Workplace reviews and discussion: 新竹病媒防治專員

The job basically consists of riding a company motorcycle or car to various restaurants or establishments to carry out cockroach and rodent control.

Working hours are 8:30 to 17:00, with a 1.5-hour lunch break. You clock in and out at the company.

You have to visit approximately 5–8 customers a day. For those with pest-control experience, this is not difficult, but because employee turnover is so high,

there are often situations where you inherit a mess (a severe cockroach infestation or serious rodent problem). When the establishment’s pest-control results are poor, the person who takes over may be blamed for problems left by the previous worker.

Reporting the issue to management often results in being told that you should figure out how to solve it yourself, or that a team leader or someone else will be sent along (although senior management also tends to just make a superficial visit and does not truly put in the effort to help resolve the problem).

“Night work” is defined as work after 5 p.m. For example, if you leave at 5 p.m. to carry out pest control until 8 p.m., that counts as overtime.

If you finish work at 5 p.m., rest for 2–3 hours, and return to the company to do pesticide spraying at 10 p.m., that counts as a night shift.

Whether night shifts are limited to no more than seven days is also a matter of luck; when there is a staff shortage, plenty of people work more than ten days.

After working at night, you must take compensatory leave the following morning, meaning you only need to come in at noon the next day.

At present, the general system is a two-day weekend (public holidays marked in red on the calendar are also days off), under a flexible work-hour scheduling system.

In other words, you may be given two or three days off in a week (if there happens to be a national holiday), but you cannot be scheduled for three consecutive days off.

Overtime is currently calculated according to the Labor Standards Act, but only the insured base salary for labor insurance is used in the calculation.

For example, if your insured base salary is 22,500: 22,500/240 × 1.33, or × 1.66 after two hours.

Because the one-fixed-day-off-and-one-flexible-rest-day system and public holidays are shifted around, there is basically no overtime pay for working on days off.

Scheduling days off still depends on the work at hand—that is, coordinating with customers, coworkers, and the company’s operations.

For example, a supervisor may suddenly instruct you not to take the day off, a customer may suddenly ask to change the appointment time,

or a team leader or coworker may ask you to swap shifts with them. Often, if you do not show up, the work will be left uncovered.

Pay consists of base salary + meal allowance + unexplained bonuses + overtime pay (if applicable; I heard they may change to a responsibility-based system),

minus employee contributions for labor and health insurance. Because the insured salary is low, the deductions are generally just over NT$1,000.

The actual calculation is 22,500 + 1,500 + 8,000 + 1,236 − 800 = 32,436 (for reference only).

Monthly pay is generally between NT$30,000 and NT$40,000, with only a few people earning more than NT$40,000. You only get more money after promotion or taking on a managerial position.

There is absolutely no system for promotions, becoming a manager, or salary increases; it entirely depends on the boss’s mood. Of course, outwardly, the company will always say that there is a system.

The year-end bonus is also calculated based on the base salary, multiplied by a performance percentage (also determined by the boss, between 0.5 and 1).

The actual year-end bonus received is approximately NT$11,250–22,500 (based on a base salary of NT$22,500); if you have worked for less than a year, it is calculated proportionally by month.

Bonuses for the three traditional holidays are not guaranteed. They may consist of just one box of pastries for everyone to share, or cash of NT$600–1,000.

Employee trips basically do not exist. If it is impossible to take three consecutive days off, how could there be an employee trip?

Department dinners only happen occasionally, and if people eat too much, the boss may have an opinion about it, so some employees do not attend the dinners either.

In my opinion, the most laughable thing about this company is that it claims on 104 Job Bank to provide comprehensive training.

This “comprehensive training” consists of applying to the company, being casually handed over to a senior employee or a coworker who is about to resign,

being trained for 3–5 days, and then being sent out to deal with customers and carry out pest control on your own (because turnover is so high, there is no one to take over the area).

Then the company claims to outsiders that you have three years of experience—three days equals three years of experience. Did you enter a time chamber?

In my view, pest-control work may appear easy to enter, but without one or two years of training, it is difficult to become fully competent.