The job website says there are 50 people, but there are already only a little over 20 left. They claim that some people are elsewhere, leaving many in the dark. There is also a pile of records for you to look at (just thrown together). But... there are many stories of people still not receiving their transfers next month. To be continued......

James is like a platter of Middle Eastern cuisine on Xinyi Road: full of spices and cluttered concepts, yet without a main course. He always says he is supporting others while also being supported by others, and in the end no one knows what he is doing. When problems arise, he says the direction has not yet been decided, as if direction were the wind. When employees ask him to make a decision, he says they need to be flexible. Flexibility has become his synonym for avoidance. He loves putting cross-cultural terms in presentations, yet he does not even finish reading the documents. His world is like the desert wind: blowing for a long time, blowing hot, until all responsibility is buried in drifting sand.

HR Lynn’s smile is like the sheen of oil on a bowl of pho—soft, yet impossible to slip away from. During interviews, she asks about zodiac signs; when she hears “Gemini,” she says it suits Polaris’s flexibility. She says the company’s systems are open and its culture diverse, like Vietnamese cuisine blending Eastern and Western flavors, when in fact it merely makes everyone swallow bitterness in different forms. She loves to talk about trust, but when someone resigns, she smiles at the supervisor and says she had noticed the problem long ago. The freedom she speaks of is actually responsibility without boundaries, and what she calls flexibility is simply the company’s excuse for shirking responsibility. The light of Polaris reaches no one; it only leaves people trapped where they are, believing that is direction.

Li ✠ Yu’s meetings are like the morning mist at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall: solemn and grand, yet making everything impossible to see clearly. His tone is gentle, like a waiter at a Japanese-style restaurant, leading people to mistakenly believe they are understood. Whenever a project gets stuck, he prefers to talk about vision, as though slogans could replace direction. When employees try to hold on to something steady, he says that too much tightness will constrain creativity; the result is low morale and floating responsibility. He loves baseball metaphors: “Everyone is a batter; take the initiative and attack.” But he never swings the bat, while expecting others to help him hit a home run. He likes holding meetings beside the auditorium, saying that the place calms the mind, but all I hear is the wind circling through the corridors, like the strategies he leaves unfinished. Those orderly stone steps lead to emptiness, just like the future visions he casually invents.

Jack always likes to say the company is like Tamsui Old Street—historic and full of flexibility—but that is merely an illusion beneath the greasy smoke. He changes the systems more often than the vendors on the old street change their price lists: AI-oriented today, human-centered thinking tomorrow, and global co-creation the day after. Employees have only just adapted when he announces another reform. He likes that chaotic rhythm because no one can test whether he is wrong. Like an overdecorated appetizer in a European restaurant, it looks polished but has no flavor. One day, as I walked along Tamsui Old Street and looked at the rows of identical fish-ball stalls, I suddenly understood that what A calls innovation is really just refurbishing old goods. The noisy hawking and greasy aromas are like the company’s regular meetings, endlessly repeating meaningless excitement.

Xu ✠ Long’s philosophy is like the rhythm of Taoyuan City Hall: democratic on the surface, chaotic in reality. He loves saying that we are like an American restaurant, free and open, but freedom merely enables him to assign tasks in the middle of the night. Whenever there is a payroll problem, he says the system is still being adjusted and that the process must be followed; the process drags on into silent delay. Overtime is not stated in writing, yet the pressure is tacitly accepted. Leaving work is merely a formality; the real working hours begin at night. The lights outside Taoyuan City Hall shine, reflecting off his cold, pale face like a screen devoid of warmth. He talks about innovation and responsibility, but only teaches employees silence and obedience. After finishing eating, it was like discovering that all the restaurants in the building opposite were also cafés, so people ran around eating at two places—the tech world really is astonishing.