Young people who left big companies regret not leaving earlier

Large companies are like a besieged city. People outside want to get in, and people inside want to get out. When the balance in the hearts of young people begins to tilt, many choose to leave. Will it be better to leave?

"Teacher, I got an offer from that company. I'm so lucky to get in." I graduated with a master's degree in 2020. Most of my classmates in the department became teachers, civil servants, and doctors, but I, a "heretic", plunged into the Internet. At that time, I didn't like the easy life that I could see the end of. I liked challenges and doing interesting things. I once thought that the Internet was the most suitable job for me.

Reality gave me two big slaps in the face.

Work news in the early morning, 12-hour workdays, colleagues crying when reporting... The reality was completely different from what I expected from this job, and it was not the life I wanted. After 2 years and 3 months, I left the company and the Internet industry. Before leaving, I asked my supervisor X2 (my supervisor's supervisor), "Apart from the relationship between superiors and subordinates, are you happy with your current work and life?" I don't remember his answer, but I heard the voice in my heart - I was not happy.

The biggest attraction of Internet giants should be the salary level. Take campus recruits as an example. A monthly salary of 20k or 30k is a bargain for development positions in giant companies, not to mention that various companies generally offer 15, 16 or even 18 salaries. Even if you graduate from a philosophy, history, Chinese or any major that sounds like it has no "money prospects", you can still get an annual package of more than 200,000 yuan when you graduate. In the early years, many "small town test-takers" from poor families worked hard to buy houses and cars in first-tier cities in giant companies. This is the attractive side of this industry.

But all the gifts of fate come with a hidden price.

What is the other side of big companies like? Many people will get breast nodules and thyroid hyperplasia after one year of work; if they work for a few more years, they will have a chance to be randomly selected from cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, hypertension, hypotension, depression, and heart disease; those with children can only video chat with them at night, and when they get home from get off work, the children are already asleep; others can get off work at sunset, but when people in big companies get home, they pack up and check the clock and it’s midnight. After staying up late in revenge, they get up early in the morning and squeeze into the subway to go to the company. As soon as they sit down, they find a lot of meetings on their schedule...

Everyone has different luck and perception. You may disagree with my description, but I want to say that these things really happen to employees of many large companies.

In recent years, I often see a word called WLB: false work-life balance, work-life balance; real work-life balance, work and live.

Big companies are like a contradiction with two sides, high salaries and opportunities, but also pressure and tiredness. The 2024 First-tier City Digital Technology Talent Migration Insight Report shows that "66% of digital technology talents in first-tier cities want to escape due to work pressure" and "nearly 70% of digital technology talents expect to have stable jobs in the future."

When the balance in young people's hearts begins to tilt, many people choose to leave. Will leaving be better? No one can say for sure. But at least, after leaving, they each rushed to a life full of more possibilities.

1. Does a higher education mean you must make more money? No! Life is a game of free exploration.

Last month I went to Beijing on a business trip and had the chance to chat with Mumu. We met at Starbucks. She walked towards me briskly with a high ponytail and a Disney ShellieMay bag on her back. Her face was filled with the words: youth is invincible. It is hard to imagine that such a young, energetic girl with bright eyes had broken down and cried again and again at work.

Graduated from a top 2 university, she is self-disciplined, tenacious and stable. She gave up several good offers and chose to become an operator in a large Internet company in Beijing. Although it is glamorous to be from Tsinghua University or Peking University, in a large company where there is a 985 undergraduate and master's degree every five steps and a Tsinghua, Peking University, Fudan University or Jiaotong University every ten steps, the status of a famous school is just a threshold rather than a halo.

When Mumu joined the company, the organizational structure changed. A large group was split into two. The original supervisor was transferred and two new bosses were parachuted in. In theory, Mumu, who had just graduated, should be equipped with a mentor to guide her to work on projects. However, due to team adjustments, the mentor originally assigned to her was demoted from a dotted leader who originally led five people to a grassroots employee. This old employee who had worked in the company for 5 years ran away before he had time to teach Mumu anything, and Mumu became a child with no one to take care of him. With the changes in the organizational structure, team strategies have also changed a lot. The new boss proposed a new project, and experienced employees were transferred to work on this "important project" with the highest priority. The project that became the "tears of the times" was given to Mumu.

No one was there to guide him, so he had to do the project that used to be done by two people by himself, and it was a project that the new boss didn't care about. Mumu's heart was filled with a hundred rains. At that time, many relatives and friends said that Mumu was indeed a top student from a prestigious university, working in a large company, and earning over ten thousand yuan right after graduation.

Only Mumu himself knows the true pain.

"I was very prone to crying because of my work. I didn't know why I was under so much pressure. I cried several times in the company. Later I realized that it was exploitation."

At the end of 2022, the epidemic policy changed, and everyone was infected with the new coronavirus, and Mumu was no exception. She lay in bed with a fever in her head, but she found the opportunity to think freely in her rare leisure time. On the third day of sick leave, Mumu's throat seemed to be pierced by knives, and her whole body was aching.

Just when I was feeling upset, my cell phone rang. My superior sent me a message: I will report to the boss on Friday. How is the project review plan going? Can it be submitted tomorrow?

If Mumu had only tentatively considered leaving before this news, at this moment, she had completely decided to leave. This job might be suitable for others, but she was sure that this was not the life she wanted. She had a new goal, to study abroad and give herself another chance to choose.

Mumu took a few months off to travel, volunteer and prepare for the IELTS. After leaving her job, she found that life is not a linear game but a game of free exploration, which many people do not realize.

Mumu has no regrets for giving up the big companies that many young people are trying to get into and the relatively attractive Internet industry. Society has a strange expectation for people with high education. With such education, why don't they go to good companies? Isn't this a waste of talent? But what is a good company and a good job? "Society's evaluation criteria for work and personal value are too simplistic. It is not only about making a lot of money and being decent that is a good job. Everyone should have a different definition of a good job. The most suitable, happiest and most fulfilling job is a good job."

Looking back on the choices he made when he graduated, Mumu summarized it in one sentence: his vision was not open. Now that his vision has been opened, Mumu has received an offer from a prestigious overseas university, and a new free exploration is about to begin.

Last time, Mumu, who had just graduated, entered a big company without knowing much. This time, Mumu thought clearly that she would change her major through studying abroad, study courses that she was interested in, and prepare for a job that suits her personality and pursuits.

I told Mumu that she was lucky to stop the loss in a few months. If she stayed in this industry for a long time and got older, it would be difficult to have such a choice again. Mumu thought it was not the case. "The world is big. It's never too late to do what you want to do."

Yes, as long as you want to change, it’s never too late even if you are 30 or 40 years old.

2. Programmers who only dream of working 996 hours a day switch to selling stairs at the age of 30

At the age of 30, Wei felt that he could no longer write code.

In 2015, 23-year-old A Wei graduated from university with a major in computer science and became a programmer without much hesitation. Due to various factors, A Wei, who had just graduated, did not get into a top company. "Maybe because our school was not a top university, and my internship experience was not good enough."

"At that time, I really wanted to work for a big company, and I thought that big companies were the end point for programmers." It was not until 2020 that Wei successfully joined a leading company as a social recruit. "I know that working in a big company will be very tiring, but I am not someone who cannot endure hardship. The company offered a very high salary and a lot of stocks, so I thought it was worth the effort." Many young people have such mysterious confidence, but reality always slaps them in the face.

Soon the price of high salary came.

"If 996 really exists, I would feel it is a blessing. I often work overtime until midnight on weekdays and have to work overtime on weekends to fix bugs. 996 is a luxury." Once, when Wei got off work at two in the morning, his heart was pounding. That day, he thought about a very profound question - if he died on the way home after working overtime, would the company lose money?

Even so, Ah Wei did not receive recognition from his superiors. "No matter how much overtime you work, it is just hard work, not merit. The new recruits can endure more hardships than you."

The atmosphere in a large company is sometimes very abstract. Everyone calls each other teacher and dear, and it seems warm and affectionate, but in essence it is still cold and even ruthless. Grassroots employees sometimes form groups of two or three, but that is just the closeness of peers and the mutual appreciation of fellow workers, and it cannot change anything fundamentally. For example, the female colleague in the group next to Awei had to work overtime until midnight even though she was pregnant. Her dedication to work was obvious to all, and her colleagues often fed her snacks with concern. But after returning from maternity leave, her business had been completely divided up, and even her workstation was assigned to a new intern. The day the female colleague came back, the confused expression on the intern's face made Awei want to laugh.

People really laugh when they are speechless.

"There was a time when I suddenly felt that life was unreal. I couldn't feel the specific parts of life. I ate just to avoid starving to death, and I got off work so that I could go to work the next day." At this time, Awei was not only unable to balance work and life, but he had also lost the ability to perceive life.

In 2022, Awei suddenly felt uncomfortable in his heart. He went to the hospital but no real lesions were found. The doctor only said, "You need to rest more and pay attention to your pace of life." After leaving the hospital, Awei ordered a sports bracelet to monitor his heartbeat. Although Awei can endure hardships, he also cherishes his life.

He discovered a strange phenomenon through the heart rate data from the bracelet: his heart rate would soar during work hours, return to normal during holidays, and even be normal during lunch breaks.

"Saving my life is more important. I can't go to this class anymore. I still have a long way to go before I get married."

I met Awei when we were renovating our house last year. On the day of the stair installation, the family member sent me a mysterious WeChat message, "Do you know what the stair installer did before? He and his business partner were both programmers! He is not an installer, he works for himself!"

Three months after he decided to save his life, A Wei and his friend who was also a programmer started a staircase business. They received orders through Taobao stores and introductions from acquaintances, found factories to place orders, and did the measurement and installation themselves. He said that he made the stairs for many owners near our community.

I asked Awei how his current income compared to before, and Awei smiled mysteriously.

"Now I have to do some physical work, but my heart doesn't hurt anymore. I don't have the 35-year-old crisis anymore, and I feel much more relaxed."

In the past, 35 was the golden period for a person’s career development, but now young people start to worry about turning 35 at the age of 25. This is one of the reasons why many young people leave this industry.

3. What are the options for those who can no longer work at the age of 35? After the failure of entrepreneurship, they were cured by state-owned enterprises

Xiaoyu left the Internet industry largely to escape the crisis of turning 35.

In 2015, Xiaoyu graduated from a university in Northeast China and became a product manager. He only knew that this line of work was IT, and he had little idea of ​​what it was specifically about. After all, there were no Maimai, Niuke, or Xiaohongshu in that era.

"The top companies at that time were BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), and Baidu was the best among the three companies." Xiaoyu remembers it very clearly. At that time, Alibaba had just shouted the slogan "All In Wireless", and the industry was far from being as "fashionable" as it is today. Later, BAT evolved into "BAT+TMD (Toutiao, Meituan, Didi)", and then Pinduoduo rose strongly to become the most willing to spend money among the Internet giants. The development of this industry is indeed very rapid, and many young people have earned their first pot of gold and many pots of gold by following the development of the industry.

Xiaoyu's first job was to work in a membership mall. When he first started working, he always tried to show himself and wanted to learn more. "At that time, I foolishly thought that I had to improve myself quickly in the first one or two years of work, but after a few years, I found that hard work does not necessarily work. Hard work is only a small part of the success factor. Opportunities, vision, resources, etc. must be combined to succeed."

Xiaoyu can be considered successful to some extent. After changing companies, he became a more important figure in the team.

Where to go next? At that time, some of Xiaoyu's colleagues worked in companies like Pinduoduo, with very impressive incomes but heavy overtime. Xiaoyu thought that this kind of life might not be normal. It was okay when he was young, but where should he go when he was 30 or 35 and couldn't work anymore? He still remembers that there was a colleague in the company who was 33 years old and had worked in the company for many years. Everyone thought that he should have a place in the promotion. But because of his age, he didn't get that opportunity, which was actually a way for the company to get rid of people.

In recent years, the 35-year-old crisis has been a common sentiment among Internet workers. At the beginning, many young people entered the Internet industry with great enthusiasm, but they did not expect their careers to be so short. Does the 35-year-old crisis really exist? I am not sure. But when a crisis has its own name, it seems to be real. Therefore, young people in large companies work hard and must be promoted to a higher level after one year of employment, and then promoted to a relatively high level at a certain age, otherwise it seems that their careers will be flawed. I have thought about this question, why is the 35-year-old crisis in the Internet industry so serious now, and even the crisis comes at the age of 30 - there are too many people. Fresh young people who have just graduated are constantly pouring into the industry. When the position does not require so much experience, age really seems to have become a disadvantage.

There are several ways to bypass the 35-year-old crisis: starting your own company, working for a foreign company, taking the civil service exam, or joining a state-owned enterprise.

Xiaoyu first tried to start a business, but failed. Joining the state-owned enterprise was Xiaoyu's second escape. When talking about the three years in the state-owned enterprise, Xiaoyu couldn't help but smile. According to him, those three years cured all his previous anxieties. Getting off work at 5 o'clock, no KPI pressure, no PUA from superiors, not high but not low salary... Xiaoyu's insomnia was cured without treatment.

"One month was quite busy, and I worked overtime until 6 or 7 o'clock. In an Internet company, this is nothing, but the leader directly increased my salary by 2,000 yuan as a token of consolation. It turns out that hard work can be seen."

Last year, Xiaoyu moved to a traditional company where layoffs were almost impossible. Although he was still working in IT, the atmosphere was very different. The average age of the company's employees was relatively old, and most of them were married with children. There were also employees in their 40s and 50s doing basic work.

"Now I only get annoyed when I lose an argument with developers or business managers. Most of the time I am very calm and I can do this job for the rest of my life."

Many of his colleagues from the same period are still working in large companies, earning relatively high incomes, some even earning millions a year, but Xiaoyu does not regret his choice. "The pressure in the Internet industry is greater than before, and layoffs are also serious. While high salaries come with varying degrees of career crises, I like my current situation."

Xiaoyu is 31 years old this year, and he still wants to earn more if he has the chance. But sacrificing life for money is not the life he wants. In a big company, it is shameful not to devote all your energy to work, and if you stay there for a long time, you will doubt whether this is how the world is; but when you break out of the vicious circle, you will find that work and life are not in conflict, and you can spend a lot of time on life.

4. Others can work until 2 a.m., you also need to have that kind of energy!

"I get off work at five o'clock now, and the evenings feel so long that I don't know what to do." This was Yueya's sweet "complaint" after leaving the big factory.

Back in 2019, Yueya graduated with a master's degree and became an operator in the e-commerce field amid the chaotic campus recruitment. Yueya didn't think too clearly when she entered the Internet industry. "Everyone says that working in a big company is good, so I have to get it. Just like getting high scores in exams, I also have to find a good job."

Yueya is a hard-working and serious girl. Two months after joining the company, the company organized a campus recruitment training. She led the team to win the first place in total points. Yueya thought this was a good start. The work in the next few months was carried out step by step. Although there was pressure, Yueya could still handle it.

The incident happened one year after Yueya joined the company.

The company's organizational structure was adjusted, which was normal in a large company, but it was a storm for grassroots employees. During that time, the new leader had higher requirements for attendance and working hours. Yueya's projects were changed several times, and her close colleagues also chose to resign under the accumulation of various pressures... Under such changes, Yueya felt confused. At that time, her favorite thing was to go to Beihai Park to relax, and her mood would get better every time she went there.

"I think I can still hold on, but I'm not happy. My efforts haven't brought any substantial changes to the business. It seems like I'm just entertaining myself. I don't know what the point of working overtime until midnight every day is."

Summer vacation is here, and Yueya has an intern. He is a free-spirited, free-spirited post-00s. He said to Yueya, "When you mentioned your experience as a curatorial intern, there was light in your eyes, but not now." This sentence touched Yueya. Is it right to do something you don't like? Is a job good if others say it is good?

In a big company, no matter how hard you work, there will always be someone who is more ambitious than you. Yueya’s new supervisor taught her, “You need to be as energetic as Xiaozhou.” Xiaozhou’s life does not have the word “rest”, and it is not uncommon for him to work overtime until 2 a.m. Yueya once doubted herself, was she wrong? Is the world supposed to be like that?

Reading after get off work is Yueya's way to relax. That day she saw a sentence in a book, which roughly meant that it is important to think clearly about what you want.

When Yueya saw that line of words, she was suddenly enlightened. If she still had the chance to choose what she liked to do, why should she suffer here?

When I talked to Yueya on the phone, she was already a curator with three years of work experience. The company is a state-owned enterprise, working from nine to five, providing three meals a day, subsidies during festivals, and as long as you don't make a big mistake, you will never be laid off in your life... Yueya is now in a happy and healthy mood, and her life has changed 180 degrees.

In this company, Yueya also works overtime sometimes, but it is always because there is something specific to do, not because she has to drag it out to show how hard she works. Showing hard work is a skill that many people in large companies are skilled at, and sometimes they have to learn this ability against their will.

Do you hate your previous company? No. On the contrary, Yueya is very grateful for that work experience. The working methods and habits she learned in that company are very helpful to her current work.

"Maybe it's a good company, but I just met it at the wrong time," Yueya said.

V. Conclusion

I asked this question to all the interviewees: If younger students want to enter the Internet industry, will you stop them?

Their answers were similar: no, but it would tell them the true situation of the industry.

This is not a bad industry. On the contrary, there are many opportunities here. Many young people from poor families have turned their lives around in this industry, and many young people who love to work hard are shining in the industry. Whether to enter a large company or not, the most important thing is to "think clearly". If you enter it on impulse or are pushed into it by social trends, you will most likely regret it.

Of course, it’s not too late to regret, just like Mu Mu said, “As long as you want to do it, it’s never too late.”

There is no wrong industry or wrong company, only unsuitable choice.

*Note: The content is from a real interview, and the names of the characters are all pseudonyms

Editor: Guan Shanyue; Editor-in-Chief: Shen Shuaibo

Source: Jinjibo Finance (ID: 193519)