Introduction
Hi everyone! Today, I want to share my failed career experiences in some of China's major tech companies. As a cautionary tale, I hope to offer some insights. In this video, I'll start with my most unsuccessful stint, which was at Alibaba DingTalk.
My Time at DingTalk
I joined Alibaba DingTalk in 2018 and only worked there for five and a half months before leaving. The reason for my departure was high work pressure, but it was counterintuitive. It wasn't because I had an overwhelming amount of work that I couldn't finish. Instead, it was due to a lack of tasks and requirements.
The Pressure of No Work
At that time, as a new employee, I was required to write a daily report every day and a weekly report every week. To do this, I needed to document what I had done. However, with no tasks or requirements, I spent each day thinking about what kind of task I could come up with to complete the daily report. This put a lot of pressure on me. In that situation, I needed to have the ability to create something out of nothing. Even without external business requirements, I had to be able to generate my own ideas. Unfortunately, I lacked this ability at the time. By the time I left, I still hadn't found a suitable and sustainable direction on my own. Eventually, I couldn't bear the daily struggle of coming up with tasks and decided to resign.
Communication with Leaders
During this period, I talked to several of my leaders about my lack of work. In fact, I had three different leaders in just five and a half months due to frequent organizational structure changes. Each leader would say something like "embrace change," which is part of Alibaba's culture. Some leaders, who were new and not very familiar with the business, didn't provide much practical help. One leader, in particular, left a deep impression on me. He even criticized me, saying that I seemed like a fresh graduate who needed others to assign tasks. He believed that at my level, I should have my own ideas and not rely on others to tell me what to do. While his words had some truth to them, I really did lack the necessary ideas and the ability to create something out of nothing at that time. It was likely a mismatch between my abilities and the company's culture, which led to my departure.
The Impact of No Work
Some people might think that having a job with no work and getting paid is great. But if you've actually experienced a long period of having nothing to do, you'll know how painful it is. Every day, I had to write daily and weekly reports, but without any work, I had nothing to write. Moreover, Alibaba has a strict performance evaluation system called 361, which requires at least 10% of employees to be eliminated each year. If you have no work output, you're likely to be the one who gets eliminated. And if you're eliminated, you won't get a bonus, which means you won't have much money. I believe those who have experienced a long period of having no work can understand my feelings.
Attempts to Find Work
In addition to talking to my leaders, I also tried to reach out to some neighboring departments to see if they had any tasks I could do. However, the results were not very satisfactory. I suspected that they might have thought I was trying to steal their credit, so they didn't seem willing to give me even the most basic tasks. I really wanted to be a free laborer at that time, but no one gave me the opportunity.
Interpersonal Relationships
There was another issue. When I told my leaders that I had no work, a colleague from another part of the business found out and was very unhappy with me. He was an old employee with some stocks and several houses, and he was basically in a "lying flat" state. He didn't want to do much work and thought it was great to have no work. When I reported this situation to my leaders, it might have led to them assigning more tasks or having a negative impact on the performance evaluation of our business line, which affected him. This shows how complex interpersonal relationships can be in the workplace.
The Reason for My Lack of Work
There was one thing I couldn't figure out: why did they hire me if they had no requirements? And why did they keep urging me to join the company before I started? It wasn't until the day I left that I had a glimmer of understanding. It was quite a strange situation. I left the company on the same day as the product manager of our product line, and we didn't know that we were both leaving until that day. The reason the product manager left was that none of the product requirements he proposed had been approved. This meant that he had no output, and since his requirements weren't approved, I had no external requirements to work on. This could explain why I had no work for a long time and why the product manager decided to leave.
My Emotional Journey After Leaving
After leaving Alibaba, I went through several emotional stages. The first stage was extreme self-doubt and lack of confidence. I thought I might have poor stress tolerance or lack the ability to create something out of nothing. I also worried that my five-and-a-half-month work experience would make it difficult for me to find a new job. I felt like the sky was falling. I often had sweaty palms, and my wife could tell when I was anxious. The second stage was having nightmares at night. I would dream about the stressful situations I faced at Alibaba, such as constantly looking for tasks and trying to write daily reports. The third stage was quite funny. I dreamed that I had returned to Alibaba and was determined to prove myself. The fourth stage was a more calm and accepting one. After about two years, I was able to accept my failure and talk about it openly. This was partly because I had been working in a foreign company for a long time, which was less stressful and helped me regain my confidence. Another reason was that time had passed, and I had gradually forgotten about the experience.
The Working Environment at DingTalk
Now, let's talk about the working environment at DingTalk. In 2018, my main workplace was at the Lakeside Garden, which was Ma Yun's former home. It was a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment that was crammed with about 30 people from our business line. Some people even worked on makeshift desks on the balcony. The working environment was worse than a black Internet cafe. The headquarters of DingTalk was at Longzhang, near Xixi Wetland. There were several floors, but many people didn't have a proper workspace. Some people worked in the corridor, some on top of the printer, and some shared a desk with others. This was probably because DingTalk was expanding rapidly at that time, but the hardware facilities couldn't keep up. What I found most unacceptable was that, despite the shortage of workspaces, about half of one floor was set aside for a kendo practice area. The founder of DingTalk, Wu Zhao, had lived in Japan for many years and was a fan of kendo. The HR department then started promoting the benefits of kendo, such as improving stress tolerance. However, it seemed like they were just trying to please the boss. As far as I know, very few people used the kendo practice area. It was really hard to understand why they would allocate such a large space for something so impractical when there was a shortage of workspaces.
DingTalk's Culture and KPI
DingTalk had its own unique culture. For example, there was a "DingTalk Day" where a daily report would be sent out at 11 pm on DingTalk. This report was written by the senior management on a rotating basis and usually contained inspiring stories about employees working hard or achieving great results. It put a lot of pressure on me, so I eventually stopped reading it.
In terms of KPI, new employees in 2018 were required to bring in a company to use DingTalk for office work. It wasn't enough to just sign them up; they had to actually use it and reach a certain level of activity. I managed to complete this task with the help of a colleague I met during the Alibaba induction training. Another requirement was to learn the company's culture and values. I had to record a video sharing my understanding of the values, and it had to be approved by the company's culture "preachers." I failed the first time and had to resubmit the video. Alibaba takes its culture very seriously. There was an incident where a "preacher" didn't watch the videos of new employees and just approved them. When the company found out, the "preacher" was immediately demoted and lost his year-end bonus.
Another aspect of the KPI was to directly communicate with customers who had given negative feedback or hadn't renewed their contracts. Each employee would be assigned about 20 to 30 customers to call and collect their opinions. This was part of DingTalk's "co-creation" culture. I think this is a good practice as it can help employees develop their product thinking.
Conclusion
That's all about my five-and-a-half-month experience at Alibaba DingTalk. In the next video, I'll share my failed career experience at Huawei. See you next time!
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