2024 — A conscience compels me to offer some insight into a place where one can witness the depths of human nature:

1. The sales department oversees all sales staff. The senior manager has been the same person for roughly the past five or six years. The department then brought in a mid-level manager for the northern region, who has also remained the same person for the past one or two years and has since become the sole senior figure in that role. This northern-region mid-level manager inexplicably controls and dictates the work of mid-level managers from other regions who have been there longer, becoming second only to the top manager and superior to everyone else. So don’t imagine that the incidents shared here will simply be over if the manager changes.

2. After looking at genuine customer feedback and seeing products repeatedly discounted, as well as the previous promotion of similar prepaid stored-value schemes, one can only conclude—after the northern-region mid-level manager personally explained and demonstrated the brand’s products—that these are outdated sales tactics from who knows how many years ago. They are enough to completely eliminate people’s interest in and desire to purchase the brand’s products. Their ability to make people lose interest rather than become invested, and to extinguish enthusiasm completely, is truly extraordinary—helping people skip considering an entire brand, saving both worry and money.

3. The northern-region mid-level manager, like the senior manager, is not the type of person characterized by fairness, openness, or strong moral integrity. Their manners and treatment of others do not reflect the etiquette or emotional intelligence expected given their age and experience, and their business-related qualities are not particularly evident. When problems arise, they do not primarily consider the company’s greatest overall interests, instead focusing on personal likes, dislikes, and emotions, and on protecting and advancing themselves. Basic managerial qualities such as vision, communication, and leadership are difficult to see. Ultimately, whenever they feel someone is difficult to control or poses an excessive threat to their sense of security, they resort to fabricating things out of nothing, blowing minor matters out of proportion, and portraying black as white. They play the victim, complain to supervisors, and then get foolish people to help them stand up for themselves. One can only wonder how many female supervisors they have handled this way. Based on actual experience, it can also be inferred that they use the surveillance cameras in each store—not only to watch staff, but also to listen to them.

4. Google reviews were originally filled with negative feedback. Customers mainly complained about product quality and origin, gift redemption, sales service, and customer service issues. This year, however, the company seems to have made a special effort to completely overhaul its Google ratings, with five-star reviews appearing that are rarely even seen at international five-star hotels.

5. Human resources is extremely diligent and seems to proactively invite applicants for positions where staffing shortages repeatedly occur. At the same time, it has maintained tight control over the employer-centered reviews on 104. Looking closely, all of them are company-verified, and reviews below five stars cannot appear.

The sales department’s salaries are not particularly competitive from an outsider’s perspective, yet it has an unusually closed-minded, formulaic, and exclusionary atmosphere. Joining the company may make people wonder whether they have traveled through time back to the Qing dynasty to act out a comedic version of *Scarlet Heart*.

People are petty and narrow-minded, whispering and gossiping, and collectively firing at shadows whenever they see one. In practice, the organization operates much like a boss who has to whip people before they move. It is actually easy to get by, but outsiders are told that it is difficult. It lacks etiquette and proper upbringing, yet is very familiar with workplace bullying. The mid-level manager has little concept of hygiene and sprays saliva while speaking, making this arguably one of the strangest spectacles in the mother-and-baby industry in the post-pandemic era.

Occasionally, one has to listen to the senior manager make a few supposedly humorous, sarcastic remarks about the boss, including comments about the boss’s marriage, driving, and running a business. They sound pointless and somewhat grating, yet on the surface this person is always obsequiously deferential to the boss. The ultimate conclusion from firsthand experience is that this person is insincere, improper, and ungrateful.

Expressing an opinion will be summed up as opposition, while observing and learning will be described as having no opinion. If you join the company without bowing and scraping, smiling ingratiatingly at everyone, acting like a clown, and putting on a monkey show—or without degrading yourself in this way to actively fit in—you will be judged as disliking the brand.

They personally interviewed and decided to hire people, yet easily listen to malicious gossip and slap themselves in the face with all kinds of excuses. A brief visit here provides firsthand experience of all kinds of bizarre stories involving contradictions, absurd reversals, and constant fickleness.

If you ever have the opportunity to understand how the senior manager and the northern-region mid-level manager actually conduct themselves, you will sincerely admire the boss for being such a kind, brave, extraordinarily philanthropic, and financially powerful person.