I've fired people.
Not once or twice. Over ten years — Budweiser, Snow Plus, Longfor — I sat on the company's side of the table in termination meetings so many times that I developed a routine. Arrive early. Place the folder at an angle so the other person can't read it upside down. Water on the table, not coffee — coffee suggests this will take a while. Tissues nearby but not visible.
The person across from you is almost never angry. Not at first. They're confused. They walked in thinking this was a project update. Now there's a folder. Now they're doing math in their head — rent, car payment, kid's tuition — while trying to maintain composure. You can see the exact moment it lands. Their eyes go somewhere else. Their hands find something to hold.
I know exactly when to pause. When to slide the paper forward. When to say "take your time" — which means sign now while you're still in shock, because tomorrow you might talk to someone who tells you this number is wrong.
At Longfor, the philosophy was explicit. Passed down from senior HR to junior HR like an oral tradition: the less you pay above the legal minimum, the better you've done your job. Not "pay the legal minimum." Pay as little above it as possible. In practice, this often meant paying below — because most workers didn't know what the minimum was.
I remember a specific case: a ten-year employee owed roughly 15 months of salary under Article 47. We offered 6 months. She took it. HR celebrated. Nobody asked whether she had kids in school.
The company has an HR department trained in negotiation, a legal team on retainer, internal training manuals, external advisors, and a precedent database of every termination ever executed. The worker has Google and a friend who "knows someone in HR."
The asymmetry starts before the meeting. The overtime clause that says "as needed by the business" — nobody explains that means unlimited unpaid overtime. The non-compete you signed two days before your start date. The performance reviews behind a login you lose the moment your badge is deactivated. Every piece of evidence lives in systems you don't control.
The Counter-Intuitive Part
Most people think the enemy is a cruel manager or an unfair policy. It's not.
The real enemy is a single phrase: "Forget about it, just move on."
For my MBA thesis at PKU Guanghua, I interviewed workers who'd been pushed out — over dinner, over WeChat voice messages at midnight. I read 200+ labor arbitration cases. The most uncomfortable finding was about psychology.
The pressure to give up comes from everywhere. Family: "Don't make trouble, what if it affects your next job?" The HR person across the table: "We're already being more generous than we need to be." And the internal voice, loudest of all: "Maybe I did underperform. Maybe fighting makes me the difficult one."
The lowball offer isn't just a number. It's a bet — that the emotional cost of fighting exceeds the financial difference between what they're offering and what they owe. They win that bet about 80% of the time.
"Low-frequency, high-intensity." Nobody opens a labor rights tool out of curiosity. They open it because someone walked into their office at 4:47 PM on a Thursday and said, "Let's have a quick chat." The product has to be ready for that exact moment — not yesterday, not tomorrow, right now, while their hands are still shaking.
Workers don't lack legal knowledge. They lack someone on their side. You can Google Article 47 of the Labor Contract Law. But reading a statute when your hands are shaking is different from having someone say: "Here's what you're owed. Here's what to say in the meeting. Here's what to do if they push back."
The account lockout scene.
The meeting room door closes. HR says, "We'd like to discuss a separation." At that exact moment — not after you've agreed, but right now — an IT administrator is hovering over a keyboard, waiting for a Signal message from HR.
The moment you nod, your email is locked. Your badge is deactivated. Your laptop's remote wipe is triggered. Your ten years of work, your performance reviews that might prove your case — gone. Not deleted. Just on the other side of a wall you can no longer access.
I know this because I've been the one who sent the Signal message. You lock access while they're still processing, before they think to forward anything to their personal email, before they screenshot the evidence.
Negotiation is the main battlefield. 70-80% of labor disputes settle before any formal process. Arbitration is the nuclear option. The real weapon is knowing your numbers before you sit down.
The Soul
May there be ten million mansions, sheltering all who suffer in the cold.
Du Fu wrote this in 761 AD, living in a thatched hut just destroyed by autumn wind. A man with nothing, writing about sheltering everyone.
I've been the person tearing the roof off. Now I want to build a shelter.
The soul is specific: the person sitting across from HR at 4:47 PM on a Thursday deserves the same preparation as the HR person who scheduled the meeting three days ago and rehearsed twice.
Fairmate is not an arbitration calculator. It's the worker's negotiation team. A calculator gives you a number: 47,500 yuan. A team gives you: here's the number, here's the statute, here's the judicial interpretation for your city, here's what your employer hopes you don't know about unsigned-contract double salary, here's what to say when they offer you half.
A number is information. A team is capability. $14 buys you the capability gap that used to cost thousands in legal consultation — or, more commonly, cost nothing because people just gave up.
Bian Que's Three Brothers
The King of Wei asked the famous doctor Bian Que: "Your family has three brothers who all practice medicine. Who is the best?"
Bian Que: "My eldest brother is the best. He sees illness before symptoms appear. Nobody knows his name. My second brother treats minor symptoms. People think he can only handle small problems. I cut open flesh and perform dramatic operations. People think I'm the most skilled. But I'm the worst of the three."
Fairmate is also three brothers.
Something just happened — Bian Que catches you. You got fired. Called into a meeting. Told "let's have a chat." You're panicking. Open Fairmate, enter your tenure and salary. Thirty seconds later, it tells you: what you're legally owed, how far HR's offer falls short, what rights they didn't mention. Free. No sign-up required. First, you need to know what cards you're holding.
You're about to sit at the negotiation table — Second Brother arms you. A full rights report with every number tied to a statute. Negotiation scripts — what to say when HR says "this is our final offer." An evidence checklist — what to screenshot and save right now, before your access gets cut. A complete negotiation toolkit, for $14.
Nothing has happened yet — Eldest Brother protects you. Contract review before you sign — which clauses have traps buried in them. Rights monitoring — is your overtime being recorded, are your social insurance contributions compliant. Not waiting for the fire to start. Making sure it can't.
One Line
May all workers be treated fairly. May they never need to arbitrate.
Every technique I learned in ten years on the company's side — the empathy play, the urgency close, the "this is the best we can do" that was never actually the best they could do — I'm encoding the countermeasures into software. I know what HR is going to say because I used to say it. I know when they're bluffing because I used to bluff.
Ten years sitting on their side. Now I build for yours.
I genuinely hope you never need Fairmate. But if that day comes — it's there.
