A Chinese man has attracted the envy of his entire country after reportedly winning 365 days of paid leave in a generous raffle organized by his company.

In a viral video that has been circulating on Chinese social media for about a week, a young man can be seen sitting on a chair in what looks like a banquet hall and holding a large sign that reads “365 days of paid leave”. It wasn’t long before the footage drew the attention of mainstream news outlets who managed to identify the location shown in the video and thus the event that took place there. It turns out that this was recorded during the annual meeting held by a company in Shenzen whose management wanted to ease the tension of its employees by offering fun and enticing prizes in a raffle.

Ms Chen, an administrative employee of the unnamed company, told reporters that her employer hadn’t organized an annual meeting in three years because of the Covid-19 pandemic, so it decided to relieve employees’ stress by holding a fun raffle, in which employees could win both prizes and fun penalties. For example, someone could be made to consume a ‘special homemade drink’ or ‘act as a waiter for their colleagues’ at the event, while prizes included one or two extra rest days, or a few more days of paid leave.

After discussing the idea with the boss, organizers of the annual meeting raffle decided to include a shockingly-generous raffle prize that would really catch everyone off-guard. And that’s how the ‘365 days of paid leave’ prize came to be. It was won by a young manager who can be seen carrying it in the viral video.

The unusual nature of the prize has left many Chinese workers in disbelief, for various reasons. Some said that they could only dream of winning a full year of paid leave, while others claimed that the prize was actually a disguised trap.

 

“Once you’re back from your vacation, the job won’t be yours anymore,” one person commented on Chinese video-sharing platform Douyin (TikTok), while someone else warned that this way the boss will “find out that the company is the same with or without you”. Others said that the winner would also miss out on potential bonuses and should kiss his chances of promotion goodbye by accepting the prize.

There were also those who dismissed the warnings, claiming that they would take the year of paid leave even if they risked getting fired immediately after.

“After a year, if I come back and feel that I can’t continue, I’ll change jobs,” someone wrote on Weibo.