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

Good colleagues

The following is a dream I had. Many years later, I happened to hear that the boss had not changed at all, so I am sharing it here as a cautionary tale for everyone.

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—just 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 do I treat you all so well, and 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 the 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 working hours, and people could leave early once they had finished their own tasks.

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

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

Second, the boss took pride in claiming to treat colleagues well and that the company offered conditions superior to those required by the Labor Standards Act. Yet when they suddenly wanted to downsize, they laid people off with only ten days’ notice, in accordance with the Labor Standards Act.

2. [Control of Overtime Hours and Working Time]

First, the boss once said during the morning meeting that employees should submit overtime claims. When the administrative staff helped other colleagues who had genuinely worked overtime fill in their hours, the boss then complained, “Why are you meddling?”—meaning they did not want to spend more money.

Second, poor time management: the boss could not accurately estimate each employee’s speed and efficiency in completing tasks, and therefore assigned inappropriate workloads.

3. [Emotional and Verbal Bullying and Blackmail]

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

Second, the boss had said that employees were welcome to raise problems for discussion. The newcomer was too honest and admitted during a meeting that they had seen a psychologist. As a result, the boss nitpicked and singled them out until their resignation, and the other colleagues clearly noticed the different treatment.

Third, there were countless instances of emotional blackmail. The boss also published the book “I Hear You’re Starting a Business” without the employee’s consent, exploiting the employee for commercial purposes.

Fourth, the boss established a bizarre system of accountability, requiring employees to first self-reflect on 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 was inefficient, the boss would sit beside the employee’s workstation and stare at them, ostensibly to understand their difficulties, while watching them brainstorm creatively 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. These symptoms are medically known as autonomic nervous system dysfunction. I heard that even years later, employees who had been bullied at the time still felt nauseated and unwell when they saw the boss.

4. [The So-Called Copywriting Expertise]

First, the boss did not understand the product-sales backend or how to read and analyze data, believing that their own writing style would sell a lot. In reality, the backend results were 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 themselves a copywriter and literary person, yet had “Nietzsche in Plain English” on the bookshelf and had never heard of Unitas or Qiu Miaojin.

5. [Other]

First, despite a colleague’s tendency to gain weight easily, the boss gave that colleague medication for excess body fat.

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

Third, the boss took pride in the office having only the sound of typing, with everyone unfamiliar with one another and focused on their own work. They did not realize that this was simply because the boss had made the entire staff so repressed that they could not relax, be themselves, or maintain flexibility.