The first quarter of 2022 is over. In the past three months, the events that have competed for news headlines include: epidemics, wars, air crashes, layoffs and salary cuts... People "graduate" with confusion, and their origins and destinations are all blurred. When there is no trace of the past order, helplessness can easily be transformed into anger.
The author | Xiaokui
Edited | Jiang Yue
WeChat public account: Chief Character View (ID: sxrenwuguan)
one
More than a decade ago, on the day I decided to leave traditional media, I told my leaders that I wanted to "graduate."
It was my first media job. The newspaper office where I worked was famous in Beijing for its fast pace and high pressure, often working 12-hour night shifts and continuing to work during the day. There are many jokes circulating inside: the Whampoa Military Academy; those who go out from here will have no work that they cannot do in the future.
Leaving the newspaper office feels like graduation.
I grew up and wanted to go to the bigger world to see it. Portal became my next stop, and it allowed my content to be seen by more people. I brought with me the skills and habits I learned in the newspaper, and many of my leaders and colleagues later became good friends of mine.
This is probably the path of many young people growing up. Jobs are changed one by one, and graduations are held one after another. When each journey comes to an end for the time being, it means new hope, a future with more possibilities.
Graduation sounds like a sparkling word.
two
My friend Beikun got a heavy graduation gift on the day he left Tencent.
It's really heavy. Because the outer packaging is a wooden box the size of a shoe box, there is also a golden porcelain fat penguin inside.
It is also really called "graduation gift". Because the wooden box is engraved with "parting commemoration", there is also a specially customized "graduation certificate" inside, the appearance of the work card, plus an official stamp to prove the graduation fact. It's like a college diploma.
He worked at Tencent for seven years before leaving in 2017. Later, he moved again, but he never lost that graduation gift. The box, which he had put into the drawer where the important certificates were stored, was still in the same cluster.
At my request, I flipped out of the box and saw the "graduation certificate" the moment, his voice was filled with joy: it turned out that I was so young at that time.
Graduation souvenirs carry memories, and also like little red book filters, beautifying memories. When he looked back, he only saw his former face, remembered the cuteness of youth, and forgot the tiredness of those overtime meetings.
There is also Sohu.
Although its business is not doing well now, Zhang Chaoyang simply gave up the vision of "returning to the center of the stage" and plunged into the live broadcast room to teach physics lessons, but as a serious "Whampoa Military Academy" in the Internet industry, Sohu will stir up a wave of "cloud celebration" in the industry every year when it celebrates.
No matter where they are, many people will forward the birthday numbers lit up by Sohu Building on this day, reveal their former identities, and recognize their relatives in the circle of friends by the way.
Graduation sounds like a warm word.
three
"Happy graduation! Congratulations on your successful graduation from JD.com! Thanks for being with you all the way! Because of this sentence on the employee departure notice, JD.com was scolded on the hot search.
In March, when the screenshot was exposed, many sectors and business units of Jingdong, including retail, logistics, and technology, carried out layoffs ranging from 10%-30%, of which Jingxi was the hardest hit area, and in a layoff list transmitted online, the Jingxi Guangdong Theater was ended up. Many fresh graduates said in the Little Red Book that they had successfully "graduated" not long after they first joined the company.
Graduation has become a malicious word.
People who enthusiastically scolded it said that this was JD.com's cunning words, using the name of "graduation" to cover up the fact of "layoffs", which was the next move of "funeral joy".
Internet companies do have such a criminal record. Structural optimization and the delivery of talents to the society are all creative expressions of "layoffs".
However, "graduation" is really misunderstood.
It has a long history and can be called a "relic" of the classical Internet period. In that era, Google-style looseness and humanization were still the objects of emulation of Internet companies, calling "leaving" "graduation", just like calling "colleagues" "classmates", which was used to eliminate distance and express cordiality.
A good word, how did it turn over?
shop
Because the context has changed.
The same is to call the departure "graduation", in the Internet booming, penetrated into various traditional industries, playing the role of subversive and changer, it is cute, is positive, is the Internet-style humanistic care.
People "graduate" with hope and rush to the next station. It includes, but is not limited to, higher platforms, double wages, and rewards for option equity.
Today, the key word belonging to the Internet is "big layoffs", which is a visible decline with the naked eye.
Ma Yun's quotations no longer occupy the C position of the airport bookstore, Wang Xing's meal is no longer updated fragmented, and there are more intuitive data, such as the plunge of Chinese stocks, the lack of uniform growth in the financial report... The change in the situation falls on the Internet employees at the end, and the heaviest price is: layoffs.
Internet companies once said that employees are the most important asset. But as soon as winter arrives, they choose to "cut" off their wealth.
People "graduate" with confusion, and their origins and destinations are all blurred.
"I have long been mentally prepared, but it is still very sad to be interviewed," Yang Ting just received a notice of layoffs from a large factory this week. The 41-year-old middle-aged man, carrying a car and mortgage, old and young, lost his job and did not know how he was going to survive in Beijing. Age has become a huge gulf between him and the yearning company.
At this time, the company then calls the title "graduation", and also expresses "congratulations" without discrimination, not human nature, but animal nature.
five
In the final analysis, the object of people's curses is not the word "graduation", nor is it the inappropriate "congratulations on graduation" jd.com.
It's fate. Or rather, the helpless self standing in front of fate.
The first quarter of 2022 is over. In the past three months, the events that have competed for news headlines include: epidemics, wars, air crashes, layoffs and salary cuts... When there is no trace of the past order, helplessness can easily be transformed into anger.
So, when the misunderstanding of "congratulations on graduation" occurred, no one cared about the truth and details. What more people need is just a target for emotional catharsis. This boot is broken, and they can always find the next one.
But this misunderstanding has also sounded the alarm bell of the Internet to a certain extent.
A filter that is more sufficient than the special effects of the Little Red Book was once capital. In that era when the Internet was booming, people saw it as fragrant. By the time Ma Yun talked about "996 is a blessing" in 2019, the wind direction of public opinion has revealed subtlety, but there are still people who support and some who oppose.
Just 3 years later, everything changed.
Internet companies have long been accustomed to being scolded, and the founders have quietly learned to bury their heads and be human.
Wang Xing's sentence, which Wang Xing once forwarded in the rice no, "2019 may be the worst year in the past decade, but it is the best year in the next decade", has been quoted by countless people in the past two years.
At least for Internet companies, this is somewhat of a cliché.
A "congratulations on graduation" statement actually made JD.com unable to lift its head. And what can't look up is actually not just JD.com.
There is also the Internet industry, which cannot tell a new story.