The conclusion left behind was very consistent:

Things turned out this way because you failed to handle them properly.

No one needs to apologize,

no one needs to reflect,

the entire system remains perfectly intact.

The only thing you learned is the company’s real unwritten rule—

it’s not about who’s right or wrong, but who is less allowed to cause trouble.

Li✠Yu is the representative of this type of person. No one has lasted more than six months under him. He is good at staying silent when requirements are at their most chaotic, then, once things spiral out of control, precisely shifting the blame onto newcomers by relying on his seniority. “Wasn’t this because you didn’t clarify the requirements?” With one sentence, he turns a structural problem into an individual lack of ability. When projects are delayed and clients demand accountability, he stands aside calmly commenting that others are not proactive enough, while he himself always gets away safely.

Xu✠Long is another kind of disaster. In meetings, he pours out large amounts of seemingly profound jargon, making people mistakenly believe that the direction has already been established, when in reality nothing gets implemented. He describes a technology upgrade as an intellectual feast, yet in the end does not leave behind even a single line of implementation. When the issue is raised again, all he can say is: “You can research this first.” And so the problem is perfectly handed over to time to rot.

James relies not on ability, but on atmosphere. He always stands beside the manager, agreeing with every sentence at maximum efficiency: “That’s exactly what you mentioned before.” People who work hard are pushed to the front line, while he gets promoted through flattery, contributing almost nothing of substance to the project. He only tells people to “go look on Git,” but never makes clear that there is neither permission nor content.

Jack treats emotions as requirements and disguises his need for control as a sense of responsibility. He adds a pile of impractical changes at the last minute, demanding that they be completed immediately and that everyone work overtime. When testing is delayed and quality collapses, he instead asks why everyone did not deal with it earlier, leaving behind a mess of incomprehensible documents and blank test cases, ready to welcome the next round of destruction.

And behind all these people, there is always a Lynn.

Lynn is the kind of HR representative who always wears a face that says, “I understand you.” When she hears about excessive overtime, she puts on a surprised expression; when she hears about insufficient resources, she nods repeatedly and says gently: “I completely understand. I’ll help raise this again.”

But what she is truly good at is packaging terrible jobs as learning opportunities and describing systemic problems as personal growth.

And so you will see things like this appear—

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Translated into plain language:

The work is unclear, responsibility is unlimited, and support does not exist—but you will “learn a lot.”

No one teaches you, there are no processes, and you have no permissions—but this is “real-world experience.”

If something goes wrong, you have not learned enough; if you cannot endure it, your resilience is insufficient.

HR will tell you in a surprised tone: “Oh, so that’s how you think about it?”

Then smile as she sends you into the next pit.

After the incident, the company’s senior management quickly held a meeting. The meeting was not intended to clarify the facts, but to find a direction that would allow the matter to be closed quickly. HR Lynn sat to the side, nodding and taking notes, her expression still wearing that professional smile of “I understand, I get it.”

The first thing senior management said was: “Were we perhaps not tactful enough in handling things on site?”

The second became: “Could our communication style have been a little softer?”

In the end, the issue was precisely narrowed down to one sentence—you were not mature enough in how you responded at the time.

No one mentioned again that the venue had already confirmed the volume,

no one cared about the other party’s attitude at the beginning,

and no one wanted to know why, when the rules were clearly written, they could be casually rewritten by a newcomer.

HR quickly added in surprise: “Actually, everyone was only trying to do what was best for the situation; you may just have been a little too anxious.”

Once that sentence was spoken, the nature of the entire incident was fixed—not a systemic problem, not a management problem, but your personal problem.

Only later did I realize that this entire process was exactly the same as the incident I encountered during the SALE event I organized a year ago.

That night, the venue had already confirmed the volume: there would be no problem at all before 11 p.m. They themselves regularly had bands performing until the same time. In theory, the rules were clear and the boundaries explicit; no argument was necessary.

But a security guard who had only recently arrived, barely in his twenties, appeared.

He ignored the context and simply repeated that we should “keep it down,” demanding that it be quiet enough to meet his personal standard. The more rationally we communicated, the more forceful his attitude became. He repeatedly emphasized: “I’m in charge here.”

Once the matter was finally laid out and clarified, he cried. Yet I was singled out by the company’s senior management and HR Lynn and told to apologize. HR chose to stand on the side of the system, and you became the person most suitable to be pushed out.

The difference is that in the real world, an outlier is pointed out;

but in a company, an outlier is protected.