Surprise ending for Chinese employees skipping work to watch Avengers: Endgame
- A team at a heating company were in for a shock when Communist Party officials turned up at their office for a snap inspection, setting off a chain reaction around the city.
It could have been a scene from a Chinese version of the box office hit Avengers: Endgame.
When Communist Party discipline officials turned up at the customer service centre of a state heating firm in northern China late last month, it was as if half of all life had disintegrated – just two employees were left at Heihe Thermoelectric Group’s centre in Heihe, Heilongjiang province.
But there was no supervillain to blame – the rest of the staff, including director Zhang Dexin, had skipped work for a few hours to see the superhero movie, the highest-grossing foreign film in China.
The city’s commission for discipline inspection said on its official WeChat account on Tuesday that the inspectors conducted the surprise check in response to a tip-off on April 26.
What happened next set off a chain reaction around the city.
“The entire staff of Heihe Thermoelectric Group’s customer service centre skipped work to watch a film, creating a bad influence,” the commission said.
“It shows there is a lack of daily supervision within the company, and not enough ideological and political education of party members.”