My friend—an overseas-educated finance master’s graduate, 33 years old, earning 400,000 yuan a year—was laid off by her company not long ago.

She wasn’t at all panicked about the layoff; what truly punctured her mindset was a casual chat with the cleaning lady while she was packing up her things after resigning.
The aunt cleans for four office buildings at the same time, netting 25,000 yuan a month, far surpassing her after-tax salary.
Even more heartbreaking: under the aunt, there are thirty sisters, and each of them earns this kind of income.
After years of studying abroad through a long stretch of hard times, and relentlessly competing and getting caught up in workplace “involution,” she finally realized she couldn’t run faster than ordinary people doing physical labor. The superiority she felt from reading and studying collapsed completely in an instant.