Video footage shows employees at a Chinese beauty company crawling along the street on their hands and knees after failing to meet targets.
Pedestrians in Tengzhou, in the eastern Shandong province, are seen looking on in astonishment as half a dozen female workers and one man crawl along the street, led by a man carrying a flag bearing the company’s name.
The firm reportedly sells beauty products, and the unfortunate employees had failed to meet their end-of-year sales targets, according to local news website DZWWW.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The crawl came to an end when police intervened.
One of the women who participated in the punishment told local media that she did so voluntarily as “self-discipline” for failing to meet her targets, and said the other crawlers consisted of the company’s owners and other senior managers rather than junior employees.
Nonetheless, the footage quickly went viral, provoking a “hot discussion” online. Many commenters lambasted the firm’s bosses for the humiliating stunt, but others “targeted the employees for silently accepting such kind of behaviour”, says India Today.
Local authorities said the company has been temporarily closed for “rectification”, Yahoo reports.
English-language Chinese news and culture website Shanghai-ist notes that this is far from the first workplace punishment to go viral in China.
Similar scandals have seen displeased bosses “slap or spank workers, as well as making them eat live mealworms, choke down bitter gourd, or drink toilet water for coming up with sub-par results”.
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
-
Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run outSpeed Read He will serve 27 years in prison
-
Americans traveling abroad face renewed criticism in the Trump eraThe Explainer Some of Trump’s behavior has Americans being questioned
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
-
Russia is ‘helping China’ prepare for an invasion of TaiwanIn the Spotlight Russia is reportedly allowing China access to military training
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
