Workplace reviews and discussion: 奇鈦科技股份有限公司

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In this company that prides itself on efficiency and innovation, there is one phenomenon worth including in the first chapter of *An Illustrated Guide to the Absurdities of the Modern Workplace*: hiring an employee at an executive’s price whose output is lower than an intern’s.

Let’s first calmly analyze this marvelous investment from a financial perspective:

• Working days per month: approximately 22 days

• Actual working hours per day: approximately 1 hour (the main activities during the remaining time are scrolling on a phone, nodding in meetings, drinking beverages in moderation, and ordering food)

The calculation is as follows:

NT$1,644 per hour

What does that mean? It means the company spends NT$1,644 every day to buy one hour of “presence”—a presence that would even make the photocopier wonder: “Am I more useful?”

By comparison, an intern costs NT$190 per hour, can carry out tasks, asks questions, and even says, “Excuse me, may I ask whether this could be improved?”—simply inexpensive and touching. With the same budget, the company could hire 8.65 interns and still have enough pocket money to treat them to bubble tea as a celebration.

So why doesn’t the company do that? Why not let go of this highly paid employee whose output is close to zero and gain some actual contribution instead?

Because firing someone is troublesome; changing personnel requires accountability; admitting that the wrong person was hired would embarrass the decision-makers. This is not a management problem—it is a psychological one. Rather than deal with the problem, they might as well continue allocating funds and pretending, “He’s still useful, after all—he’s senior,” then continue holding meetings and slacking off, while the company keeps giving him steady raises and continues treating one hour as though it were an entire day.

This is the reality of our workplace: it looks like we’re saving money, but in practice we’re spending money to keep the problem out of sight; it looks like we have a senior employee, but in reality, it is a living, breathing loophole in the financial statements.