelines, and understand your rights under US immigration law. With up-to-date insights from the 2025 H1B visa process, this guide is especially useful for those pursuing an MS in the USA or currently working under a US visa.

Cutie is going through it at work. yesterday they cried.

around august last year, there was an inflection point in the history of the company and after that it was reorganised into two teams. this inflection point will be hereafter referred to as the flood, or the mass extinction event, because after that everyone started polishing their resumes (except for two people who are actually doing just fine). that was when people stopped all being friends and coworkers moving towards a common goal and all united against management and became Sophie’s team and Happy’s team (there’s actually quite a lot more to the story, but we can simplify as that, i suppose).

there was also the team of the senior manager, in the beginning (my team), but when they quit, we became a subdivision of Happy’s team.

we all know that everything goes right when people are divided. especially if they are divided by mere circumstance but are told that there is some intrinsic personality characteristic that divided them, so that the division becomes the identity. especially when one of the groups gets huge raises (you know. for their intrinsic personality characteristics) and the other does not.

the mean age in the company is 25, so this is a lot of people’s first or one of the first forays into real life (i am 27 but i’ve been working for 10 years and an immigrant for 7 so i feel like im built different honestly).

at 25 and in your first ever job, i don’t think any of these people have a very solid identity as workers, so they are quite easy to divide, and the american managers are leaning quite hard into it. for example, one of the executives told my friend on Sophie’s team

“those other guys on Happy’s team, they are not like us… they like vacations, 9-5… but we are motivated by the work itself”, which is a pretty transparent suggestion of identity if you know how to identify these things. incidentally, my friend loves vacations and loves to work “only” 8 hours a day.

the same person told me “you know, jojo, those other guys on sophie’s team, they code very fast, but what the company need is people like you who have brains…”

so, you see, they like to divide.

:)

so now the vibes are all off.

thank god we are still united enough to tell each other our salaries (even me, as one of the oldest and more educated AND lowest paid). so when someone got another offer and they covered it, that triggered an avalanche of people getting other offers and having them covered by the company. as it should. we have nothing to lose but our chains.

something was urgent so i stayed late today, which i almost never do because hello, i’m trying to write a fantasy epic over here!! i need my evenings!!! (i also have a husband and a cat and do you have any idea how hard it is to be a dink in today’s world? especially with a cat???)

Happy saw me staying late, which i never do, and thanked me for it. Sophie heard it, since they always work late (they have no husband and no cat so they have the time). and i thought that it might have been unfair to them, because i was thanked for something they always do. but also they got a huge raise.

Happy also recently complimented me for something, but sadly i have been traumatised by a horrible man who weaponised compliments in my first work experience so manager compliments mean nothing to me anymore. as they should.

other jobs applied to: 0

#TechWorkers find communal living a solution for high rents

News Hour:

Zander Dejah, 25, pays $1,900 a month rent to live in a downtown San Francisco house with at least 40 other people, many of whom sleep in bunk beds.

Dejah is a resident of The Negev, a communal living space that styles itself as a home for millennial tech workers to brainstorm ideas, write code and create apps, even if they have to share toilets and bathrooms with dozens of others.

H…