Why I chose to leave the workplace in 2023

This article explores the thinking and considerations behind the decision to leave the workplace. If you are confused about your career development, this article can provide you with unique perspectives and inspiration. No matter which path you choose, it is key to maintain a positive attitude and face challenges bravely.

Hello everyone, I am Brother Long.

In 2023, when everyone was telling people not to quit their jobs easily because of the economic downturn, I still quit.

Moreover, after leaving my job in April this year, I did not look for new job opportunities, but decided to leave the workplace completely.

This is not because of financial freedom, after all, it is impossible to achieve that by working.

It’s not because I have no choice. My academic background and professional resume are pretty good. Marketing and user research is not a career that only requires youth. If I keep working hard, I won’t have any problem continuing my career until I’m in my 40s.

But I don’t want to go back to the workplace.

Believe me, this is not a momentary impulse. It is a decision I made after spending almost a year on it. It is based on my understanding and experience of the workplace over the past decade, and I am now sharing it with you.

1. The entrepreneurial team route has high returns, but high risks, and is a rare opportunity

Survival in the workplace actually follows a pyramid system.

There are only two paths to reach the top of the pyramid: one is to go the entrepreneurial team route, and the other is to go the professional manager route.

Let’s talk about the entrepreneurial team route first.

This route is to join a company when it is just starting out or before it reaches a certain scale, work hard with the boss, and form a community of interests early on.

Once a company becomes bigger and stronger, the initial entrepreneurial team will basically be ranked high and at the center of power.

A typical example is the story of Jack Ma and the 18 Arhats. After Alibaba became bigger, the 18 Arhats became Alibaba's core managers, either presidents or CEOs, and the ones who were slightly below that were directors.

And based on my work experience, this situation is also very common.

At the large mobile phone manufacturer where I work, the company's core management team goes on stage for a group photo at every annual meeting. They are all veterans who have followed the boss for many years.

The educational and ability thresholds for this route are relatively low, but the upper limit of income is extremely high, and one can truly be integrated into the core power circle as long as one's abilities do not fall behind along the way.

But this route is a rare opportunity and it really tests your vision and luck, and it involves an element of gambling.

In my previous company, the department boss initiated a one-on-one conversation with employees.

This big boss was born in the 1980s. At a young age, he became the general manager of a department with thousands of employees at China's largest mobile phone manufacturer with the largest market share.

During the conversation with him, I sincerely asked him about his secret of success. He smiled and said very frankly: It was all luck.

He said that he only graduated from a 211 science and engineering college and had no advantages in terms of academic background. Most of the outstanding graduates of his age went to well-known large state-owned enterprises and foreign companies such as China Mobile, China Telecom, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, while this mobile phone company was still a third-rate company at the time.

He entered this company by accident, and then caught up with the company's explosive growth bonus period, and was lucky enough to become one of the best performing students in that graduating class.

The past 20 years in China have belonged to the era of entrepreneurial teams, because the growth and maturity of modern companies in China have only happened in the last 20 years.

After 2020, with the end of the dividends of several major eras such as real estate, PC Internet, and mobile Internet, the pattern of various social and economic fields has tended to stabilize. For a long time to come, unless there is a technological revolution or policy changes, it will be difficult for new up-and-coming companies to emerge in large numbers.

In other words, the mainstream of the next ten years will be the era of professional managers, and it will be difficult for ordinary people to have any opportunities.

2. The benefits and ceiling of the professional manager route are not high and will continue to decline

According to the "China Entrepreneur Value Report (2023)", the average annual salary of executives of listed companies in various industries in 2022 will be between 1 million and 2.5 million, and these are executives of listed companies.

Table: Average annual salary of each company by industry and ranking (valid sample 4962 companies)

In addition, in terms of executive compensation, the report shows that the growth rate of the highest annual salary level of executives of listed companies has slowed down. Compared with the 5.84% increase in 2021, the growth rate in 2022 has slowed down to 3.63%.

Of course, managers also have extremely high incomes. In order to invite Tang Jun, the "working emperor" of the time, Xinhuadu Group offered him a price tag of 1 billion RMB, including stock options, to be its CEO; many former company executives I know have annual incomes of over 10 million RMB.

But you have to look at the probability problem.

In China, only less than 0.01% of people can stand at the top of the career pyramid. The career ceiling for most ordinary people like me is a grassroots manager (director/senior director). As far as I know, in the largest companies in China that pay the most, the income of directors/senior directors is 2-3 million, and this is before tax, and the annual package includes a lot of stock options.

Moreover, the income of directors/senior directors in different professions varies greatly. The income ceiling for a marketing and user research director in China is 2 million before tax, and there are not many of them in the country. The average director/senior director earns around one million, and the difference is 500,000 or 600,000. This is already the limit of career income for most ordinary people.

Do you know how difficult it is to become a grassroots manager (director/senior director)? Manager positions are scarce resources. There are so many pits in a company. In a large company with tens of thousands of people, less than 10% of them can eventually become managers.

Why are the income of professional managers destined not to be too high and will eventually decrease?

The so-called professional managers are those who rely on human capital rather than monetary capital, and earn returns by helping enterprises maintain and increase their value. They follow market principles.

Since professional managers follow market principles and are governed by the "invisible hand" of the market, they will inevitably emphasize cost-effectiveness at a time when talent supply generally exceeds demand. It's not excessive for PDD to cut a few points, right?

Everyone emphasizes cost-effectiveness, so how high can the benefits be?

In the past, a programmer's salary would double or triple every time he changed jobs, and his annual salary would reach millions within a few years after graduation. That was because of the rapid growth of mobile Internet and the scarcity of talent, so a high premium was generated. This situation will become less and less in the future.

In addition to marketization, the trend of the country's secondary income distribution rules for professional managers also determines that their income and ceiling will be lower.

Below is the personal income tax rate table applicable to 2023 (applicable to comprehensive income).

This table means that a senior soldier in a large company with an annual salary of one million has to pay 200,000 of his income in taxes; for directors/senior directors, nearly half of the portion of their annual income that exceeds one million has to be paid to the state.

This has led to a strange phenomenon: some professional managers with annual salaries of over one million are unwilling to take higher-paying jobs because their actual income has not increased much, while the pressure of responsibility is much higher.

Of course, these modern large companies have some tax-saving measures, a typical example of which is the year-end bonus system, which breaks down the full year's income into small pieces to reasonably avoid taxes.

However, according to the announcement of the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation, preferential policies such as separate taxation of annual one-time bonuses, separate taxation of equity incentives of listed companies, and exemption from final tax settlement for annual income not exceeding 120,000 yuan or additional tax not exceeding 400 yuan will expire on December 31, 2023.

The country's attitude can be seen from these policies. Looking back at the country's policies towards individual enterprises, small and micro enterprises, and scientific and technological innovation enterprises, they are completely different.

For example: In 2023, the personal income tax preferences for self-employed individuals will be increased, and the taxable income for which personal income tax is halved will be increased from 1 million to 2 million.

At its core, it is the difference in value creation. Compared with innovation and entrepreneurship, the incremental value that professional managers can create is limited.

3. The requirements for professional managers are getting higher and higher, and the chances of winning are getting lower and lower

We all have a feeling that with the general surplus of talent in various industries, companies are becoming more and more picky about talent.

Let’s take the marketing and user research profession as an example. In 2015, as long as you had experience in marketing and user research, you had a chance to enter big companies like Tencent. But after 2020, 985/211 is the basic threshold (the team of my previous company all has backgrounds from famous universities such as Peking University, Renmin University, Fudan University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology). If you want to be recruited from the society, your professional experience must be endorsed by a big company, and relevant industry experience is also required.

I can clearly feel that my undergraduate degree from Renmin University was very competitive in the first few years after graduation, but in recent years, job hunting has mainly relied on professional experience, and the advantage is no longer there.

In addition to the higher recruitment threshold, the comprehensive ability requirements for professional managers are also increasing.

The following are three core survival rules for professional managers that I have summarized based on my professional experience over the past decade.

The first rule of survival for managers in the workplace: The closer you are to your leader, the closer you are to promotion and salary increase.

I remember that not long after I joined my previous company, the general manager of the department gave leadership course training to new employees. Before the class, he would deliberately observe who was sitting in the front row. In his opinion, those sitting in the front row were more likely to have leadership potential.

Why?

Those who take the initiative to sit in the front row know that they can get closer to the leaders and the center of power, which makes it easier for them to get attention and various opportunities, and to gain authorization (power). However, those who sit in the back row and avoid the leaders have removed themselves from the center of power and given up the opportunity to gain attention and authorization. Can you still expect them to have leadership?

After all, leadership can be described in another way as the game of power.

Looking back to when I was in college, the students who sat in the front row in class generally had better grades, and were among the top 10 in credits. In addition to studying hard in class, it is also possible that they had the bonus of impression points.

With the teachers of several of my favorite courses, I would communicate more with them after class, asking questions and so on, and I always got full credits on the final exams. It’s not that I’m a good student.

There was an elective course in my senior year of college. I had no interest in the content taught by the teacher, so I sat in the back row during class and had no communication with the teacher. As a result, in the final exam, the teacher mistook me for another student who often skipped classes and made me fail the course. In this way, this elective course became the only subject I failed in my entire college, and I was nailed to the pillar of shame.

For a very long time, I was a staunch "pragmatist", which means I believed that as long as I did my job conscientiously and made achievements, I would naturally be promoted and get a raise.

However, the reality is that I need to work very hard and even "involve myself" to achieve this goal, and my promotion and salary increase have been very slow throughout my career.

Getting close to a leader does not necessarily mean flattery and sycophancy. In my career, I have rarely seen such people.

Being close to a leader involves both physical and psychological aspects.

Being close on the physical level means communicating and interacting more with leaders, rather than avoiding them when you have nothing to do; being close on the psychological level means recognizing, appreciating, and being loyal to leaders from the bottom of your heart.

It is not difficult to get close to the leader on the physical level, but it is difficult to get close to him on the psychological level.

If you can't get close to others on a psychological level, it will be difficult to make a difference in the workplace.

The reason is simple. For a leader whom you highly recognize, admire and like, you will most likely be willing to actively and frequently communicate and interact with him/her in your daily work and serve the leader well. The leader will also be able to feel your love and dedication and will be more likely to give you trust, resources and opportunities for development.

After all, who can refuse someone who likes them?

On the contrary, for a leader you do not approve of, have inner resistance to, or have resentment against, no matter how well you "perform" normally, there will be leaks in the details of serving the leader, and your relationship with the leader will most likely remain a working relationship. If you are polite to each other, treat each other like guests, and remain distant, then when the time comes to divide the cake, how can the leader think of you first?

If you want to get closer to others on a psychological level, it is best to choose the right leader from the beginning, a leader who shares the same interests as you.

The relationship between people is very subtle. For most people, you will have likes and dislikes without even having a conversation with them. Preferences exist objectively, but the degree of preference varies from person to person.

Therefore, the interview is a very important step when joining a new company. Not only is the leader interviewing you, but you are also screening the leader. If you feel in your heart that this leader does not match your aura or style, quickly change to another one.

The second survival rule for workplace managers: A person’s career ceiling does not depend on his strengths, but on his weaknesses.

In order to select outstanding talents, modern companies have developed a capability assessment system, which is essentially a composite assessment without exception.

What does this mean? It means collecting evaluation information from people at different levels and evaluating the abilities of the people being evaluated from multiple ability dimensions, which indirectly affects promotion and salary increase.

Why do I say it is indirect? Because your leader’s voice is the direct influencing factor (that’s why I listed it as the first rule of survival).

The following is a typical market & user researcher capability assessment model.

This requires not only professional ability, but also strong soft power.

If you regard the workplace as a game of leveling up and fighting monsters, in the beginning, when you have not yet left the novice village, all you are required to do is to accumulate professional knowledge, hone your professional skills, and practice the basics; once you leave the novice village and reach the manager level, you will be required to have strong soft skills, such as communication, project management, teamwork, etc.; once you move up to the management or expert level, you will be required to have the ability to lead a team, the ability to cultivate talents, the ability to innovate, and the organizational influence, etc.

During the whole process, if you have shortcomings in any link, you will be stuck there for a long time or even unable to move forward. It is so cruel.

Observing my previous professional managers, they are all true multi-faceted warriors. Their professional ability, soft skills and even personal image are among the best among people. They have been tempered through thousands of trials and tribulations and have no flaws.

The third survival rule for managers in the workplace: Only mature adults can reap the fruits of victory in the end

The workplace is essentially a collection of people and social relationships, a place where interests are important. However, an immature person will not easily see the competition for interests, let alone the human nature behind the interests. Most of the time, he only sees himself and simply does his job well, without even realizing that he has offended his colleagues by accident.

Influenced by my original family and growing environment, I am actually a very late maturer mentally. It was only after I turned 30 that I gradually gained a clear understanding of myself and the operation of the entire social rules.

Many years ago, I did a stupid thing in the company.

Once when I was working on a research project, I needed to retrieve and integrate data from different departments. I had many rounds of communication for this data retrieval and integration, but to no avail. Finally, I sent a copy to the heads of each business unit in a fit of anger.

This matter soon alarmed the company's senior management. My direct supervisor couldn't believe that I would do such a thing. How could I be so naive? The data barriers of large companies have always existed and were not formed in one day. There are very complicated reasons behind it.

Fortunately, considering that I was focused on pushing the work forward, the matter was eventually left unresolved.

I have been a little obsessed with "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" recently. What fascinates me is not the ups and downs of the story, nor the shining stars in the troubled times, but the power struggles and human nature.

Why did Guan Yu, a great general and the second most important figure under Liu Bei of Shu Han, end up being defeated and killed in Maicheng by "traitors and lowly people"? One of the important reasons was that when Guan Yu led his army to attack Fancheng, Sun Quan stole his home, and Fu Shiren and Nan Mi Fang, who were guarding the rear and in charge of food and grass, opened the city gates and defected to the enemy.

Guan Yu never dreamed that the two of them would rebel. You have to know that these two are old subordinates who have followed Liu Bei for many years and are part of the entrepreneurial team. Mi Fang is even related to Liu Bei by marriage and is Liu Bei's brother-in-law.

Why did the two of them rebel? "The Three Kingdoms: Biography of Guan Yu" records that it was because Guan Yu had always despised Fu Shiren and Mi Fang, and the two of them failed to supply military supplies in time during the Northern Expedition to Xiangfan. Guan Yu said he would punish the two of them when he returned, and eventually forced them to rebel.

"Also, Nanjun Governor Mi Fang was in Jiangling, and General Shi Ren was stationed in Gong'an. They all felt that Yu looked down on them. When Yu went out to fight, Fang and Ren provided military supplies but did not come to his rescue. Yu said, "I will punish them when I return." Fang and Ren were both afraid and uneasy. So Quan secretly seduced Fang and Ren, and Fang and Ren sent people to meet Quan."

Guan Yu eventually paid the price of his life for his arrogance and ignorance of human nature.

In summary, the entry threshold for professional managers is getting higher and higher. In addition to having strong professional capabilities, it also tests one's ability to socialize (including upward, horizontal, and downward) and handle human relationships. I am an INFP type of person who is used to focusing on research. I feel that I cannot win the game, so it is better to leave as soon as possible.

After all, if I can't win according to the rules of the game, I either overturn the table or leave the table. I can't overturn the table, so I have no choice but to leave.

4. Professional managers cannot control their own destiny

Since ancient times, famous generals and heroes who have made great achievements seem unable to escape the curse of "when the cunning rabbit dies, the running dog is cooked."

Han Xin made great contributions to Liu Bang and established the powerful Han Dynasty, but he eventually died in the Weiyang Palace because his achievements were too great.

During the Three Kingdoms period, among the many counselors in Cao Cao's camp, Xun Yu was definitely a top-notch chief counselor, right? He joined Cao Cao at the age of 29, guarded the rear for Cao Cao, made suggestions, recruited celebrities, analyzed the pros and cons, pointed out the way, and made great contributions to the Han Dynasty. Cao Cao called him "my Zifang". However, in his later years, he was transferred away from the center of power by Cao Cao and died of depression (some say that Cao Cao visited him with an empty box, and Xun Yu committed suicide by taking poison).

During the Qing Dynasty, Nian Gengyao helped Yongzheng seize imperial power, quell rebellions, and govern the country, but was eventually executed in prison.

There is nothing new under the sun, and such examples are not uncommon in modern times.

Starting from 2021, in a round of layoffs at BAT, many senior executives with more than ten or twenty years of experience were laid off.

Then we saw a former Alibaba P8 selling courses live on the Internet, a marketing director of a Fortune 500 company delivering food on an electric bike, and a senior executive of a foreign company in Shanghai driving an online ride-hailing car.

Therefore, from ancient times to the present, history tells us that there is great uncertainty in the path of relying on a certain interest group/company/platform to obtain survival resources.

Once a special interest group/company/platform encounters an operational crisis, the first thing they think of is self-protection, cutting off their own arms to survive, so how can they care about professional managers? After all, professional managers themselves are a kind of mobile public resource and can be replaced at any time.

Regarding this point, I first experienced it myself during the company's layoffs in 2021.

So why do people now say that the end of the universe is the system, and why taking the civil service exam and the postgraduate entrance exam are called "getting ashore", it is because everyone knows that the workplace does not support idlers or elderly people, and instead of being "old and helpless", it is better to serve the people with a stable job.

In the past two or three years, I have also found that more and more colleagues around me have quit their high-paying jobs to take civil service exams or graduate school exams, or have left the front line and returned to their hometowns to seek other ways out. In short, it seems to be becoming a consensus that careers cannot end well.

I can foresee that if I continue to live a mediocre career, I will probably end up unemployed when I am in my 40s. At that time, I will be middle-aged, with elderly parents and young children to take care of, and I will be extremely vulnerable. Instead of this, the wisest choice for me is to leave the boiling frog environment as soon as possible, fight risks as soon as possible while I am still young, and explore my own new way out, a way out that is not dependent on any interest group/company/platform, and gain a life of certainty that belongs to me.

5. Professional managers are facing serious internal competition, and their living environment is deteriorating, which is not worth the loss.

It goes without saying that today’s workplace is extremely inward-looking.

The working status of many people in the workplace is: work until 9 or 10 o'clock every day, and when the project is busy, working overtime on weekends is also common.

We have all taken it for granted, and no one seems to question what we have lost.

We are losing the values ​​on which we make our living.

With the advent of the era of refined operation of existing assets and further refinement of professional division of labor, every person in the workplace faces the dilemma of becoming a "screw".

When you are working, you do the same thing over and over again in a narrow field. Over time, you will be surpassed by younger people and competitors. You think you are very valuable, but in fact, the company only provides a protective shell, and your value has long been lost.

So there is a popular saying now: Don’t mistake the platform for your ability. Without the platform, you may be nothing.

We are losing our health, our families.

During the more than ten years of work, my body has been in a sub-healthy state due to long-term overtime work, staying up late, sitting for long periods of time and tremendous mental stress. Even though I have been exercising and keeping fit, I still cannot avoid problems such as high cholesterol, high uric acid, fatty liver and so on. During this period, I also suffered from level four hair loss and gained weight and lost my shape.

My former leaders who are married and have children, especially the women, work very hard and are often required to work overtime and stay up late for long periods of time. It is really hard for me to imagine how they balance work and family.

We are losing our joy and our sense of beauty in the world.

Nowadays, it is difficult to see the kind of genuine happiness and relaxation among urban working people. Most of what you can see are anxiety, numbness, and lifelessness. This is especially evident in working people who have been working for many years.

Many people and things in life can no longer arouse their interest and emotions. After work, they just want to sleep, lie down and browse their mobile phones. When they go out for a walk, they are listless and yawn all the time.

After I resigned in April this year, I went on a trip to western Sichuan. During the trip, I saw towering snow-capped mountains, blue lakes, and magnificent white pagodas, but I was only touched by a picture of spring ploughing.

At that moment, I remembered the poem "Facing the Sea, Spring Blossoms" by the poet Haizi:

From tomorrow on, be a happy person

Feed horses, chop wood, travel the world

From tomorrow, care about food and vegetables

I posted this picture to my Moments, and it attracted a lot of likes and comments from friends:

This kind of life is great!

I really want to feed horses and herd sheep

…

You see, we are all the same. The happy life we ​​pursue is very simple, but we have been rushing towards the path that moves away from happiness.

Is it all really worth it just for that seemingly good income?

I thought the loss outweighed the gain, so I chose to leave firmly.

Final Thoughts

My original intention in writing this article was to share the reasons why I left the workplace at the age of 35. The views expressed in this article only represent my personal thoughts.

The workplace is of great help in improving personal abilities and accumulating survival resources. Based on my own personal experience, I do not recommend quitting your job easily. My leaving the workplace was a personal decision made under a specific historical background and a specific time window.

Author: Liu Peilong; WeChat public account: User Research Stories (ID: gh_cdf8873fdd23)