If you ever feel like the economy is tough, take heart, you could be fake-employed, like countless young workers in China.
No-one would want to work without getting a salary, or even worse - having to pay to be there.
Yet paying companies so you can pretend to work for them has become popular among young, unemployed adults in China. It has led to a growing number of such providers.
This phenomenon is popular enough that major news networks are doing full reports on it.
Check out one of these fake companies:
Here in my company, we pretend to work. There is no activity. You are unemployed, so come to me and do what you want.
The rate's not too expensive; you'll pay around $5 per day to go in and pretend to do work. (What it costs you in dignity, on the other hand, is something else.)
It's not a total loss, meanwhile! The fee can sometimes include "lunch, snacks and drinks," and moreover fake workers can use the fake workday to "search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses."
Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.
It's literally called the "Pretend To Work Company" 😂
There he joins five 'colleagues' who are doing the same thing.
'I feel very happy,' says Mr Zhou. 'It's like we're working together as a group.'
The Chinese youth unemployment rate "remains stubbornly high, at more than 14%," so you can understand why many of them are starting to feel desperate.
Just be sure you don't leave your fake dirty dishes in the fake sink, fake workers!
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
