[NYP] It might sound like something that belongs in an episode of HBO’s "Silicon Valley," which spoofs the eccentricities of US start-up culture, but this is real.
Start-up tech companies in China have come up with an unusual way to keep their employees ‐ namely coders, programmers and engineers ‐ happy and relaxed. Officially they’re called "programmer motivators" but they sound more like flirtatious cheerleaders.
Their role is to keep the other, predominantly male employees of the business content by chatting them up and looking after them.
According to The New York Times, the unusual job is proliferating in a society that largely adheres to gender stereotypes and believes that male programmers are "zhai," or nerds who have no social lives ‐ and an attentive and attractive woman is supposed to help that.
To bag the position, you need to be attractive and good at socializing and putting men at ease. And massages, you need to be able to give a good massage apparently.
They’re not exactly comfort women, but at the risk of hyperbole, there’s a similar unseemliness to the idea. Just imagine the outrage, the blood-boiling backlash if such a position was advertised in the West. |