A TENCENT IT engineer died when taking a walk with his pregnant wife Dec. 13, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    The newspaper’s report quoted people familiar with the IT engineer, Li Mingjun, as saying that long-term overwork was behind his sudden death.

    Tencent has confirmed Li’s death. Ma Xiaoyi, a senior vice executive of Tencent Games, said in an internal letter to the employees Dec. 15 that Li collapsed and died Dec. 13 after emergency treatment failed.

    After Li’s death, a number of Tencent employees petitioned the company’s executive board to confront the problem of overwork to avoid other deaths.

    “What’s the point of using up your health and time for a high salary when you don’t have time for your family?” said a Tencent employee.

    Li was a team leader at Tencent’s technology research and development center, where employees work overtime almost every day.

    “Overtime is like a tradition in some departments of the company,” said one of the employees, who asked not to be named, adding that many employees “enjoy working overtime. And this is encouraged.”

    He said, “You may not feel comfortable [working overtime] in the beginning, but you feel disconnected from your group if you leave your office on time. You worry that you look like an employee who isn’t very devoted to your supervisor.”

    Although the games department chief said last year to his staff that overtime was not encouraged, few employees actually left office before 8 p.m., which is considered normal work hours at Tencent.

    Tencent said they will support Li’s wife through the birth and support the family through the hardship. (Zhang Qian)