Workplace reviews and discussion: 耀際實業有限公司

The job basically involves 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 generally have to visit around 5–8 clients a day. This is not difficult for people with pest-control experience, but because employee turnover is so fast,

you often end up being handed a mess—severe cockroach infestations or serious rodent problems. If the establishment’s pest-control results are poor, the person who takes over afterward

may get blamed and harshly reprimanded for problems left by the previous worker. Reporting the issue to management often gets you the response that you should figure out how to solve it yourself,

or they will assign a team leader or someone else to accompany you. However, even senior management just makes a superficial visit and does not genuinely devote the effort needed to help solve the problem.

“Night work” means work after 5 p.m. For example, leaving at 5 p.m. to perform pest control until 8 p.m. counts as overtime.

After finishing at 5 p.m., you may rest for 2–3 hours and then return to the company to carry out pesticide spraying at 10 p.m.; this is considered a night shift.

Whether night shifts stay under seven days depends on your luck. When the company is short-staffed, plenty of people end up working more than ten nights.

After working at night, you must take compensatory leave the following morning, meaning you do not have to start work until noon the next day.

At present, the general arrangement is a two-day workweek break, with public holidays shown in red on the calendar also taken off. The company uses flexible scheduling,

meaning you may be given two or three days off in a week when there is 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 based on the insured monthly base salary for labor insurance.

For example, if your insured monthly base salary is 22,500, the calculation is 22,500/240 × 1.33 or 1.66 (after two hours).

Because compensatory arrangements are made for the one-fixed-one-flexible rest-day system and national holidays, there is effectively no overtime pay for working on days off.

Your days off still have to be arranged according to the work at hand—that is, in coordination with clients, coworkers, and the company’s operations.

For example, a supervisor may suddenly tell you that you cannot take the day off, a client may suddenly ask to change the appointment,

or a team leader or coworker may ask you to swap shifts. Often, if you do not show up, the work simply goes uncovered.

Your pay consists of the basic salary + meal allowance + inexplicable bonuses + overtime pay, if any (I heard they may change to a responsibility-based system),

minus your employee-paid labor and health insurance contributions. Since the insured salary is low, the deduction is generally just over 1,000.

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

Monthly earnings are generally between 30,000 and 40,000. Only a few people earn more than 40,000; you get more money if you are promoted or take on a management position.

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

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

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

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

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

Department dinners only happen occasionally. If people eat too much, the boss may complain again, so some employees do not attend the dinners either.

What I find most ridiculous about this company is that it claims on 104 that it provides comprehensive training.

“Comprehensive training” means applying to the company, being casually assigned to a senior employee or a coworker who is about to leave,

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

The company then tells outsiders that you have three years of experience—three days equals three years of experience. Did you enter a time chamber?

In my view, vector-control work may look easy to enter, but without 1–2 years of training, it is difficult to become fully competent.