took 0.5 days off claiming I'm going to die from a breakup

How do you view the 00’s male coworker who took 0.5 days off claiming “I’m going to die from a breakup”?

Actually, the common leave logic in private Chinese companies - that is, “subordinates submit reasons and wait for supervisors’ approval, can only leave if approved, not allowed if not approved” is wrong.

The correct - in fact, the only ethically sound leave ethics should be:

The leave rights belong to the employees. As long as the employee has leave remaining and notifies the company of taking leave, that alone is sufficient to establish it. The company has no right to reject the employee’s leave decision, and can only stipulate the necessary leave procedures - such as requiring 24-48 hours advance notice, submitting through formal channels, etc.

Why?

Firstly, the leave reason is a personal privacy matter that the company has no right to demand understanding of. Whether the leave reason is sufficient for the individual is not important, and the company has no qualifications to unilaterally determine.

The responsibility for handling any negative impacts caused by an employee taking legitimate leave as stipulated defaults to the company side, and employees do not have an absolute obligation to avoid and remedy such losses for the company.

This logic is as straightforward as Taobao handling customer returns costs and hotels handling costs of guest cancellations themselves.

Why compare it this way? Because the company is essentially a service organization that provides employees with a good platform to unleash value and extracts high remuneration through this service. Employees only get back some of the money they created as the company’s commission - they are essentially not being paid by the company, but paying the company.

“Employees” are essentially customers.

For a company to think it can review whether customers can return goods or cancel rooms is not “ethically appropriate”, essentially it amounts to “store deception”. However, these stores need to think clearly - by establishing rules like “returns require application”, in the end are you losing money or making money?

Firstly, do you really think by establishing such rules you have the ability to prevent “customer returns and cancellations”? People can easily come up with reasons you cannot refuse - my girlfriend/boyfriend has stomach pains and needs to go to the hospital, but automatically got better when they arrived, not allowed? What then? You don’t let me accompany them to the hospital and let them die alone, or you don’t let them get better by themselves? Or they must drag themselves to you to prove it really happened? Or you want to dispatch an investigative firm to look into it? Do you want to set up a jury and appeals court too?

Such reviews have no practical operability.

The store thinks it can deceive customers, but is “deceiving” a customer that brings absolutely no profit, making it nothing but an evil act. To be evil is foolish enough, but at least there was the fleeting glory and immediate interests in the process. To rob someone and injure them but end up not getting anything, or foreseeably getting nothing - and still insist on robbing, robbing again and again, and declaring “I’ll rob anyone who comes” is the epitome of stupidity.

Secondly, customers are not fools - they relatively dislike such stores more.

That’s right, there are some desperate souls with no other options who will accept any conditions. But some friendly advice - don’t think you can earn 50 million a day by opening 100 branches earning 5,000 per day each.

You’ve made a huge mistake - your unit management costs increase exponentially with each additional branch, becoming unprofitable after the fourth branch, with total profits reaching zero after 20 branches. Reaching 100 branches means certain doom.

The only fundamentally healthy way for any enterprise to develop is to control your scale within the limits of management capabilities, raising customer prices on that basis, and striving to attract higher-tier customers.

The key is recognizing who your real customers are - your most important, core and essential customers are your employees.

Those who buy your goods, eat at your establishments, buy your services are only “second-tier customers”.

The actual role of “second-tier customers” is to verify the authenticity of the “tokens” you earn from customers and exchange them for cash. They are essentially providing you with a highly customized “token exchange service” - fundamentally they are the service providers.

Your essence is constantly searching for and replacing exchange providers, which is the real nature of so-called “market positioning”.

If these exchange providers do not recognize your tokens, offer low exchange rates or meager principal amounts, or have depleted reserves or expensive fees, you can and will necessarily go find others. There are billions of such exchange service providers globally for some industries, can be readily replaced at relatively low cost.

Meanwhile your employees - your real customers - are an absolutely “valuable asset” that you’ve managed to recruit only this group worldwide, with extremely high costs to seek out and replace.

Focusing all efforts on finding better “exchange points” without being able to hold tokens yourself is the fundamental reason enterprises fail throughout history.

Putting the cart before the horse.

Your rules cannot from the outset exclude higher-tier, more selective employees, let alone evilly exclude these valued customers - that would be like hanging a sign at the store entrance saying “I’m a bit slow, no quality customers allowed inside”.

Do you think a store with such a sign has any prospect?

So what is the right approach?

Is it that companies can’t ask about employee leave?

Yes, the company policy is not to ask.

But the team lead can as an individual, off the record sideways request if employees could possibly disclose the reason, giving a chance to see if a better solution can be coordinated.

“Would it be too inconvenient for me to know the reason? Perhaps I can work out a better arrangement. If it’s inconvenient, don’t worry about it, I’ll confirm your leave now. If it’s okay to tell me, please do.”

You must stand firm on your position - we have no right to inquire into or judge the reason, you just need to take leave and we must give it to you, we can only pray (without pressure) for opportunities to seek greater win-win.

This has nothing to do with how big our size is or how many people are clamoring to get in.

**This solely depends on clearly understanding what we are doing. Just because a hotel is luxurious and towering, can it talk down to customers who are shabbily dressed?

Just because a hotel talks to customers this way, will the hotel really not be able to continue operating?**

**You’re wrong. Not talking this way is just meaningless stubbornness. Apart from pointlessly offending customers, there is actually no gain. **

Instead, stand firm on your principles, remain humble in how you treat people. Customers will give you the greatest convenience.

Ultimately, you have the right to refuse continued service as a last line of defense. What are you afraid of by being too gentle to customers?

Customers fear not being able to book your rooms - that is your true strength, rather than being stern in your speech and being able to “intimidate customers”.

Is there any business in the world that can prosper through “intimidating customers”?

Any enterprise that cannot pass this test has already committed original sin - they have already emasculated their own hopes. They are doomed to not grow, not last long, with no future.

Don’t look only at possibly enjoying prosperity for a few decades and appearing grandiose on the surface - ultimately they will be put in their place and see the joke in the end.

Do not put faith in violence.