Performance Evaluation Becomes 'Pay-to-Win Game'; Employee with Rainbow-Glowing 'Official Cheat Business Card' Promoted Unconditionally

On the 6th, Babel Capital Co., Ltd., a major trading company, announced that it has abolished its conventional personnel evaluation system and introduced a company-wide new system called “Pay-to-Promotion (P2P),” where employees pay out of their own salaries to purchase promotion rights. “We eliminate the opacity of meritocracy and evaluate based on the clear numerical value of financial power,” the company’s Human Resources Department boasts, but a class struggle driven by economic disparity has already erupted within the company.

At the heart of the new system is the company’s dedicated app, “JINJI Wallet.” Employees purchase “in-house gems” via salary deduction or by investing their personal funds. By spending these gems, they can obtain powerful buff (ability enhancement) items such as “Lateness Expungement Tickets” and “Boss Mood Visor AR Glasses.” Among the items, the most controversial is the “Auto-Nodding Macro (50,000 yen per month),” which uses AI to automatically chime in with statements like “Excellent point!” or “I’m learning so much!” in the appropriate tone during meetings. During the executive meeting on the first day of implementation, all attendees activated this macro, resulting in a bizarre phenomenon where a chorus of praise continued for an hour even though no one was actually speaking.

Standing at the apex of the in-house hierarchy are the “heavy spenders (whales)” who spend 120% of their salary on in-app purchases. They spend heavily on their status screen, the “business card,” which flashes violently in seven colors (RGB) like a gaming PC. It is said that anyone who exchanges cards with someone holding this “Official Cheat Business Card” is subjected to a physical attack on their vision and a sense of mental defeat, causing them to agree to business deals unconditionally. Recently, a wealthy heir in his second year at the company invested his entire family inheritance to purchase the “Executive Officer Starter Pack.” On his very first day, he bypassed the department general manager to occupy the executive corridor.

On the other hand, the working environment for general employees—referred to as “free-to-play users” who cannot afford to buy gems—is extremely harsh. Although free-to-play users receive a “minuscule overtime pay” as a login bonus when entering the office, they are forced to “watch ads” at every turn of their duties. While waiting for the photocopier to print, the “President’s Founding Story (unskippable)” plays on the screen, and toilet stall doors do not unlock until a 30-second “Compliance Training Video” has finished playing. One rank-and-file employee tearfully recounted, “I want to prepare urgent materials, but every time I move a cell in Excel, a pop-up of the Babel Capital Company Song appears, and I can’t get any work done.”

Professor Kindaichi of Teito University, an expert in labor economics, analyzes this: “This is not a bug in capitalism; it is its logical conclusion.” “Originally, labor was an act to earn a wage, but modern people now pay money to secure the ‘right to work.’ This ‘Labor Subscription’ is the ultimate loyalty test that corporations have been searching for.” Following the news that personnel costs have become practically negative—since the in-app purchase revenue from employees exceeded the salary payments—the company’s stock price hit the daily limit high.

Does an end-game exist for this “pay-to-win game”? Rumor has it that a “Retirement Benefit Gacha” will be implemented, which employees can attempt at retirement by spending all their gems. Unless they draw the “Amiable Retirement SSR” with a 0.01% drop rate, employees will wander through an infinite dungeon under the name of re-employment until they die.

Stakeholder Comments

• Human Resources Director: “People criticize us saying ‘don’t buy status with money,’ but we’ve simply visualized the invisible costs of flattery and brown-nosing. This is true transparency.”
• Heavy-Spending Employee (24, General Manager): “I bought the ‘Fiscal Year-End Raid Battle Special Gear’ with my parents’ card. My subordinates look like garbage.”
• Free-to-Play Employee (45, Rank-and-File): “Every breath I take drains my stamina gauge. Am I not even allowed to breathe without buying the ‘Oxygen’ cash item?”
• App Developer: “In the next update, we plan to implement the ‘Blame Deflection Shield’ and ‘Subordinate Credit Absorption Vacuum.’ Please look forward to it.”
• Accounting Rep: “We are in a dispute with the tax office over whether to classify the in-app purchase revenue from employees as ‘Sales’ or ‘Miscellaneous Income.’”
• Office Cleaner: “The area around the heavy spenders’ desks is so blindingly bright with LEDs that I need sunglasses to clean it.”
• Shareholder: “Employees paying us to work. This is the first time in human history such a beautiful business model has existed.”
• Industrial Physician: “Mental health issues caused by ‘gacha failure’ are skyrocketing. The prescription is gems.”
• In-House AI: “The meeting nod-and-agree patterns have run dry. Please top up your balance to expand the vocabulary database.”
• Desk-Warmers: “We are just log-in players. Doing only the daily mission (showing up to work) and heading home is the optimal strategy.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Promotion won / A credit card swiped / Spring thunder roars
• Free-to-play screen / Wholly covered by / The president’s grin
• Rainbow business card / Flashing so brightly / Dropping flies in flight
• Running out of gems / In the corner of the hall / Logging off at last
• In the boardroom / A chorus of paid macros / Cicada rain
• A gentle spring breeze / Distributing apology gems / For the written reprimand
• To reach the board / Prayers go unanswered / In the dark of the gacha
• Work is just a game / A matter of amusement / If you have the coins
• Retirement gold / Melted in the gacha / Shell of a cicada
• Heavy spenders’ clash / Only ruins of dreams remain / In the office park

Kanji

成果主義崩壊 金権人事制度爆誕 虹色名刺一閃昇進 無課金社員広告地獄 労働本質完全逆転

Emoji

💸⬆️👔✨🌈💳📉😭📺🛑🏰💎🔚

Onomatopoeia

Cha-ching, cha-ching! Flash! Bling-bling… Beep-beep! (Payment error sound). Smug look… Silence… (Auto-nodding macro stops). Click, spin, spin… Pop! (Gacha).

SNS

• #PayToPromotion
• My boss just walked into the meeting showing a guaranteed SSR drop animation lol
• Bug report: Free-to-play users can’t get out of the toilet. Please patch this ASAP #InHouseBug
• Got paid leave with apology stones! The devs are gods
• [Bad News] Spent my entire month’s salary on the gacha, net pay is negative
• The aura from the whales is so blinding, we literally need polarized glasses in this workplace
• Apparently, the President’s long-winded speech ads can be skipped if you’re a Premium Member
• I want to start job hunting, but is it true that it costs 3,000 gems just to open the “Resignation Letter” form?
• Real-life pay-to-win game… it sucks that we can’t reroll (change jobs)
• Feels like I’m watching the final episode of capitalism