The working culture of ‘selling online’ in TikTok
Some former TikTok employees say they have to meet 85 hours a week, the most intense meetings often take place on weekends or after 10 pm.
According to WSJ, TikTok claims to be the happiest place on the Internet. But in real life, the working environment here is extremely stressful, pressured and always has to keep secrets at a high level. To encourage employees to innovate and avoid complacency, slogans such as: “Always like the first day”, “Be straightforward and honest”, “Towards the highest”… are posted throughout the office. .
Some former TikTok employees in the US said they had to meet an average of 85 hours a week and had to work overtime to get the job done. Some people have weight problems, stress so much that they have to seek health counseling services. One female employee said she didn’t even dare ask to leave the meeting to go get tampons.
According to WSJ, overtime and strict management are not strange things in technology startups. However, people who have worked at many different companies have rated the intensity of TikTok as unusual.
The working culture of “selling online” here is being shared by former employees across platforms such as YouTube and Medium. Melody Chu, a former senior product manager at TikTok, wrote on Medium: “Working at TikTok helps me experience things I couldn’t have imagined. The most intense meetings usually happen on weekends or after 10pm. due to the time difference. It makes me nervous all day long and can’t sleep at night.” Chu said she even had to skip many dinners with her husband. She spends more time talking with colleagues in China than her housemates. All her hobbies are squashed by work, and time with her parents has also become a luxury.
“I would never have taken a job at TikTok if I knew I would have to pay such a high price,” Chu said in January. However, she also thanks the working environment here for helping her overcome many genders. own term.
Chloe Shih, another former employee at TikTok’s California office, said in a YouTube video: “I definitely have sleep deprivation syndrome from working too late at night. Most of the company’s employees wake up when I’m awake. I’m still sleeping, so I’m always in a restless mood.”
Chloe Shih sits in front of the camera at home, preparing to shoot a video telling her experience working at TikTok. Image: WSJ
Former TikTok employees in the US said that to attend a remote meeting with a supervisor in Beijing, they usually have to start the work week on Sunday afternoon, that is, Monday morning in China.
Xuezhao Lan, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Basis Set Ventures, said: “Obviously no one likes to work until two in the morning, but if employees don’t work long hours, they won’t. can stay in the company”.
“There are still a lot of people who want to stay on that high-speed train. Many employees accept to endure high work pressure when looking at the prospect of listing on the parent company’s stock exchange,” said Pabel Martinez, a former advertising executive of TikTok, say.
Some employees say the company promotes a competitive culture by having multiple teams work on the same task to see who can get it done first. This strategy helps boost productivity but makes them always stressed, fearing they will lose to their colleagues. Others feel frustrated that their projects are never completed.
Another problem in TikTok’s work culture is that employees never know the organizational chart. This is characteristic of many Chinese technology companies to avoid competitors stealing information. Jamie Lim Yin Yin, a former employee in Singapore, said she spends a lot of time and effort looking for colleagues on LinkedIn to see which team they belong to. This is one of the reasons why she left TikTok late last year after only four months joining the company.
Pabel Martinez thinks that in presentations with colleagues, information about data is often hidden. Managers are also required not to share data with junior employees. Many former employees said they felt “untrusted”, always in a state of high security with colleagues.
Lucas Ou-Yang, former head of the TikTok engineering team at Mountain View, wrote on Twitter: “TikTok attracts a lot of talent to join, but the rate of rejection is extremely high. Pressure to keep up with Chinese colleagues and do the work. Their scheduled work caused all 10 product managers he knew to leave within a year.”
Thao Hien (according to WSJ)
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
