You signed a contract.
You read it, or most of it, and you understood the practical terms. The salary. The hours. The notice period. The role. You signed at the bottom, started on a Monday, and the arrangement has been running ever since.
What you did not read, because it was not written anywhere in the document, were the real terms of the transaction you entered.
You were not hired. You were purchased.
Not your time. Not your labor. You. Your capability, your judgment, your energy, your reputation, your network, your best hours of every working day. All of it was packaged, priced and acquired by an organization that knew exactly what it was buying and what it intended to do with it.
The transaction was clear on one side and opaque on the other. The buyer understood it precisely. The seller, you, understood only the surface terms: the salary, the title, the benefits. The things that were written down. Not the thing that was actually being exchanged.
This book sets out the unwritten terms of the employment contract.
It is not an accusation, and it is not a conspiracy theory about employers. It is an accurate description of an arrangement that has run efficiently for a very long time. It works exactly as intended for those who understand it, and it produces a very expensive outcome for those who do not.
Before you walked through the door, someone sat in a room and decided what you were worth. Not you specifically. Your category. Someone set a minimum, a midpoint and a maximum for anyone in your role, regardless of their individual contribution or the value they create beyond the job description.
The number was set before you arrived.
You then negotiated, or perhaps you did not, within that range. The offer felt like a conversation about your specific worth. It was not. It was the result of a market analysis conducted without you, reflecting what your product category costs today.
Every morning you go to work, the purchase is renewed. Every salary review you accept confirms the terms. Every promotion upgrades the product at a price still set by someone else.
And now, in an era of globalization, automation and a worldwide catalogue the buyer can browse from anywhere, the pressure on your price is greater than ever. Somewhere in another market is someone with your skills and qualifications who will accept a fraction of your pay, because their cost of living is a fraction of yours.
The buyer knows this. The buyer has always known this.
This book is designed to ensure that now, you know it too.
外文書商品之書封，為出版社提供之樣本。實際出貨商品，以出版社所提供之現有版本為主。部份書籍，因出版社供應狀況特殊，匯率將依實際狀況做調整。
無庫存之商品，在您完成訂單程序之後，將以空運的方式為你下單調貨。為了縮短等待的時間，建議您將外文書與其他商品分開下單，以獲得最快的取貨速度，平均調貨時間為1~2個月。
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若要辦理退貨，請在商品鑑賞期內寄回，且商品必須是全新狀態與完整包裝(商品、附件、發票、隨貨贈品等)否則恕不接受退貨。
