Workplace reviews and discussion: 文鼎科技開發股份有限公司

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I had a dream. I woke up, but someone is still asleep:

In the dream, I worked at a company that had been making font styles for over 30 years. I was a hardworking employee who never complained. Until I woke up, I could remember only a few things. The company’s most important product seemed to be typefaces—it felt like the lifeblood of the company.

Those mediocre designers devoted themselves to making revisions all day, yet earned salaries of 2XK. It turned out they weren’t young, hardworking designers; they were just leeks. Their so-called professionalism was merely a dream within a dream. Did the boss care? No. There are always new leeks to replace you.

After being harvested, this was how the dreams of these past few years went. I watched nearly 20 leeks get harvested. There was once a talented graduate from Taiwan’s best university design department who created a beautiful next-generation XXX interface for the company and even won the Taiwan Excellence Award.

After stripping away those leeks who had once created products for the company, were they simply used up and discarded? The company never mentioned that the credit actually belonged to that leek.

Delete those memories. No one asked me: What does it take not to be a leek? You have to take good care of yourself.

“Damn,” I said with a laugh, “you also have to lick properly. Even if you’re earning a low salary, you still have to lick properly.” I pointed at an old-timer in the company who could close his eyes and ponder during meetings while steadily working there for several years. Look at the difference between him and you.

When you have no exploitable value, just be a good leek. The company is only willing to make products for this kind of salary. The company is stable. It has value.

Mother hopes you will work hard and cultivate yourself, so that you can smile while watching the boss eat the meat, senior management drink the soup, managers gnaw on the bones, and frontline staff eat the organic fertilizer excreted by the boss. Your true calling is to be a leek.

Why can’t you choose whether to stay or leave? A young leek asked me whether I looked down on young people who worked here. I could only say: Let the dream continue. I’m just afraid...

The place that eats organic fertilizer hasn’t made any money for several years and has kept going downhill. It chants slogans about change while continuing to harvest leeks just the same.

The only person who can break your shackles is yourself, I said. I believe there will still be people who believe in the boss. There are always people at the vegetable market willing to accept this salary, right!