Do Chinese programmers smoke, drink, and play cards?

I’m a programmer, and I’ve worked at quite a few companies, both large and small. Generally speaking, some programmers smoke, drink, or play cards occasionally, but few are heavy drinkers or compulsive card players. Moreover, the higher a programmer’s income is, the less likely they are to drink or play cards.

1. Smoking

   I don’t smoke myself. In a large office with around 50 people, there are usually no more than five smokers. They typically go downstairs for a cigarette every so often and then come back up.

2. Drinking

   At small companies, I’ve seen coworkers drink together as a way of bonding. At large companies, however, people generally maintain clearer boundaries. They are polite on the surface but rarely discuss matters unrelated to work, and they usually don’t go drinking together.

3. Drinking or playing cards at home

   Among the programmers I know, almost none drink or play cards after returning home. At small companies and internet companies, programmers may finish work at 8 p.m. at the earliest, or as late as 9 or 10 p.m. They go straight to bed after getting home, and some even have to continue working from home. They simply don’t have time to drink or play cards.

4. Playing cards with coworkers

   At some foreign-owned companies where I’ve worked, there were groups of coworkers who played cards together after work several times a week. However, I’ve only seen this at foreign-owned companies, never at internet companies or small businesses.

Another point is that programmers actually have very little free time after work. Being able to finish dinner by 8 p.m. is already quite good, so there is generally little time left for drinking or playing cards.

That said, I have seen quite a few managers at small companies—particularly the company owners—drink and play cards with representatives from client companies from time to time, especially when a contract is about to be signed or a project is approaching final acceptance.