news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Jiang Jie, 30 years old this year, has quit her job eight times in the past four years.

From working in a large Internet company, to a well-known company, a startup, a freelancer, and now an MCN, Jiang Jie described each job as causing varying degrees of "mental damage." She said she saved herself by "quitting without a job" and also went to Tibet, Dali and other places in her free time.

In 2023, the phrase "Life is not a track, but a wilderness" swept the Internet, and countless people began to pursue values, emotional feelings and new lifestyles beyond work.

As a result, side jobs, gap jobs, quitting your job, and early retirement became mainstream narratives, filling the entire social platform. The expression that life is a wilderness also touched the hearts of many workers.

After quitting her job many times, Jiang Jie joined a live broadcast company last year and worked there for a year and a half. She said the wilderness was like a besieged city, where people at work wanted to get out and people outside wanted to go back. Many things were not as good as imagined, and some things were not as bad as imagined.

How to deal with work and life does not seem to be a multiple-choice question.

The following is Jiang Jie’s story.

The first time I quit my job was in 2020. At that time, I was working in a well-known Internet company in the industry. After three years of employment, I was promoted from an ordinary employee to a supervisor.

I joined this company almost right after graduation, so I am very familiar with the working environment and business content. The salary and company benefits are very good. In addition, 25 is the right age to work hard. Now that I think about it, if I hadn't experienced workplace bullying, I might have stayed there.

The unfriendly atmosphere among colleagues was created after I was promoted. Several senior colleagues in the group first created a WeChat group to complain about me, and then "grouped together" to isolate me. They deliberately did not inform me of the department dinner, and never invited me to join in the usual order of milk tea and desserts.

At first I was patient and consoled myself with words like "We are in different circles, so there is no need to force ourselves to fit in", but they didn't seem to have the intention to "stop when enough is enough". In the days that followed, they not only privately told the senior leaders that I was "incompetent", but also publicly posted on their personal Weibo, insulting me with very low-level words. They openly discussed their dislike for me, so much so that I couldn't even pretend not to see it.

Image source: Japanese drama "We Can't Be Beasts"

After about half a year of this, I was a little upset. I started to resist going to work. Sometimes when I was sitting at my workstation and heard my colleagues typing away and laughing, I would wonder if they were scolding me in the WeChat group again. Then I would feel depressed all day and feel so wronged that I wanted to cry.

Later, the company's business was adjusted on a large scale, and the work pressure was even greater, but my negative mental state made me lose motivation to do anything. My boss talked to me several times, and after thinking about it for a few days, I decided to resign. At that time, I thought to myself, if you can't afford to offend, you can always avoid it. God won't let the blind sparrow starve to death, and you will always find another job.

The reality is that it was really easy to find a job after quitting my job. In 2020, with the halo of "executive of a large Internet company", every resume I submitted received a response. In just one month, I received 6 or 7 offers. Considering the salary and work content, I decided to return to my "old business".

For a new job, I moved from the south to Beijing. This was my second time to Beijing. When I was a senior, I interned at an Internet company in Beijing. My commute time was nearly 3 hours. I left early and came back late every day, and I didn't make any money. It was also strange that I didn't feel it was hard at the time, I just thought it was very interesting.

But this time when I went to Beijing again, I suddenly felt very lonely, especially when I took the subway home alone after every party with friends. I didn't like this city, but I had to stay because of work, and problems soon arose again.

Soon after I joined the new company, I found something was not right. First, the content of my work. The new company focused on the maternal and infant e-commerce track. As an unmarried and childless person, I could only talk about it on paper and could not produce any valuable content. Second, during a meeting, my direct supervisor was giving a speech on a TV screen, and I found that there was a chat record with my former colleague in his WeChat pinned message list.

A thunderbolt suddenly exploded in my mind, and I was particularly worried that my current situation would be exposed. What happened to my previous company gave me a PTSD-like reaction, not disgust or hatred, but fear. To this day, I still occasionally dream about those people and those things, and several times I woke up crying.

It just so happened that many rental platforms collapsed at that time, and all kinds of problems occurred. I lived in anxiety every day. I was worried about my whereabouts being exposed during work during the day, and I was afraid of being kicked out after get off work at night. Many things were sending me a signal: Don't worry, it's time to leave.

Going crazy on the street with friends at night

This time, I was in Beijing for a short time. I quit after only three months. I didn't want to stay in Beijing anymore. This city is big, but the industry circle is small. I seemed to be spied on all the time, and the nightmare was lingering.

At the beginning of 2021, I went to Shanghai again. My sister and friends settled there. With their company, I felt relaxed.

My first job in Shanghai was full of young people who loved to play and knew how to play. Every weekend, we would go on a citywalk, explore stores, take street photos, play Werewolf offline, and travel around the city. It was the first time I knew there were so many ways to play in the city. I had never participated in any activities before because I was busy with work. Now everyone is laughing and laughing, and life seems to be lighter.

Of course, there are also many troubles at work.

On the first day of taking office, the new director set a KPI of "100 million in annual turnover" with the boss. In order to achieve this "small goal", she forced us to go out to attract business every day, and said "no matter what method you use, you must get this customer." Oh my God, the last time I saw such a childish speech was in "Tiny Times". She also has a bad temper. If she disagrees with something, she will say that girls are "fat like pigs" and scold boys as "losers", humiliating every subordinate indiscriminately.

Since she showed up, the atmosphere in the company has become strange. People sitting at their workstations are not busy with business, but are discussing when to leave. I feel very bored. I am just an employee. Why should I endure this? So I resigned again.

At this point, I would also like to say that "quitting without a job" may really be a "self-rescue" for many people. Many times, the "last straw that breaks the camel's back" is not the work itself, but the unfriendly or even violent treatment in the workplace. Not working only means no money, but working all the time may even cost you your life.

Image source: Japanese drama "We Can't Be Beasts"

It should be the spring of 2021. I quit my job for the third time. I happened to see someone in my circle of friends promoting a carpooling trip along the Sichuan-Tibet line. The team had 15 people, starting in Chengdu and ending in Lhasa, and the whole journey would take more than ten days. I was very tempted, but worried about the danger. I asked friends who had been there in detail before deciding to sign up.

When I was a kid, I always heard people say "You must go to Lhasa once in your life", and this time it was finally my turn to go. Pack your luggage, go to the airport, get in the car, and set off!

The convoy drove all the way to the depths of the plateau. There were many devout pilgrims on the road. To be honest, I couldn't fully understand their state of mind while they were bowing all the way, but I also respected their beliefs. How determined must a person be to embark on this pilgrimage? What are they longing for? What are they expecting? I still can't figure it out.

Tibetan characteristic buildings

Most of the time when traveling is spent on the road, and the driver and fellow passengers in the car become my closest companions. We all come from different cities and have completely different lives, but we are brought together because of the same destination. The word "fate" becomes extremely concrete at that moment.

Everyone has a story to tell on the road. Among the people in the car with me: some quit their jobs in the bank because they couldn't stand the monotonous life, some loved their boyfriend for many years but couldn't get married, and some got married and divorced, but they still lived together because they couldn't bear to part with each other, but didn't remarry. Every night, the girls in the car team would get together to talk about their love history. One girl said frankly that she was married, but she had liked another boy for many years. After the trip to Tibet, she would continue to date her extramarital lover.

Every time we share secrets, I feel the kindness from strangers. We expose the most secret corners of our hearts, without any defense or return. Everyone knows that we can only accompany each other through this journey. After leaving Lhasa, everyone is a stranger. Fate will be gone with the wind, and stories will also be gone. When we mention each other in the future, we will all be nameless people.

After entering Tibet, we had dinner with friends who traveled with us in the team

Because of this, we can be ourselves. During the days in Lhasa, I often felt drunk (or maybe it was altitude sickness), feeling euphoric, extremely happy, and completely free in spirit.

I occasionally reflect on myself and feel that many things I did in the past were not from my heart. For example, when it comes to work and relationships with former colleagues, many things should not have been done in that way, and everyone would have felt more relaxed. I seem to have thought through a lot of things, but also seem to have thought through nothing.

Lhasa street scene

After returning from Lhasa, I went to Nanjing, Wuxi, Wuhan and other cities. I had fun in the "wilderness of life" and seized every opportunity to go to places without a ceiling. I was happy, but I couldn't be happy all the time.

After I quit my job, I suddenly had a lot of free time and I really wanted to go out and play, but my friends were all at work and it was very difficult to find a time when everyone was free, so many plans had to be shelved.

Gradually, I found that everyone around me was driving in their own tracks in an orderly manner, and I was the only one standing in the endless grassland. In the past, I was walking on the track, and I would envy the people standing in the wilderness for their freedom, ease, and happiness; now the roles have been reversed, and after the short-lived happiness, only loneliness remains.

I discovered that the so-called “wilderness” is actually a “besieged city.” People outside are trying every means to get in, and people inside may also want to get out.

The message left by the cycling team on the way to Tibet

After I quit my job for the third time, I lay flat for four months, from the spring to the summer of 2021. Around July, I started looking for a job. The reason for returning to the workplace was simple: I didn't have much savings.

A few days later, I joined a company that designs and develops social software. The salary was very high, with a base salary of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan per month and bonuses ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands. To be honest, when I first heard about this salary, I couldn't believe it and even began to doubt whether this was a serious company.

During the interview, the business manager hoped that I could do more content related to women's growth after joining the company. I liked it very much and was good at it, so I readily agreed. However, after joining the company, I found that the so-called "female content" actually meant "borderline". Instead of inspiring and warm stories, the leaders preferred to use "black silk" and "suspenders" to attract male users. As a woman, I could not identify with or accept it at all, so I resigned after only working for 2 weeks.

Shanghai Street Scene

It was after that time that I vaguely felt some changes in the industry - everyone was very concerned about how to quickly monetize content, and the job-seeking environment was also different from before.

After leaving the "marginal" company, I interviewed with an Internet company that focuses on the big health industry. During the interview, I talked with the interviewer for nearly 4 hours, and the whole process was very pleasant. I like that company very much. Whether it is the working environment, the relationship with colleagues, or the work content, I feel very comfortable.

Three months after joining the company, I received a verbal notice of becoming a regular employee. In order to prepare for the new job, I rented a house near the company and got a gym membership to enrich my time after get off work. Just when I was happily preparing to work hard, an accident happened - I received a notice of dismissal on the original date of becoming a regular employee.

That was the first time I was fired in my life. I was completely stunned. I talked to my HRBP and my direct supervisor for several rounds. They said a lot of things but couldn't convince me. I just couldn't understand why they were talking to me about becoming a regular employee the day before yesterday. How could everything change in the blink of an eye?

Shanghai is rainy

After a month of negotiation, the company agreed to give me double compensation and let me leave. This resignation had a devastating impact on me. All my confidence and spirit were shattered, and I fell into a long period of anxiety and self-doubt.

At that time, my father was ill and hospitalized. As the only free person in the family, I took on the responsibility of taking care of him. I went to bed in the early morning, got up around noon, washed up, went to the hospital to take care of my father, and then stayed in the ward until dark before going home.

During this period, some companies invited me for interviews through recruitment software, but I was still immersed in the shadow of being laid off and had no interest in any of them. Although I was very frustrated, I was not desperate. I thought that based on my past experience, I would definitely find a good job, so it didn't matter if I took a break for a while.

At the end of October of that year, I received an interview notice from a large Internet company. I cherished it very much because it seemed to me that it was the best opportunity in front of me at that time. After several rounds of online interviews, the other party asked me to go to Hangzhou for an offline business interview.

I was very concerned about the experience of being fired on my resume, and I urgently needed a "better" work experience to prove that I was not bad. Therefore, since I received the notice of the offline interview, I was very nervous. This nervousness reached its peak after the interview officially started - facing multiple interviewers in front of me, I couldn't even say a word!

The result was obvious, I failed.

After this interview, I entered a long period of unemployment. Although I found several jobs during this period, for various reasons, I only worked for two weeks in each job before "running away".

Including the time I was fired, I have quit my job a total of seven times. The pleasure of escaping from the workplace and regaining freedom is gone, and instead, I yearn for stability after many upheavals.

Shanghai Street Scene

After entering and leaving the workplace several times, I have also noticed some changes: When I quit my job for the first time in 2020, "former employee of a large Internet company" was still a universal key to my job search. With this identity endorsement, I could receive several attractive offers in a row; but today, this label is no longer "attractive". When recruiting, companies are more concerned about "cost" and "labor efficiency", that is, the lower the unit price of employees, the better, and the more work they can do, the better.

I didn’t find a long-term stable job in the first half of 2022. During that time, I stayed at my sister’s house. To kill time, I took a driver’s license test. When I was bored, I read books, tried to be a short video host, set up a stall at the night market to sell ice jelly and balloons, and went to Yiwu for an inspection, thinking about whether I should do some small business.

I know very well that there is probably no way out of this, but I have to find something to do to make myself seem less incompetent.

Staying at home is not entirely without benefits. I don’t have to go to work or go out, and my desire for material things has become extremely low because even if I buy new clothes and shoes, I have no occasion to wear them.

Hanging out with friends

In the summer of 2022, I found a kitten with a disabled eye at my sister's door. I took it to see a doctor, and the doctor told me that I needed surgery, which would cost thousands of dollars. I was very anxious and wanted to go to work quickly to earn money to treat the kitten. So, I hurried back to the workplace and went to a shampoo company.

Unfortunately, not long after I found a job, the kitten died of a serious illness. I blamed myself, but there was nothing I could do. After that, every time I rented a house with a balcony, I would think of the kitten, imagining that if it was still alive, it would have fun playing on the balcony.

Looking back, I think it was the kitten that "dragged" me back to the workplace. If I hadn't picked it up, I don't know how long I would have "laid low".

Take your kitten to the hospital

I worked at the shampoo company until May 2023, but later, because the department was disbanded, I became unemployed again. When Liu Yifei's movie "Where the Wind Goes" became a big hit, I took the compensation and went to Yunnan. I lived in Dali for half a month, and then went to the northwest, planning to become a self-media blogger with the theme of "Evaluating 100 Chinese Cities".

In fact, this plan was shelved before it even started, because I found that those bloggers on the Internet who claimed to have “no team, no MCN” and quit their jobs without a plan were all liars. Many of the tasks were actually very troublesome to carry out and could not be completed by one person.

The Internet likes to glorify freelancers by saying “you don’t have to go to work, but you have to work”, but the reality is that people are naturally lazy. Like me, I find it troublesome just thinking about “starting a self-media business”.

Topic selection, script, filming, operation, the work that used to be done by a team, is now all on me alone, and there is no way to make a profit in the short term. At that moment, I suddenly realized that working is not bad, at least it can provide a kind of "survival insurance", and at the very least there is a basic salary to be received.

The days of living in Dali were comfortable, but they were only comfortable. It was still too lonely. I just wanted a short rest instead of wandering for a long time.

Dali Street Scene

Except for the trip to Lhasa, I never had that "heart-pounding" feeling when I went to any other city afterwards. Maybe it was because I had been wild in the "wilderness" too many times, the novelty had faded, and the scenery seemed mediocre.

I gradually discovered that the saying "Life is a wilderness, not a track" is itself a survivor bias, which is not applicable to most people. Those who plunge into the wilderness will only say that the outside world is beautiful and wonderful, but never say that they set out with a bag of gold bars on their backs. Those who buy plane tickets with Huabei can't go far.

Dali Street Scene

This time I took another 5-month break. In October 2023, I left Shanghai for Hangzhou and joined a live broadcast company, where I have been working until now. After being unemployed many times, I found that it is actually good to have a stable and long-term job. It allows me to live in order and provides a certainty and stability in "normal life".

Even though there are a lot of bad things happening in the workplace, I have been able to treat them with a normal mind.

I have thought many times about why my past work experiences made me so miserable. The answer I gave myself was that I took my work too seriously.

Since I came to Shanghai, I have tried to separate work and life, no longer adding any additional value to "work", and not expecting to reflect my self-worth through my career. In the eyes of many people, my career is going downhill, but it doesn't matter, I can feel that my life is going uphill.

When I was working in Beijing, the company implemented a big and small week system, and I basically had to work online regardless of whether I had one day off or two days off. But in Hangzhou, I have a complete two days off, and my work on weekdays is relatively easy. Not only can I "slack off" during work, but I can also meet up with colleagues and friends for dinner and drinks after get off work. Every holiday, I will meet up with friends in the same city to go shopping in surrounding cities. With the contrast of "working", "rest days" have become particularly happy.

Going to an offline talk show with friends in Hangzhou

Now, if someone asks me if I regret quitting my job, I will say "no", because it has already happened and there is no point in regretting. If someone asks me if I will quit my job again, my answer is still no.

This may be related to my personality. Deep down, I still yearn for a stable life. And after a few years of struggling, I have realized that the world is never binary. There can be tracks in the wilderness, and tracks can also lead to the wilderness. There is no need to derail just for the sake of derailing.

Just like before I went to Lhasa, I also thought that the destination was only the Potala Palace. However, sitting in the car all the way west, passing through the city and crossing the snow-capped mountains, I also saw meadows, glaciers, rivers, ancient temples and sand dunes. I never deviated from the established route, but I also saw scenery I had never seen before.

Snow Mountain in Tibet

*Jiang Jie in the article is a pseudonym. Unless otherwise specified, the rest of the pictures are provided by the interviewees.