The busyness at the factory may be a manifestation of a performative personality disorder.

Performance personality disorder, commonly known as attention-seeking personality disorder, originally referred to a pattern of behavior characterized by exaggerated language and exaggerated actions in an attempt to attract the attention of others, and a behavior pattern that is excessively focused on oneself and one's relationships with others.

However, in some fiercely competitive corporations, there is a type of employee who relies on this drama to interpret "being busy without actually being busy," and uses this false busyness as a capital to show off to their leaders and colleagues, proving their own importance.

Wang Wenjia: Colleague on vacation for a week, still adding drama to her own life

In my previous company, there was an incredibly peculiar colleague whose busyness... well, let's just say she was indeed busy, but in a way that was completely unnecessary...

One incident that left a lasting impression was when her annual leave was nearing expiration, and she finally made up her mind to take some time off to travel abroad with her partner. Right before departing, she handed over her tasks to her colleagues as if she were entrusting them with her last will and testament, expressing a hundred concerns. Upon landing, she immediately checked on work progress, fearing she might miss some catastrophic event during the few offline hours due to the time difference. Even though she was supposed to be on vacation, she still insisted on communicating with colleagues online, despite being in a different time zone.

After demonstrating such dedication and responsibility, upon her return, she tearfully confided in us, saying that her partner complained that all she could think about was work, spending the entire vacation cooped up in the hotel, ruining their original travel plans, and leading to a breakup.

As we listened to her lament, we exchanged looks, unsure of how to respond. After all, these tasks were neither urgent nor indispensable without her.

Who knows whom this exaggerated busyness managed to move...

Xudong: Colleagues pretending to be busy, walking around while making phone calls every day

Our company has an open office layout, and normally people would book a meeting room to have a meeting or make a phone call. But there's this one colleague who always likes to walk around the office area while making phone calls, wearing wireless earphones and speaking a mix of Chinese and English, completely engrossed in the conversation.

The interns under him admire him to the extreme. They privately told me that they think he's really amazing, not only knowledgeable in the business and having a wide network, but also constantly talking about million-dollar cases. I heard that he is also highly respected within the department, and the leaders use him as an example to educate others on how to communicate with clients.

In reality, there are quite a few people in the office, like me, who dislike him. His behavior under the guise of work affects our work. People rushing to finish proposals can't concentrate, and those writing reports have to find quiet time after work to finish them. Our work efficiency has been affected. Who should we hold accountable for this?!

Jing: My boss is a master at turning trash into treasure

Everyone in the big company has their own unique skills, and our boss is a master at turning trash into treasure.

He really excels at making PPTs, to the extent that I've heard from senior colleagues that a big part of how he climbed to his current position is by constantly beautifying PPTs for the higher-ups and putting on a great show during promotion interviews.

Perhaps because his own promotion relied on this, he also has quite unreasonable demands for our PPTs. When other departments present, they just need to talk through the online documents, as long as it's efficient. In our department, it doesn't matter how bad the performance is, as long as your PPT is good enough, you can still get his approval.

Self-deprecatingly, I would say: in terms of performance, our department is at the bottom, but when it comes to packaging the bottom-tier performance into a cool and flashy PPT, we are even better than the design department!

I'll be leaving next month, after all, I don't want to work overtime every day and waste more than half of my energy on this kind of superficial work!

Busy? 80% of it is nonsense work.

Wow, digging ditches: My boss's job is all about alignment, communication, and recap...

As a worker in a big company, I spend over 12 hours a week attending various meetings with my boss.

Every project starts with two days of meetings, where we listen to the strategic breakdown and task assignments from two levels above, all in the name of "alignment granularity"; then, every step of each project corresponds to various internal and external meetings, all called "resource communication"; regardless of the progress, we always have to have another meeting to wrap things up, called "summary recap".

What's truly headache-inducing isn't just the duration of these meetings, but the variety of them, most of which don't actually solve any problems.

The meetings this week are often no different from those of the past few weeks. Even if we encounter a real issue, after hours of meetings, all that happens is more people becoming aware of the problem, without any real solutions being offered.

Everyone knows this, but we still can't skip these meetings. We dare not skip them.

After all, if we don't attend meetings, how will our leaders have the chance to showcase their "capabilities"?

Zhang Yan: Following procedures is as hard as reaching the sky.

I worked in small companies for the past few years, and last year I unexpectedly got the opportunity to join a big company, which finally allowed me to experience the "big company syndrome"!

80% of my work is just following procedures.

For example, getting a contract stamped requires sending it to finance and legal for separate reviews, then forwarding it to the direct supervisor, department manager, and then up to the department director... passing through each layer, sometimes via email, sometimes through the company's OA system for approval, sometimes needing reminders via WeChat or phone calls.

Sometimes, even if everything went smoothly up to the final step, one word from the top boss like "the price isn't right" or "this detail is wrong," and all the paperwork gets sent back to me, needing revisions and starting the process all over again.

Are people in big companies busy? Nonsense.

At least 80% of them have no idea what they're actually busy with, just pretending to "work seriously."

Eva Xia: Morning wellness, afternoon meetings, evening overtime.

I once experienced the "pseudo 996" schedule at a large company, and the daily routine during that time was as follows:

9:00 Rush into the office to clock in

9:00-9:30 Eat breakfast at the desk

9:30-10:30 Get water, make coffee or tea

10:30-11:00 Paid bathroom break

11:00-11:20 Use a mobile app to order takeout

11:20-12:00 Create a new document, write a title, then go downstairs to pick up the takeout

12:00-13:30 Eat lunch/watch shows/gossip with colleagues

13:30-14:30 Nod off at the desk

14:30-15:00 Take a stroll to stretch and move around

15:00-17:00 Attend meetings or pretend to work with headphones on

17:00-18:30 Go out for dinner or order takeout

18:30-21:00 Rush to finish a whole day's work

21:00-21:30 Post about late-night overtime on social media, then take a company-paid taxi home

If there's still unfinished work on Friday night at 21:30, I would voluntarily go to the office to work overtime on Saturday.

You might find this work schedule strange, wondering why not work during the day and wait until the evening to stay late for overtime?

When I first started, I felt uneasy about slacking off during the day and was frustrated when working late at night. But over time, when everyone around you is doing the same, it becomes difficult to finish work during regular hours and leave on time. After all, leaving on time doesn't necessarily equate to efficiency, but overtime is always seen as dedication.

I performed like this at the large company for a year and a half, competing with the "overtime king" every day, wasting over 400 days of my life, and finally made the decision to resign.

Why do employees in big companies pretend to be busy?

The phenomenon of pretending to be busy and extending working hours must be linked to underlying interests. There are three main reasons why employees in big companies perform this act:

1. **Elevating personal value**: By giving the impression to leaders and colleagues that they are constantly busy and indispensable, employees can elevate their sense of value in the workplace.

2. **Avoiding extra work**: By disguising their busyness, employees can make their leaders mistakenly believe that they are truly busy, thereby avoiding being assigned additional tasks.

3. **Conforming to company culture**: In many companies, while it may be difficult to measure who is performing well, who appears busier often seems obvious. Consequently, influenced by corporate culture, busyness has become synonymous with being diligent, dedicated, and having a spirit of contribution. In order to establish a positive work image, employees unconsciously start to perform busyness.

Overall, when one or two employees pretend to be busy, it may be because they genuinely have issues with their workload or feel anxious during brief moments of idleness, and they use the pretense of diligence as a form of "visual management" towards their superiors.

When more employees engage in this behavior, it might indicate flaws in team management and task allocation. When employees lack clear goals and deadlines for their work tasks, they may resort to pretending to be busy to prove they are not slacking off.

And when more than half of the employees in a company participate in this "performance," it is likely due to a misguided alignment with company values. When managers equate long hours and busyness with high productivity, neglecting work quality and efficiency, and even blindly rewarding employees who work longer hours and appear busier, other employees feel compelled to follow suit.

Of course, for individuals, the busy performance will bring greater pressure to employees personally, affecting their physical and mental health. For the team, when employees engage in "pretending to be busy" tasks, the time and energy truly invested in work will naturally decrease.

When the busyness of large corporations evolves into a collective "performance-type personality disorder," this performance will inevitably end in a Bad Ending (BE).