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.

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Inside this castle,

the dwarves worked day and night,

building all kinds of marvelous magical devices.

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But strangely enough,

there were almost no prophetic scrolls or design spellbooks here.

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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.

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Some said

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

“Give it a try. Maybe it’ll work.”

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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.

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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.

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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!”

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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.

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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!”

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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.

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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?”

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The kingdom’s workforce planning was even stranger.

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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—

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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.

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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…”

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

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And the distant wind,

carrying the dwarves’ suppressed sighs,

drifted through layer upon layer of mist and cloud,

unheard by anyone.

After staying with the troupe long enough, even an idiot can endure their way into becoming a veteran performer; and after veteran performers endure it long enough, they become specimens for people to admire.

The person in charge used to sell pastries. Now, even while running a theater troupe, they are still selling pastries. The only improvement is that the packaging is more refined; the filling remains completely empty.

As long as the pastry looks pretty, that's enough. Whether it can actually fill anyone's stomach is the actors' concern—the person in charge can't be bothered with it. They speak one way to people and another way to ghosts; to the audience, they say how classic the performances are, and to the troupe leader, they say how difficult these actors are to manage. They curry favor from all sides without letting a drop slip through, the very embodiment of “becoming one with the role.”

Choosing, revising, and piecing together plays should be professional work, but here, all that matters is who has the loudest voice.

The theater master is a half-baked amateur. How the script is pieced together and how the lines are rewritten all depend on their mood. If the actors ask too many questions, they get tossed a line: “Think less and do more—we understand the professional stuff.” As for whether the performance is any good? The audience is used to it anyway. As long as what's served up has novel packaging, even if it's reheated leftovers or a patchwork of bits thrown together, the audience will still applaud until their hands are sore—and might even be moved to tears.

In the end, the troupe belongs to the troupe leader. If the plays can make money, you expect a raise too? That's thinking too much.

Ask about pay? “It's not that we're refusing to give it; we're just not adding to it.” Keep asking, and you'll be subjected to a brainwashing lecture: “This is about a love of art, not coming here to demand wages.” If you still don't know your place, you'll be criticized: “You're not dedicated enough and have no craftsman’s spirit!” At the end of the year, there's even a performance of “entertaining one's parents in colorful clothes”: the actors stand in rows and shout in unison, “Thank you, troupe leader!” What a lively scene—as though merely surviving the year were itself a victory.

Of course, there are also actors with exceptional insight who have mastered the art of bootlicking. Even if they're only an extra, they can soar to the heavens and dive into the earth, becoming kings and lords. Pay their respects to a mentor, shout “boss” a few times, and perhaps one day they might even become the person in charge. But no matter how high they fly, in the end they still have to land on their knees. After all, in this troupe there have never been protagonists—only roles assigned by fate.

The veteran performers below mastered real skills long ago: they can act, swallow their anger, bring their own provisions, and even occasionally swallow a knife on the spot, putting on a vivid performance of “desperate survival.” Without them, this troupe would have disbanded long ago.

The lessons of the old hands are written in blood and tears; even crying has become part of their acting. No matter how miserably they leave, it looks like they are performing a tragedy—the only difference is that no one will ever call “cut” on this play.

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I have been at this company for a long time. Its managers believe that they can find an open-source framework online and use it to take on custom projects, but that is actually impossible. Very few people can stay at this company for more than a year.

If you want to slack off, the upper management will lead the way and slack off with you.

The company only starts treating you like a human after you’ve been employed for one year plus N months. Before that, you can say the benefits are basically nonexistent.

　　A certain self-important, supposedly virtuous manager is always going on about gratitude. Why not take a look at how many boxes on the cult checklist you’ve managed to tick?

　　They talk about gross margin all day long, but calculate costs by dividing the negotiated amount by the number of days＝manpower. Please don’t shoot first and then draw the target. After all that, it turns out the gross margin is squeezed out of the employees. Those who can’t be squeezed any further are simply fired, and everyone else is expected to share the burden and take over their work. OK.

　　They paint an incredibly beautiful big picture, but their promises are always in the future perfect tense—something that will never be completed. Has anyone ever worked on a project that you already knew would be impossible to finish before it had even started? There are plenty of those here! They don’t want to pay overtime but still expect people to work overtime. Wait, overtime can have a time limit too? What does “the project has reached a stopping point” mean? We can’t work any more?? In the end, is it more important to do the work properly, or is your manager’s KPI more important? I think it’s the latter. I also don’t know whether the boss and the managers are putting on a double act. Projects that are blatantly falling apart are met with absolutely no intention of improvement. During the weekly managers’ meeting, is the boss asleep the whole time? Fine, the company has plenty of money to lose. After all, annual revenue keeps growing, but none of your salary raises can even outrun inflation.

　　The colleagues are all great, but because of the managers’ wild flights of fancy, the hours are impossibly rushed. Everyone has to provide support here and there every day. When you say there aren’t enough people, they cite cost considerations; when managers don’t want to give you something, they call it company policy. Everyone has to spend huge amounts of time doing things that are fundamentally not part of their job title. Leaving aside the poor efficiency, taking on multiple roles doesn’t come with any extra pay either. A perfect setup for customers, vendors, and employees all to lose.

　　The project development process is ridiculously lax. Professional expertise is treated as background noise. People who do nothing are comfortably coasting, while those who do more are basically sustained by interest and a sense of responsibility. Raise an issue and you’ll be treated as a troublemaker or silenced. People who leave are either escaping or get fired as scapegoats.

　　Employee evaluations are a joke. Every six months, they waste your time having you write meaningless nonsense. Are the boss and managers blind? Can’t they look at the timesheets themselves? When it comes to raises, it’s all based on your subjective judgment anyway—does giving myself a high score actually help? And if the score is low, do you even dare cut someone’s pay? If it’s just a formality, please don’t make it so complicated. They place tremendous importance on attendance: one minute late＝30 minutes. Remote work requires your camera to be on the entire time. Boss～～being in front of the screen doesn’t mean someone is actually working, okay? There’s a certain privileged person who spends 80% of every day scrolling on their phone～

　　There are too many incidents to list. Too much ridiculous nonsense. I’ll add more if I think of anything.

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Someone plays mobile games every day and arranges personal plans during work hours. They do not even read emails from clients, and there is not even a call-forwarding function for the main line. This is a suitable place for recreational activities (their own personal plans).

Clients do not want to look for this person when they have problems; instead, they ask engineers and actually get answers. Even though this person sits right behind the engineers and knows when clients come to ask questions, they act as if it is none of their business, sitting there playing mobile games. Facing clients is part of their job, but in the end, the things they should be helping with are left for others to do.

The company has already become like a giant zombie: it stops moving when it comes to doing the right thing, ignores useful people—whether by laying them off or forcing them to leave—and keeps only those who know how to talk. People who know how to work will work themselves to death.

Managers really like to use emotional blackmail to assert their presence. Whatever you do, they always have something to say and some fault to pick. They think they are good managers: “I’m doing this for your own good.”

Sometimes it feels like having joined a large multi-level marketing company: they keep painting grand visions, while people who raise problems are told to show love and acceptance toward those who caused all the disasters, and to have a compassionate heart.

These people should just stay here and not come out.

If you think you can save all sentient beings and always remain positive no matter what strange people or situations you encounter, you can join and improve your patience and tolerance.

But if you want to learn anything, there is nothing to learn; you will end up with little competitiveness.

You could go see the cherry blossoms before.

Because I really can't think of how to write this no matter how hard I try, the story begins like this: the inspiration for this story came from a young employee who was always kind and ordinary, but could no longer endure working more than 100 hours of overtime a month and sleeping only 10 hours a week. No matter how much they complained or applied for compensatory leave, it was useless. Every day felt like being a rat crossing the street, constantly being questioned about whether they had gone to work. After a series of maneuvers, the scheduling system was used to produce all kinds of absurd results of human mischief, such as scheduling it incorrectly to mean, “You and I have to work ourselves to death—don't even think about escaping.”

Someone whispering in your ear that commercialization and making money are perfectly reasonable; if you don't strike while the iron is hot, it will be too late. As long as your life isn't in danger, it's fine. How long will the struggles between departments continue?

Work is something you choose for yourself in the first place. During interviews, some people pretend to be nice and seem like good people, but once you're hired, that's when the disaster begins. I really want to die, but I can't even manage to die.

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Sigh~ Another engineer says they’re coming for an interview

Becoming like toast with an egg in the middle—neither inside nor outside, and offending the supervisor of one department no matter what you do

Not wanting to understand how to make strength originate from the core of the company, avoiding what you have learned with all kinds of excuses. Even though it is their own responsibility, they force junior employees who clearly have no idea what is going on to attend meetings, then point fingers and make sarcastic comments from the side. Asking others to relay messages is a way of avoiding responsibility: if something goes wrong, you take the blame. They tell you that this is the correct mindset, while people higher up do not get involved.

A three-month plan can instantly become one week. You cannot spend any money at all—unless you really do not care about the future, in which case you can even stop considering interviews.

The supervisor can curl up into a ball, like a rat hiding inside one, and is the most disgusting person in the world. Good employees are either driven away, dragged down, or set up by them; once they have used you, they say goodbye.

It’s as easy as filling out an Ichiran Ramen order form.

I don’t want to know how dark it is. You work hard for a whole year, thinking you’re about to receive your year-end bonus, only to be left hanging at the very last moment........

They come up with a bunch of excuses—a truly imperfect approach, but nevertheless a viable idea, more thrilling than a lucky draw.

I even wanted to hand her a tissue to wipe her tears. How open and aboveboard. The policy keeps changing over and over and over and over and over. What a healing story.

Nope, hehe.

1. The bureaucracy is heavy, and the thinking is very rigid as well. The current workload involves severe overtime, and there is no overtime pay, seriously undervaluing the contributions employees make to the company.

2. There will soon be a major personnel shake-up. I've already prepared a new pair of running shoes, always ready to escape danger. I don't know why they still need to recruit people everywhere; newcomers might end up being forced out for all kinds of lousy reasons shortly after joining. It's a real-life battle royale.

You can use the two points above as a reference; think it over and then decide.

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I arrived at the company on time for the interview. I first filled out the basic information form, then waited for more than half an hour before the interviewer came in and started the interview. I immediately had a poor impression because no one came in to provide any explanation during that time.

After the interview began, the interviewer described job duties that had not been mentioned on 104. As a result, the interview ended in less than 15 minutes, which felt like a waste of the time I had spent coming to the interview.

If you receive an invitation from this company, I recommend first calling to “understand” the job duties before going to the company for an in-person interview.

I'm just a mess.

Have you ever suspected that you and the colleague next to you are clearly doing the same work, yet your salaries might differ by as much as 10,000?

When there is an unreasonable pay gap and unequal pay for equal work, let me tell you, it comes down to gender. When you raise the issue, you'll receive plenty of bizarre emails—saying that you're damaging the workplace atmosphere, that it's about personal or company privacy, that it's company policy, and that other people have strong opinions about what you're doing. And there's more: even when HR is clearly there, they'll pretend to be on leave to avoid your calls. Are you kidding me?

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No overtime pay.

The company is quite understaffed, and many people will flee.

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So frustrating.

Filling out a questionnaire, it keeps asking whether you can work overtime, whether you can accept being the only person left in the office, and whether you can accept an accountability-based work system.

Even when you write that you’re not necessarily able to, the interviewer keeps asking why.

The questionnaire even thoughtfully reminds you to answer calmly, saying that if you don’t answer truthfully and it eventually causes you to be unable to cope and resign, your next employer will think your employment stability is insufficient....

All I can say is, if I really couldn’t find a job, I’d rather work on a construction site. I absolutely wouldn’t want to go to a company that is so obviously setting a trap for you.

Bless those who sacrifice themselves for money (though I don’t even know whether they’re paid enough).

The company environment looks good

The entire interview invitation process was terrible.

You had already reviewed my résumé,

so all my education, work experience, and skills were clearly stated,

and I also passed the assessment during the interview.

Yet you first said that my expected salary was too high.

I said I could adjust it,

but then you said my experience made you feel that I was unstable.

I really don’t understand whether there is a problem with how your HR department handles things,

whether the executives just casually skim applicants’ résumés,

or whether you simply can’t afford to pay.

Are you actually looking for people, or just messing with them??

Oh, right—you were the ones who proactively invited me to the interview!