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Xu Zheng’s new movie "Reverse Life" has been criticized before it was released.

The movie has not been released yet, only the trailer has been released. To be honest, what is the real level of the movie? I will not comment on it now.

But the subject matter of this movie really touched me.

The character played by Xu Zheng was originally a programmer in a bright office. He was laid off by the company at the age of 45 and could not find a job for several months. Under the pressure of mortgage and child support, he joined the army of food deliverymen.

The picture below is an excerpt from a cartoon I once drew. Well, objectively speaking, the situation of older programmers is indeed not easy.

I have talked about this topic before, let’s talk about it again in light of the current situation.

The young man who doesn't smile was also a programmer before. He has been working in the workplace for 10 years and has done many projects, big and small, so he has quite rich experience.

In 2019, the company started a new wave of layoffs. Several areas of the originally bustling large office were vacant within a week.

Of course, our project team was also implicated. As a key member of the project, I was often pulled into the office by the leader to discuss the stay or departure of many members of the team.

Although the leader in the small office repeatedly emphasized that anyone who could sit in this office would definitely be safe, I often thought about a question.

If I continue to work at this company and keep my current job at this pace, what will happen in 1 year? 5 years? Even 10 years?

Objectively speaking, the future is rather bleak.

After one year, it is foreseeable that there is little room for advancement. Although my skills are OK, other indicators are mediocre, and it is difficult to get promoted in my position.

After 5 years, the project may be gone, and you may be transferred to another project team as a replacement, or be laid off and look for a new job;

After 10 years, there is a high probability that you will continue to work with a pay cut, or join Didi or the food delivery army.

So, in 2017 and 2018, I started preparing for other possibilities, trying to write some blogs and contribute some articles, and I also earned some income in the process;

By the summer of 2019, I officially started operating the WeChat public account "Youth Who Does Not Laugh", and my life rhythm began to change. I completely transformed from a 996 programmer to a freelancer.

Through the long-term output of comics and articles, I have accumulated a lot of readers. Through this platform, I have also received some advertisements, created my own community, published my own books, and accomplished many things that I never thought of in the past.

From 2019 to 2022, I was an ordinary public account operator, and my work focused on outputting content and accumulating and maintaining reader relationships.

However, starting from 2021, the advertising revenue of the official account began to decline seriously, and later even fell to more than 90%. Many friends who worked on the official account back then are now unable to persist in updating it.

Back to the beginning, the same question, if I continue at the current pace and keep my passion focused on content creation, what will happen in a few years?

The answer is obvious. Not to mention that our company now has a team of about 10 people, even our personal income is about to hit bottom, so we must transform.

So we started trying to change. Based on our experience in operating our official accounts and building communities, we began to deeply customize some paid products, tried live streaming, and learned from scratch how others build products, how to convert sales, and so on.

After falling into many traps, we continued to optimize our delivery process. Over the past few years, we have grown from 2 people to 4 people, and now to a team of about 10 people.

In this process, the team's overall combat effectiveness has also been improved by several levels.

I saw a sentence that really resonated with me!

We all want to “find certainty.” But perhaps more importantly, we ourselves want to “become certainty.”

When doing things, don't just focus on the present. Choose a direction and do a job. Starting is certainly important, but you also have to think about what will happen in 1 year or 10 years if you keep doing this?

Some tracks are born to be friends of time. In other words, the longer you work on such tracks, the greater their value!

For example, doctors, lawyers, etc., as time goes by, your qualifications, experience and abilities will increase day by day, which will be better for your future development!

Some tracks are not satisfactory, like our software development, most people may face the crisis of aging.

When you are young, you earn more, but after 10 or even 15 years of development, it is usually the following:

1. Promoted to management or senior architect, solving problems that others cannot solve for the company. Some of my former colleagues have been doing very well, but the proportion of such people is relatively low;

2. Accept salary cuts or management by younger people and be a hard worker;

3. Take the civil service exam, change careers, start a business, do a side job, etc.;

From the perspective of someone who has experienced it, it is indeed a bit helpless. I think most people also want to do something that can accumulate experience.

But the reality is that the value or threshold of most programmers' work is not very high.

Every year, a large number of graduates enter the market. They are energetic and have low demands. In comparison, old workhorses in the workplace are not very cost-effective.

Therefore, for newcomers, if you really love technology and want to delve deeper into this track, you have to make friends with time and gradually build your own barriers;

Don't just go with the crowd and think that you're done with just adding, deleting, modifying and checking what you have.

You should use your spare time to improve yourself. Technology is only one aspect. You should also learn more about the business behind it and the specific problems you solve. It is best to connect with some people who are better than you and take the initiative to learn from the experts. Maybe a word from the experts can help you avoid the wrong path and find the direction.

If you know that you are mediocre in qualifications, then you need to make other preparations, plan your direction in advance, then slowly approach it, and then dig deep and let it sprout.

My college roommate Yang Kai is a good example. He went from being an ordinary programmer to a local civil servant, and then took the bar exam and the intellectual property certificate. After several years of experience, he has now become an outstanding lawyer.

For more details, please refer to this comic:

My high school classmate Chao is also very capable. He was originally a computer major, but later worked in the liquor industry. He took the sommelier certificate and conducted in-depth exchanges and research in production areas. He now has his own store and continues to publish his professional insights on liquor on short video platforms. His business is also booming.

But compared to the first two, most partners are not so lucky.

I will be 38 this year. My former colleagues and friends all have similar problems with aging. To be honest, I don’t have a particularly good solution to this problem.

No matter what, you need to have a basic income to make your life run;

When you have time, make more attempts. After choosing and giving a direction, try to stick to it and keep working hard in one direction. Constantly add barriers for yourself so that you can gradually become that "certainty"!

I know it's not easy, but we can only rely on ourselves.

Let’s encourage each other!

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