In 2017, graduated from a 985 university in Beijing, four friends with the same house, famous school halo, graduated from the school of computer, school programming competition awards. Little did they know, however, that 385 days after graduation, they would get back together to celebrate the fact that all four of their coders had finally quit their jobs.

 

Unlike other colleges that have attracted much attention for their outstanding students’ dormitories, this dormitory has gained a little fame in the university because it hides four programming “gods”.

While other students were busy looking for jobs and their future was uncertain, they entered BAT as interns early, one in Wangjing and three in Houchang Village. When other students are still worried about becoming a regular employee, they have won the offer of fresh graduates with a monthly salary of 2W.

However, after graduation, even before graduation, the common problems faced by the north drifters have come to us.

You are embarrassed to say that you are a programmer in Beijing if you have not crowded through the baozi flavored Line 13 in the early morning or called the Didi Express for 90 minutes at 10 PM.

Meet the pressure of the post-1995 generation

The school graduation ceremony in July, but in late May, A was in the company’s senior brother urged to go back to work. While dealing with the strict review of his graduation design by the school, he was urged to solve the bugs by his colleagues in the wechat of the enterprise. Such a life lasted for two months with no weekends and no respite.

In the wechat group of four students in the dormitory, student A said “I want to go home” the most.

B is the most affluent student in the dormitory. As soon as he got the offer from the company, accompanied by his parents and the country Garden real estate agent, he signed what he called the “deed of sale”. Parents do not reserve anything for their children. For students, it is an astronomical housing price. The down payment has been taken, and student B only needs to pay back the loan of 8000 yuan every month.

However, when it came time to calculate his expenses, he found that he only got about RMB 15,000 yuan for his monthly salary of RMB 20,000 after paying six insurancesand one housing fund. However, for a 10-square-meter bedroom of RMB 3,000 yuan per month, he had to pay 6 months in advance for the service fee discount. In this way, let the students envy B students with a monthly salary of 2W, had to bite the head of the head to ask for help from their parents, has not officially entered the job, will first find home to borrow more than 10,000.

C was the first one in the dormitory to quit, or to be precise, he didn’t plan to stay in the company long. As early as 2015, the year of “Mass entrepreneurship and Innovation”, C was already preparing to start his own business. At that time, he was only a sophomore. The pioneering seniors who had graduated felt that he could bear hardships and work hard, so they recruited him to join the entrepreneurial team of less than ten people. Ten months and five days later, the team called it quits.

Some of those on the team now seek steady work, while others keep their heads down in the hope of attracting investors. C was quite calm, “Looking at the situation at that time, failure is certain. I can only say that I am very grateful that I learned a lot.” This is his assessment of the experience. Now he is working in a large company, but also has his own clear goal — to quickly accumulate experience for the preparation of entrepreneurship again.

D resigned recently, one year and two months and 385 days after graduation. Earlier this year, he had already switched jobs once to get a raise. Having interned at Baidu, joined Tencent after graduation, and now left Alibaba, he laughs that he has “unlocked the BAT family barrel”. Fourteen months after graduation, he calculates that he has racked up more than 800 hours of overtime.

Less than a year

Three people resign

In the first half of this year, statistics showed that the post-1995 generation stayed with a company for an average of only seven months, which made a joke because the earliest generation graduated only seven months ago when the report was compiled. However, almost every post-1995 and post-1990 generation struggling alone in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou has a heart to quit.

This generation was born in the rapid rise of China after the reform and opening up. They have a critical attitude and their own views on various unsatisfactory phenomena in society, and they never take it for granted.

Everyone has the heart to resign, but few people are really ready to resign.

Student B, whose family is the best, has the strongest desire for promotion among the four. After graduation, while paying the rent, while paying the mortgage, the monthly salary of 20 million before tax, unexpectedly little left. Called a god by his classmates at school, he began to doubt himself after graduation.

He once asked colleagues how he could find time to improve while working six days a week, and was told to stay in his books until 2 p.m. In the 10-square-meter bedroom that rents for $3,000 a month.

Like everyone else, the four students in the dorm, less than three months after graduation, were constantly teasing each other about their companies and dreaming of how to get rich overnight and escape from misery.

Different from other people’s complaints and jokes, C has been thinking about his way out, such as outsourcing, remote part-time jobs, online courses, and all kinds of channels that can enable him to continue to make a living after resignation, he has been actively contacting.

He carefully calculated that 6,000 yuan a month would cover his basic living expenses, and as long as his life was ok, he could continue his business.

After the Spring Festival, the company’s year-end bonus, C resigned. In his parents’ eyes, he was young, impulsive and reckless. In fact, C had planned all along. One week before his resignation, he had taken time off to take outsourced private work and signed a remote part-time development job.

Almost at the same time, A also resigned with his year-end bonus, and the biggest motivation for his resignation was to start A business with his brother C. If things don’t pick up at the end of the year, he may look for another job, but until then, “I just don’t want to live 996 anymore.”

After a month, D jumped from Tencent to Ali and continued his life of “moving bricks”. However, his monthly salary was 2000 higher than that of B, who had not changed his job and was still considering promotion in the previous company. To his surprise, not long after, his friend B posted a message on his dorm’s wechat group without any warning: “I have joined the naked resignation camp, hahahahaha.”

In fact, B’s resignation was unprepared and even impulsive. It started with an argument with a colleague about a business problem and who should take the blame. After returning home, HE thought about the pain he had to continue studying when he got off work at 10 o ‘clock and the mortgage payment of 8000 yuan a month. Without informing his parents or the leadership of the company, B directly submitted the resignation application on the internal system.

With the backing of his parents, the mortgage is not a big problem for him, but from childhood to the big has been excellent in his academic performance, this time do not know how to open to his parents, his “irresponsible naked resignation”.

subsequent

After a month of calm at home, STUDENT B began to work as a freelancer, working as an independent developer and making money by making apps. I began my journey of working hard but not working. He still doesn’t make as much money as his job, but he’s happier. At least he has free time to do what he wants, and he recently enrolled in a Japanese class.

This time, B came to Beijing from home, because D, who unlocked the “BAT family barrel”, finally decided to resign.

Two other entrepreneurial classmates came from the rental house, and the four dormitory members went back to the barbecue restaurant near the campus for a reunion. It’s been 385 days since they graduated last summer, and a year ago they would have never imagined that they would be back on campus to celebrate the 100% resignation rate of their dorm mates.

Now the topics they discuss around the dinner table don’t seem to be in the interest of first-year graduates: self-discipline outside the workplace, finding connections outside the workplace, how to leverage each other.

And from their own struggles, they’ve gleaned a few things about quitting:

  • I don’t think that I can’t endure hardship, but I hope to have some time to manage myself even if I earn less. I think this is the life I want

  • There is no objection to those who want to work hard and follow a career path

  • The biggest distress lies in, the good friends around, mostly have no real courage to resign, the dormitory four people can only rely on each other, short term there is no way to borrow power in the larger circle inside, find resources

  • The most important point: whether to quit or not should not be decided by emotion, but should try to find their own way out, so that you can quit with confidence.

This article is written by a former programmer who found a freelance career after similar struggles.

Check out his column “KyXu Teaches you Indie Development” by clicking on the bottom left [read the original article].