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A disgruntled employee in Taiwan resigned after being pressured to dance at her company's year-end dinner
According to Taiwanese news portal EBC, the woman, identified only as 26-year-old Chen, previously worked as an account executive at a small advertising agency.
However, the year-end event proved to be the final straw that pushed her to leave.
She claimed her boss required every employee to perform at the dinner, which took a mental toll on them. To cut costs, the company had also limited employees' monthly meal allowance and used the savings to pay for the annual dinner instead.
"The scale of the dinner wasn't even big, but the boss required everyone to go on stage to sing or dance, and we even had to handle the hosting ourselves," she said, adding that it was especially exhausting for more introverted employees.
As a newcomer, she worried about being labelled "not a team player", so she endured it
Together with colleagues, they sacrificed lunch breaks and after-work hours to practise dancing to the viral song APT. — without receiving any overtime pay.
On the day of the event, she even said she barely had time to enjoy the dinner, as she spent most of it waiting to perform.
To make matters worse, most of the lucky draw prizes were only PR gift boxes or vouchers provided by vendors, and she ended up winning nothing.
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Image via DC Studio/FreepikChen called the event "disguised overtime", and said the lack of meaningful lucky draw prizes, along with a disappointing year-end bonus, left her so upset that she decided to resign
"The annual dinner is supposed to reward employees. It should be handled by professional hosts and performers so everyone can truly relax," she said.
After changing jobs, Chen said she feels more satisfied in her new role, which offers better benefits and a salary increase of NT$5,000 (about RM622).
She added that she shared her story as a reminder to employers to value their employees' time and feelings, saying, "An annual dinner should be a joyful gathering, not a stressful performance stage."
