An employee from China has gone viral after being granted seven days of paid “rain leave”, allowing her to stay home when it rains.
Hailing from Changsha in China’s Hunan province, the undisclosed woman works at a spicy snack company and gained attention after winning the quirky prize in a workplace raffle.
According to the South China Morning Post, the company, Mala Wangzi, which means “spicy Prince”, was established in 2009 by Zhang Yudong and is headquartered in Changsha. In 2024, its yearly sales crossed 1.5 billion yuan (US$220 million) for the first time.
Zhang Zilong, the son of Zhang, was born in 2000 and now works as the company’s head of marketing. He shared details of the lucky draw on his social media account, where he is known as “Spicy Son”, and has over 262,000 followers.
“Have you ever seen a city where it rains for 82 out of 90 days? To cheer up my employees, we prepared a ‘rain leave lottery’ for everyone. As the saying goes, the early bird catches the worm. We are waiting at the company entrance today to see who the lucky winners will be,” Zhang said in a video.
The video shows a staff member picking tickets one by one from a lottery box. A woman won a fully automatic dryer and appeared happy, even though she struggled to carry it. The raffle quickly went viral amid April’s rainy season in southern China.
In regions like Hunan and Guangdong, persistent rainfall and humidity often make daily commuting inconvenient. Zhang said the idea came after he heard a staff member express frustration about commuting in rainy weather.
The prizes included useful items such as rain boots and umbrellas, along with household appliances like hair dryers, dehumidifiers and dryers.
The company also offered creative perks such as “late-for-work passes” for rainy days, commuting subsidies, and the grand prize of seven days of fully paid rainy-day leave. The seven days can be used flexibly. Either all at once or split over time.
The “late-for-work passes” allow employees to arrive late twice on rainy days without penalty. Reportedly, all the company’s employees, numbering 100, won prizes, sparking envy online.
One person said, “The boss really understands people in southern China.”
Another user said, “This is exactly the kind of benefit workers dream of. I am so jealous I could cry.”
A third one wrote, “All southern companies should copy this.”