Shanghai Is Too Tragic, I Burst Into Tears Right Away! Is the World Really That Terrible? What I Fear Most Is This Faint Despair — Look Around and Everyone Is in the Same Boat! Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 998 20261013

This episode explores the sense of powerlessness and existential despair of ordinary people under the heavy blows of the current era by sharing the plight of young job seekers in Shanghai, the experience of a former Baidu employee who was laid off at 45, and a doctor's exposé on the medical dark side where anesthesiology and oncology departments use kickbacks to maliciously waste national medical insurance funds and harm patients.

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Full transcript:

Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba 577.

I want to offer some advice here: for those newbies or fresh graduates thinking about coming to Shanghai to find work, Shanghai is not at all what you imagine, nor is it like what people say online where jobs are everywhere. As long as you have experience but lack good looks, they won't hire you, and they won't even give you a chance for an interview. If you really want to come, you must select a few places online in advance and secure offline interviews; at least then you have a chance. I feel the stupidest thing I did was not finding anything online beforehand; I only found one, and it turned out to be a scam company. I feel like a fool. Everyone, be smarter and don't follow my example.

However, if you are outstanding enough and have a good enough educational background, there are still people who will want you. I only have myself to blame for not studying hard and not having a good degree. I really regret it now; why didn't I study hard in high school and college?

Now I am only in a position to be chosen, not to choose others; they won't even give me the chance to be chosen. I sincerely advise everyone to make a firm decision before coming to Shanghai; don't just rush in blindly. I came here all by myself with just one suitcase, and now I have nothing. I have decided to give up on Shanghai; I feel it is not suitable for ordinary people like us. If it really doesn't work out, I plan to go to the city; I need to make money, I can't keep relying on my dad. The money I'm using to find a job is all given by my dad. My dad's health is also not good; a grown man has to work himself to the bone.

He is over fifty and still running around for me and my younger brother. He has shoulder periarthritis, and he even puts on makeup at home... I feel unhappy, I feel like I'm trash. I warn everyone again: you must have enough mental preparation, you must be fully prepared. I really want to go home now, but there are no jobs back home either. I told my relatives and classmates that I came to Shanghai to find a job. If I can't find one, I'll have to go back in shame. I spent so much money, and I haven't earned a single cent. Why is this world so terrible?

I can only say that when the heavy hammer of this era hits an individual, it is really too much to bear! When we look at social issues, we really shouldn't always use a macro perspective; we must return to the individual, because this world is composed of individuals. That's why every time I see people sharing their own experiences, I pay attention to those details, and I can empathize deeply, because they really didn't do anything wrong; you could even say they have been trying their best to live according to the rules of this society, but they still get smashed beyond recognition, just like...

Standing in an empty field, and the hail just comes crashing down directly; there isn't even a place to hide. Besides these fresh graduates who find it extremely difficult to find work, there are also those in mid-career, the middle-aged unemployed group. As for these people, who didn't work their lives away in their youth to earn their jobs and their current families? But now, everything is a mess.

How much do you make a month at your current job? Have you ever thought about working there for the rest of your life? I won't be afraid of being laughed at by everyone if I say it. I am 45 years old this year, and unexpectedly, at an age close to retirement, I was laid off by Baidu. I used to think that,

as long as.

Then if I am willing to work hard, I could work there for a lifetime—meaning working until retirement, doing it for a long time. I joined Baidu back in 2005 when it had just gone public. At that time, my employee ID was three eights, and now new employees probably have IDs in the 60,000 or 70,000 range. Once upon a time, when going back home for the Chinese New Year, perhaps in front of neighbors or relatives, when my parents said, "Hey, I work at Baidu," it was quite prestigious. As everyone knows, in internet companies, there are many evaluations every month or every quarter. I consider myself a very hardworking person, and moreover, I completed my tasks quite well. When I was at Baidu, in our entire marketing field, I won the Great Wall Award, which is considered a very top-tier award in the marketing field.

I think the reason I was knocked out is simply that my age has reached a point where they need to inject some new blood, they need to update, and actually its momentum is going downwards, to be honest. Even people senior to me have been laid off. Therefore, when HR told me that we needed to talk about leaving, my heart actually felt a little bit sad. Because it fell short of my desire to say, "Hey, I want to go from beginning to end here; this is my first job and also my last job."

The difference is quite substantial. I myself have actually witnessed countless people being laid off, and I have even played the role of laying off others myself. When you reach that managerial rank, you will definitely encounter this situation, right? Because think about it, I also managed large teams; how could you possibly say you have never encountered bottom-performance eliminations where someone's performance wasn't as good, or even where it simply became a routine? There is definitely this kind of elimination mechanism built into it. Right, you have to speak up. We have also encountered extreme situations where, when laying off a colleague or whatever, they would do some very extreme things. Oh boy, to be honest, sometimes when people are being laid off, they get very extreme. It really happens.

Actually, when I was laying others off back then, my own feelings were also quite complicated. Because relatively speaking, these colleagues might also have their families or certain needs they had to deal with. But I just felt that in big companies, everyone is just a chess piece. If you don't execute the company's requirements, then in the end it turns out you are the one who gets knocked out. That's just how it is. During this process, when I was in my thirties, seeing these things happen, I was also thinking at the time:

What would I do if this happened to me? The moment HR just told me that, uh, I was going to be laid off, I felt anger, sadness, and then.

I thought to myself at the time, why me? I worked very hard to make contributions to the company, to work and contribute. Why am I the one being laid off? What did I do wrong? Where did I not do well enough? But looking back, you will find that no one can work at a company for a lifetime. They will definitely find some replaceable people, or more optimal methods of cutting costs and increasing efficiency. Yes, this is destined to happen. So in the end, perhaps it is purely because we have this emotional attachment to the company, but at the company level, it has towards anyone.

Absolutely no emotional attachment.

It only talks about KPIs, it only talks about performance, it only talks about cutting costs and increasing efficiency. No matter how many years you have worked at a company, there will definitely be younger colleagues who demand lower salary packages and are more involution-driven than you exist. Until this day really happened to me, I would think, I am already 45 years old; do I still have to go out and look for a job? I think this is a very absurd thing. Have you ever heard of a 45-year-old going to interviews to look for a job? Therefore, I pondered over and over again, that for middle-aged people like us, besides starting a business, there is really no other choice.

Then how much did they pay back then just to keep this job, right? They worked so hard for so many years as if the second half of their lives would be guaranteed. And then, whatever the company told them to do, they did, but in the end they were still ruthlessly laid off. Let alone the current living environment for Chinese people, I think it is truly so terrible that I don't know what single aspect can be praised. It's to say that they can't even achieve ordinary, normal conditions.

It still comes down to one word: money. Why is seeing a doctor so expensive and so difficult? Today, I saw an article which can truly be described as unbearable and ugly beyond imagination for ordinary people. The author of the article is a doctor. Old rules apply: I will make some cuts and tell you all about it. First, let's ask everyone to take a look at this picture.

This is the personal experience of an anesthesiologist from a local hospital who went to a higher-level hospital for standardized training. What he experienced there shocked him. He is a doctor himself! During his training at the higher-level hospital, he witnessed the senior doctors every day—and I mean every day—ordering over 200 yuan worth of Dezocine and Dexmedetomidine, but not giving them to the patients. Instead, they would secretly break the ampoules, throw the medication into the trash, or flush the liquid directly down the drain. Every month, they would waste several large boxes of medicine, worth millions. You see, this is an ugly reality that ordinary people can hardly imagine, right? Many kind-hearted people simply cannot understand why these heads of the anesthesiology department would do this. Why would they throw these anesthetics directly into the sewer and the trash? These were purchased by the hospital from manufacturers at a very high cost. It’s such a waste, isn't it? Well, here is the answer! I think smart people might be able to figure it out themselves: the answer is that the heads of the anesthesiology department are also following the principle of profit maximization. Because there are kickbacks for anesthetics, the more you use, the more kickbacks you get. The problem is, a patient might only need one or two doses for anesthesia, not that much. So what do they do? Well, people always find a way. To make money, there are many doctors who will rack their brains for crooked schemes. These high-IQ anesthesiology department heads would simply overcharge the patients—for example, if two doses were needed, they would charge for six, and then throw away the other four.

Moreover, this behavior was carried out openly, without avoiding anyone, and they did the same thing in front of the trainee doctors from other hospitals because these department heads were already used to it. This is the cost of medical corruption and kickbacks. Some doctors, driven by money and lacking supervision, dare to do such things. For their own benefit, doctors will try every possible way to increase the use of anything that offers kickbacks: drugs, dressings, surgeries, ablations, particles, stents, etc. Who is being cheated? Of course, it is the uninformed patients and the national medical insurance, the latter of which is essentially the money of all of us ordinary people.

Do you think only the anesthesiology department does this? In departments like orthopedics or surgery, where there are kickbacks for dressings, some doctors dare to open ten packs, throw away nine, and use only one on the patient. Why? Because one pack is enough. Even more ridiculous is that in the eyes of many doctors, this is nothing at all, because there are even more excessive things. For example, in the past, the kickbacks for cardiac stents were extremely high, and some cardiologists were truly eager to put in as many as possible, regardless of whether the patient needed them. Putting in one extra stent might mean getting thousands of yuan in kickbacks. Although the behavior of these anesthesiology department heads is ugly and evil, wasting patients' money and national medical insurance funds, this is still not what I hate the most.

Because at least it hasn't harmed the patient's life yet. What I hate most is that some doctors don't just want money; they also want the patient's life. There are so many widespread excessive surgeries, such as overtreatment for cancer patients, etc. There is too much filth and darkness in the medical field due to corruption. Although this incident in the anesthesiology department is bizarre, it is actually a negligible part. Even with this insignificant part, the funds wasted by a single department in one hospital could reach millions per month. How much money is wasted in the entire medical resource system is unknown.

Added together, it might be an astronomical figure. Looking at the screenshot above, there is something even more terrifying. What did this local hospital anesthesiologist experience? Because he is also a doctor, he read the guidelines and knew that the most authoritative standard treatment plan for his mother was Paclitaxel and Carboplatin. But even in his own hospital, the gynecologist changed Paclitaxel to Paclitaxel Liposome. When he went to the oncology department, it was even worse; they directly changed it to Albumin-bound Paclitaxel and Nedaplatin, which is not recommended by the guidelines. Nedaplatin is significantly worse than Carboplatin, even much worse. Why is this happening?

Why do both gynecological chemotherapy and oncology chemotherapy deviate from the guidelines? Even the doctors in the hospital are unwilling to follow the guidelines for treatment. It still comes down to one word: money. Fortunately, this anesthesiologist had resources, so he kept changing hospitals until he finally found one willing to provide standardized treatment. It wasn't easy. Do you understand? Many doctors, for the sake of money, forcibly deny patients the best treatment and create various obstacles to normal diagnosis and treatment, just hoping that patients will be treated in a way that allows the doctors to make money. This is also due to the principle of profit maximization.

Finally, how can this situation be changed? My judgment is that a two-pronged approach is possible: strengthening supervision from above, and patients themselves must become stronger. When encountering such things, one must file complaints, or even pursue legal action; only then might it be useful. This is a struggle, and it is very difficult. Please, everyone, become stronger so that you can seek the most reasonable and best diagnosis and treatment plans, and refuse excessive and incorrect medical care.

The article is over. Reading these words is truly despairing. What kind of darkness are we living under? I really want to ask, who turned these "angels in white" in our hearts into devils? How can this situation be changed? Is the initiative in our hands? I think, as for me, a professional media person, perhaps I can only do my best, using my small videos and dissemination to do a little bit, just a little bit. So what about you? If you see a video like this, are you willing to share it with more people?

Actually, I don't really have many other expectations right now. I just really hope that the information wall of the Chinese people can be torn down soon. Over the past couple of days, I've actually occasionally seen many Chinese people say, "Doesn't foreigners kick their children out of the house at eighteen and not care about them anymore?" Um, isn't this true? But my teacher has been telling me this since I was a child. I just feel that some people have been lied to so, so miserably. I really hope they can see for themselves what the broader world, the world outside, is truly like.

Well, that is all for this episode. If you would like to support me, you can join the membership channel. I also really hope to chat with everyone in real-time during member live streams, or play some other interactive mini-games. That's it for this episode, see you next time.