You know what they say: “Think out of the box”.
And this man really thought out of the marriage certificate to amass one month of marriage leave because, well, why not?
According to Taiwan’s Apple Daily, the man had married (count: 1) his wife on 6 April 2020 and applied for his entitled eight days of leave.
He worked in a bank and his employer had approved his application for his paid leave.
Towards the end of his “holiday”, he divorced his wife but proceeded to marry (count: 2) her the very next day.
Again, he went on his paid eight days of leave and divorced her at the end of it only to get married (count: 3) on 29 April. The cycle repeated again where they divorced on 11 May and were remarried (count: 4) on 12 May.
In total, he had enjoyed 32 days of marriage leave.
What a big brain move.
In case you’re wondering if there’s such leave in Singapore, here’s a short answer: No.
You can watch this video to the end on the types of work leave in Singapore:
However, the man’s employer had only approved of his first marriage leave which prompted the Megamind-brained man to file a complaint against his employer for not obeying Taiwan’s labour laws.
Under Article 2 of Taiwan’s Regulations of Leave-Taking for Workers, “a worker shall be entitled to eight days of wedding leave with pay”.
Sometimes, it’s not what you can do for capitalism, it’s what capitalism can do for you.
At this point, you might think that whoever received the complaint would’ve called the man out for abusing such a law, but in the end…
The bank where he worked was fined TWD$20,000 (~S$940) after investigations by the Taipei City Labour Bureau were conducted.
Truly the turns have tabled.
But wait, there’s more hot tea to come.
The bank was, very obviously, unhappy with the fine and filed an appeal, raising that the man was abusing such a system as he married and divorced his ex-ex-ex-wife in succession.
While the city’s Labour Bureau agreed that his actions were unethical, they upheld the previous ruling and maintained the fine.
His wife is truly the One for sticking it through with him.
If you think this is crazy, wait till you read what’s next.
Over 150 Taiwanese Changed Their Name to ‘Salmon’ for Free Sushi
MOE, you have got to up your game, for it seems like Taiwan is way ahead of us in terms of critical thinking.
Earlier this year, a chain of sushi restaurants in Taiwan held a two-day promotion on 17 and 18 March.
Under the promotion, any customer whose ID card contained “gui yu” – the Chinese characters for salmon – would be entitled to an all-you-can-eat sushi meal. And they could bring their five friends along for the free meal too.
That sounded like a great deal, right? The only problem was this: who the heck names their kid salmon?
So, some Taiwanese residents came up with a crazy yet simple solution to this problem; they legally changed their name to Salmon just to get free sushi.
In fact, over 150 people, mostly young, had visited government offices to officially change their name.
Taiwan actually allows people to officially change their name up to three times. But needless to say, this was not what they had in mind.
Dubbed the “salmon chaos”, Taiwanese officials were not amused, and one begged people to stop.
“This kind of name change not only wastes time but causes unnecessary paperwork,” deputy interior minister, Chen Tsung-yen, told reporters.
He urged the public to “cherish administrative resources”, but all they seemed to cherish at the moment was sushi.
“I hope everyone can be more rational about it,” he added.
(Note: they were not more rational about it.)
To find out exactly what kind of funny names people came up with, click here.
Featured Image: elwynn / Shutterstock.com