Company Forces Underperforming Staff to Crawl on All Fours Through Traffic

You can take that literally: as one beauty supply company from the Shandong province recently demonstrated, they won’t even give their underperforming staff the “courtesy” of having them crawl on the pavement. No, apparently, only going on all fours among cars will suffice. Because being publicly humiliated is not enough, they also have to run the risk of being hit by a speeding car while they’re being humiliated.

A video has been making the rounds online (you can see it at the bottom of the page as well), causing serious controversy. It shows a group of women (there are at least 6 of them) being led through traffic while they’re crawling, with one man carrying a red flag with the name of the company on it. Strangely enough, no one intervenes to stop the procession, and even the drivers seem unfazed by what’s happening.

“A beauty supply company in eastern China reportedly demanded the humiliating display,” DW News says. “It says the employees failed to meet year-end targets. A man walked with the company's flag in front of the crawling workers before police intervened to stop the spectacle. The footage sparked a backlash in China, where many commentators condemned it as inhumane.”

In response, company people claimed that the entire thing was meant to “motivate” staff to perform better in the next year. The police didn’t agree with them, shutting down the entire business while they conduct their investigation. Now, the same employees who were humiliated and put at risk of being run over by a car are also unemployed. To put it mildly, they got served a pretty messed up hand from fate.