Workplace reviews and discussion: 汎宇電商股份有限公司

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Once upon a time

in a distant kingdom,

there was a castle famous for its air-built architecture.

.

Inside this castle,

the dwarves worked day and night,

building all kinds of marvelous magical devices.

.

But strangely enough,

there were almost no prophetic scrolls or design spellbooks here.

.

If you asked a dwarf how to complete a device,

they would usually just look up at the ceiling

and silently enter a mysterious ritual—communing with spirits.

.

Some said

they could hear the whispers of deceased old dwarves in their minds:

“Give it a try. Maybe it’ll work.”

.

The kingdom was ruled by the Glass Queen.

She always smiled with gentle inscrutability,

and her most favored minister was Sir Pie-in-the-Sky.

.

In just a few short years,

Sir Pie-in-the-Sky had risen from a small merchant selling illusions in the market

to a position second only to the Queen.

.

Although he knew nothing of forging, nothing of magic, and never read scrolls,

he could practically swagger across the kingdom

because no one but the Queen could restrain him.

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Sir Pie-in-the-Sky’s special talent

was to wave a silver wand through the air and draw one dazzling illusion cake after another.

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He would present the cakes to the Queen with a smile:

“This is the kingdom’s future glory and prosperity!”

Each time, the Queen’s eyes would light up, as though she could truly taste the sweetness:

“How marvelous!”

.

That was not all.

Sir Pie-in-the-Sky also loved stuffing the illusion cakes into the hands of the dwarves one after another:

“Look! As long as you complete this task, you’ll be able to taste the sweet future inside this cake.”

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Although their stomachs were empty, the dwarves could only force a smile and accept them.

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Yet the kingdom was filled with strange rules.

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Because Sir Pie-in-the-Sky was not very good at obtaining new magical assignments

and found it difficult to negotiate high-priced contracts,

he turned his gaze toward the dwarves below.

.

First, he shot an arrow into the air and told the dwarves:

“This month, we can create a miracle with only these resources!”

Then, where the arrow landed, he drew a circle:

“Look, what a perfect plan!”

.

With very few people, the dwarves could only be forced to work day and night,

hammering away at magical devices in the darkness for long hours.

.

To make matters worse,

Sir Pie-in-the-Sky would occasionally look down on them from the tower

and ask doubtfully:

“Are they really working hard? Why is it taking so long?”

.

The kingdom’s workforce planning was even stranger.

.

Sir Pie-in-the-Sky firmly believed

that one more dwarf meant having to bear more cold, hard numbers,

so he always kept staffing just barely sufficient—

.

just sufficient so that if anyone were taken away by forest elves or voluntarily left for distant lands,

the remaining people would have to burn their lives to fill the gap.

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That was why

the people of the kingdom came and went

like mist dispersing on a winter night.

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More mysterious still,

in the kingdom’s semiannual merit evaluations,

what mattered was not how many magical devices you completed as part of your regular duties,

but whether you proactively took on extra work that was never originally yours.

.

Only by voluntarily mopping floors, picking mushrooms, and helping feed the dragons

could you earn the tiniest bit of extra glittering credit in the evaluation;

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And Sir Pie-in-the-Sky never truly understood

which tasks were the dwarves’ rightful duties and which existed merely to fill out his illusions.

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In his eyes,

there was no difference between what was within one’s responsibilities and what was beyond them.

As long as it made the illusion cake look bigger,

it deserved praise.

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And so,

in the mist, the kingdom continued to turn slowly.

High in the tower, Sir Pie-in-the-Sky continued to shout:

“Thank the Queen. Cherish it, and you will possess it; be grateful, and it will last forever…”

.

The sky was filled with one seemingly sweet illusion cake after another—cakes that could never be eaten.

.

And the distant wind,

carrying the dwarves’ suppressed sighs,

drifted through layer upon layer of mist and cloud,

unheard by anyone.