Workplace reviews and discussion: 文案的美有限公司

Good colleagues

The following is a dream-like account. Many years later, I happened to hear that the boss had not changed at all, so I am sharing it here as a warning and encouragement for everyone to remain vigilant.

Subtitle: [Reported to the Taichung City Labor Bureau Twice]

One report concerned unpaid overtime, failure to sign employment contracts, and missing clock-in records. The case officer’s surname was Chang.

The boss even called to ask who had filed the report, but the person was not an employee—it was a friend of an employee.

The other report concerned emotional bullying of employees.

As soon as the boss learned about the reports, they immediately posted in the group chat: “Why am I so good to you all, yet you treat me like this?”

Unfortunately, neither report was upheld.

Below is a list of the company boss’s classic behavior.

1. [Employment Contracts]

First,

The boss asked current employees at the time to sign employment contracts retroactively. Needless to say, neither the dates nor the documents were genuine.

There was no clock-in system. On the surface, this meant everyone could freely choose their start and finish times, and employees could leave early after finishing their own work.

However, the boss never considered that the assignments they gave out already exceeded a normal person’s workload.

As a result, many colleagues worked overtime at home or came to the company on weekends.

Second, the boss was proud of—and even claimed to be—very good to colleagues, and claimed that the company offered conditions better than those required by the Labor Standards Act. Yet when they suddenly wanted to downsize, they laid people off with ten days’ notice in accordance with the Labor Standards Act.

2. [Control of Overtime Hours and Scheduling]

First, the boss once said at a morning meeting that overtime hours should be submitted for overtime pay. However, when the administrative staff helped other colleagues who had genuinely worked overtime fill in their hours, the boss criticized them by asking why they were being so meddlesome (meaning they were making the boss spend more money).

Second, poor time management: the boss was unable to accurately estimate each employee’s work speed and efficiency in order to assign an appropriate workload.

3. [Emotional and Verbal Bullying and Blackmail]

First, while a new employee was away from their seat, the boss glanced at the content of conversations between colleagues, apparently resenting the new employee for not asking them for advice, and therefore directly subjected the new employee to emotional workplace bullying.

Second, the boss had said that employees were welcome to raise problems for discussion. The new employee was too honest and admitted during an interview that they had been seeing a psychologist. From then until their departure, the boss nitpicked and targeted them, and all the other colleagues clearly noticed the boss’s differential treatment.

Third, there were countless instances of emotional blackmail. The boss also published the book *I Heard You’re Starting a Business* without the employee’s consent, exploiting the employee for its content.

Fourth, the boss established a bizarre responsibility system, requiring employees to first self-criticize whether they had dealt with problems proactively, rather than first examining why the problem had arisen in the first place.

Fifth, believing that an employee’s performance and efficiency were inadequate, the boss would sit beside the employee’s seat and stare at them, euphemistically claiming to be understanding their difficulties while watching them develop creative ideas and produce copy. This caused the employee to seek medical attention due to poor physical and mental health.

Sixth, many employees often felt physically unwell and nauseated at work, and became dazed and unable to concentrate while riding their scooters. In medical terms, these symptoms are known as autonomic nervous system dysfunction. I heard that even after many years, employees who were bullied back then still feel nauseated and uncomfortable when they see the boss.

4. [The So-Called Copywriting Expertise]

First, the boss did not understand the product sales backend or how to read analytics data, believing that their own writing style would sell a lot. In reality, the backend performance was not as good as the boss imagined.

Second, the boss used punctuation incorrectly and claimed it was their personal writing style.

Third, the boss called themself a copywriter and a literary intellectual, yet had *Nietzsche in Translation* on the bookshelf and had never heard of Unitas or Chiu Miao-jin.

5. [Other]

First, a colleague had a tendency to gain weight, yet the boss gave that colleague medication for excess fat.

Second, the boss rarely came to the company to feed the cats and could not spend time caring for them. If a cat became ill, colleagues were expected to take the initiative to come in and administer medication on weekends.

Third, the boss proudly claimed that the only sound in the office during work hours was typing, and that everyone was unfamiliar with one another and focused on their own work. In reality, this was simply because the boss had made the entire staff so repressed that they could not relax and be themselves or maintain any flexibility.