Visual China.
Recently, a new game called "Phantom Beast Palu" instantly detonated the whole network after its launch, and the sales exceeded 8 million copies in just 6 days of release, and the number of users has exceeded 2 million, becoming the second highest number of players in Steam history. Palu is an open-world survival crafting game, and the pet Palu has become a highlight of this game. Players can let their pet Paru do the work after the capture, allowing them to help them build, plant, and more. Under the setting of Palu's "can work", some players began to "squeeze" Palu, forcing Palu to work overtime to produce and complete tasks for himself. The high intensity of work can bring great mental stress to Palu, causing Palu's mental state to plummet, and Palu often gets sick or even depressed due to the pressure of work. After the explosion of the phantom beast Palu, the "Palu overtime culture" began to become popular on the Internet, and netizens saw this phenomenon and linked it to the overtime boom in real work, which caused extensive discussions on the Internet about overtime culture and labor rights.
In recent years, the overtime culture has become prevalent in some businesses. Many workers are required by enterprises to extend their working hours or increase their workload at work, so that enterprises can maximize their interests when calculating labor costs and enterprise benefits. However, enterprises only see the interests of the enterprise, but ignore the labor rights and interests of employees, resulting in a gradually sick overtime culture, which is eventually criticized by workers. In addition, many workers are facing a lot of real-life pressures and need this job to meet the needs of supporting their families and paying off their mortgages and car loans. In order to keep their jobs and earn more wages, some workers are forced to accept overtime tasks from enterprises, and enterprises are even more reckless after repeatedly asking workers to work overtime.
Long-term overtime work not only fails to improve work efficiency, but also affects the physical and mental health of employees and causes a series of problems. The Labor Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that the State implements a system of working hours in which the daily working hours of workers shall not exceed eight hours and the average weekly working hours shall not exceed 44 hours. But in fact, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the average weekly working hours of employees in enterprises across the country in 2023 will be 490 hours, far exceeding the time stipulated by the labor law. It is not uncommon to hear about health problems caused by overtime work, and even sudden death. Pathological overtime is a kind of enterprise benefit at the cost of workers' health and life, which will cause great harm to personal physical and mental health, and may also lead to a series of problems such as deterioration of family relations, decline in work efficiency, and deterioration of corporate reputation.
For the sick overtime culture, all sectors of society need to work together to actively seek solutions. Enterprises should pay attention to the physical and mental health of employees while focusing on the interests of the enterprise, and change the misconception that overtime can bring benefits. Enterprises should strive to optimize the corporate culture, fully improve the enthusiasm and work efficiency of employees, so that employees are forced to work overtime to take the initiative to complete tasks on time. ** The society should advocate fair and efficient labor relations, guide enterprises to pay more attention to the physical and mental health of workers, provide more platforms and opportunities for workers to learn knowledge and improve their abilities, and promote the establishment of a more fair and humane labor system.
Games don't represent life, but games can refract reality, and Palu the Phantom Beast provides an opportunity to reflect on labor relations. We should seize the opportunity of this reflection and work together with all sectors of society to promote the further improvement of labor relations and the labor system.
*: China Youth Daily client.