It is a common phenomenon that honest people suffer losses in the workplace. Because in the face of capriciousness, many people like to bully the weak and fear the strong, taking advantage of the soft. However, in the simple education of rural areas, it has always been emphasized that suffering losses is a blessing, and a good man does not suffer losses in front of him, etc. This is a contradiction, but what is the root of this contradiction? Perhaps no one has seriously studied it yet.

After more than twenty years in the workplace, I have summarized an iron law: honest people will ultimately suffer losses in the workplace, whether they are migrant workers, white-collar workers, or blue-collar workers. As long as there are people, honest people will definitely be the group that suffers the most oppression.

There is also a saying among the common people: "Good people are bullied, good horses are ridden," which means that when a person is overly kind, they are easily exploited by others, and this kind person is bullied everywhere.

In the workplace, the most common manifestation is that for a hardworking and selfless good person, everyone habitually asks them to do some extra work for their own benefit. This phenomenon is an unpaid activity where employees serve other employees.

For example, a task that is originally someone else's responsibility is instead assigned to this kind honest person, and they are not even thanked, treated with an attitude as if they were a slave.

The boss assigns a task to someone, but this person prefers to slack off at work, so they pass the task on to the honest person. As a result, because many tasks are passed to the honest person, they fail to complete a certain task for someone. This person is then criticized by the boss for this, and they lash out at the honest person, saying that they can't do anything right, and since they were fined fifty yuan for this, the honest person should compensate them one hundred yuan, simply because their reputation was damaged.

The honest person feels very wronged; they not only have to complete their own extra work but also have to take on a lot of additional tasks. Once a mistake occurs, they are blamed even more harshly.

Therefore, for honest people, they have two choices. The first choice is to silently endure, accept this punishment, and comply with the unreasonable demands of others. However, in doing so, the other party will look down on the honest person even more and will escalate their difficulties. As long as the honest person does not leave this workplace environment, it will become increasingly difficult for them.

The second choice is for the honest person to rise up and resist, to refuse unreasonable demands with reason and evidence, and to firmly oppose such rude requests. However, in this case, the other party will feel that this honest person has turned against them, and they will unite to deal with the honest person, twisting the truth and saying that the honest person is disobedient, engaging in various smear campaigns, and even reporting to the boss how bad the honest person is.

In this situation of being isolated and powerless, no matter how the honest person argues, the boss will doubt their explanations. The boss will say, "If one person says you are bad, that is a conflict between you two, but if so many people say you are bad, are you really a good person?" Therefore, the harm of "three people make a tiger" and "many voices can distort the truth" will occur, and the honest person may lose their job because of this.

However, the root cause is that the honest person has endured and accepted unreasonable demands, which is somewhat ironic, isn't it? Yes, this is a real occurrence. The excellent qualities we are educated about in school become a disaster for self-destruction in the workplace. Besides personal and group reasons, what other reasons are there?

In fact, there is a deeper reason, which is the issue of the system. After the reform and opening up, the platform has gone through several stages of development. In the early stages, various systems were not sound, and people used results as the only criterion for judgment, paying little attention to process management. This led to honest people being unable to gain benefits from the group and impossible to receive fair treatment. However, during this period, many common people did not quickly change their mindset and continued to educate their children with very traditional moral teachings, such as keeping silent, suffering losses is a blessing, not retaliating when hit or scolded, etc. These people often endure hardships in enterprises, hoping that the boss or others will treat them with conscience, but their expectations are often seen as the best breakthrough for oppressing them.

Moreover, in the early stages of reform, various social security opportunities were not sound, and the main contradiction was to promote productivity and liberate the various factors that restricted economic development. The rights and interests of workers were not only diluted but also the relevant systems lagged seriously behind the development speed of social productivity.

During this period, we often saw cases of unpaid wages for migrant workers, and they had no way to fight back, considering themselves unlucky. Originally, it was not easy for them to earn money, and with such endless exploitation, their lives became even poorer, and the gap between the rich and the poor widened, severely impacting those excellent social traditional virtues.

As a result, even thirty years later, the vast majority of people still believe that only those who are bold, ruthless, and of bad character can thrive in the turbulent business world, which has instead enabled them to become wealthy big bosses. The idea that such people can lead the way for others to become rich is simply a pipe dream.

From the 1990s to 2010, although the rights and interests of workers gradually improved, the main theme remained that legal rights were easily violated. Honest people in the workplace were gradually eliminated and suppressed, becoming the lowest class in society, and among them, there are several different pessimistic views.

The first view is fatalism. They believe that dragons give birth to dragons, phoenixes give birth to phoenixes, and mice give birth to mice. They do not think about resisting or protecting their legal rights; they accept their fate and believe it is destiny, blaming no one, including society.

These people usually do not make an effort in educating their children but let them enter society early to learn how to make a living, keeping their heads down and seeking only a peaceful life.

The second view is social pessimism. They believe that government departments like the labor bureau cannot help them seek justice, and their personal power is insignificant. When encountering unscrupulous bosses, they consider themselves unlucky, and when they meet conscientious bosses, they are overjoyed and worship them. They regard obtaining normal benefits as a stroke of luck, and people around them sigh at this luck. Then they say, "So-and-so has worked somewhere for a year, and in the end, the boss ran away," and they feel so lucky.

They do not expect society to give them justice; they only hope to encounter a good boss by chance. They have strength, and regardless of whether they meet a good boss, they have never thought of slacking off.

The third view is to fight for personal legitimate rights. When I was in Qingdao, there was a girl working in a workshop factory who had not been paid for three consecutive months. Later, she received news that her father was sick and hospitalized and needed money, so she went to the boss's wife to withdraw her salary, but the boss's wife said that all the money was used for purchasing goods and that there was no money at the moment.

The girl was very sad and kept urging for her salary, but the boss's wife remained unmoved and even accused her of making things up. The girl, feeling helpless, climbed up the building and threatened to jump if her salary was not paid.

Unexpectedly, the boss's wife laughed and said, "If you have the ability, jump down. Who are you scaring?" The girl ultimately jumped down, leaving the boss's wife stunned.