Unicom fires up staff with inglorious 'bastard prize'

A China Unicom branch has hit on a staff motivational technique missing from the textbooks.

It's been forcing managers who missed targets to don a green vest bearing the word 'bastard'.

It began in mid-May, when the Guilin, southern China, branch announced sales results and awarded 'prizes'  to the three worst-performing units respectively of 'bastard', 'snail' and 'tortoise'. Managers in those departments were required to wear an iridescent green vest displaying the words while on the job.

This got people fired up in ways that management seems not to have anticipated.

The ‘bastard prize’ story (here in Chinese with video)) went viral with predictable results. Even the usually docile local union declared it a “human rights violation”.

Guangxi Unicom issued an apology to staff via weibo early Monday morning. It's not known if it apologised directly to the humiliated managers, or what penalties, if any, were imposed on the geniuses who came up with the idea.