社畜shè chù

Company livestock

shè chù xià bān le.社畜下班了。The company livestock is off work.

社畜 means “company livestock”: an office worker who works long hours and does what the company says. People say it about themselves, as a tired joke.

Took off: 2018
Started in: A Japanese word
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

The word is Japanese, shachiku, made from 会社, “company”, and 家畜, “livestock”. Chinese took the two characters as they are.

In Chinese, 社 makes people think of 社会, “society”, so some first read it as “social animal”. A 2018 commentary in Huanqiu pointed out that this is not the meaning.

How people use it

It is now everyday Chinese, next to later words for the same feeling, such as 打工人 and 牛马.

Say it about yourself or your own team. Calling someone else a 社畜 can sound like a put-down.

里昂

周六去爬山吗？
zhōu liù qù pá shān ma?
Want to go hiking on Saturday?
不行，老板让我周六来公司
bù xíng, lǎo bǎn ràng wǒ zhōu liù lái gōng sī
Can’t. My boss wants me in the office on Saturday.
社畜辛苦了
shè chù xīn kǔ le
Poor company livestock.
下周吧，我请你喝咖啡
xià zhōu ba, wǒ qǐng nǐ hē kā fēi
Next week, then. Coffee’s on me.

More examples

又加班到十点，社畜的命。
yòu jiā bān dào shí diǎn, shè chù de mìng.
Overtime till ten again. That’s the life of company livestock.
周末也要回消息，我真是个社畜。
zhōu mò yě yào huí xiāo xi, wǒ zhēn shì gè shè chù.
I have to answer messages on weekends too. I really am company livestock.

For the word itself and how to reply to it, see 社畜 in the slang dictionary.

Where it came from

The word is older in Japan. The World of Chinese ties its spread to China to a 2018 Japanese TV drama about a worn-out office worker. By November 2018, Chinese commentators were writing about young people who called themselves 社畜.

It spread further in 2019, during the online debate about 996: work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, in tech and other companies. The World of Chinese lists it among the words that the debate made popular.

The original. There is no single image. The word spread in posts about overtime and long workdays. The World of Chinese explained it in September 2019. The World of Chinese