Workplace reviews and discussion: 亞科國際資訊股份有限公司

The following points were all relayed to me by a friend.

The startup has a vision, but its management methods are old-fashioned (reports/manual updates/LINE groups......)

The person in charge was articulate during a previous speech and seemed energetic.

Documents can be accessed and worked on remotely (Google Drive), implying that work has no boundaries.

The management methods are old-fashioned (reports/manual updates/LINE groups......)

The company claims it wants to become the next Google, but management uses a large number of manual forms to track progress (management proudly says that they track things in great detail), as well as assigning tasks to colleagues in the middle of the night.

The vision is grand, but the details cannot be connected or coordinated-

It is reportedly supposed to become the next Google, and a company that will make endless profits by imitating Shopee’s successful model. Yet the tasks assigned by management endlessly go back and forth over product listings/copywriting/inspections. The dialogue interface layout is constantly spent being made a little bigger, a little smaller, a little farther left, or a little farther right.

Tasks assigned today may all be overturned tomorrow. Matters scheduled and in progress may be halted without reason because of a single remark from management, after which they will turn around and ask you why you did not do them.

They also do not care whether you already have other tasks in hand. Whatever she wants is always the priority.

It is normal for employees’ suggestions about tasks to be rejected, because management will say, “I knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t work. Otherwise, you go try it.”

After going around in a circle, they then tell you, “I suggest you do XXXXX” (something that had already been suggested and rejected earlier).

The will of those in power is hard to predict, and this inconsistency seems to be the norm in Chinese companies. Regardless of whether the management team consists of people from the “seventh grade,” this is a shared original sin in our genes.

Rules are made to be broken / employees only need to remember them-

Management constantly forgets the rules it established (including contracts/payment regulations/cooperation terms). When needed, they simply ask employees about them. If you cannot answer immediately, it becomes, “How do you not know?”

The agreements signed by management are always unequal contracts, covering service items, production processes, payment schedules... and so on and so forth.

In short, it comes down to a few phrases: “The client wants it, so hurry up and get it done. Why can’t you? Go tell the client.” (These words came from management, not from an angry client calling to complain.)

The person in charge has an ambitious vision, but their governance capabilities need further improvement. High turnover is not the problem at a startup; the problem is that they are forever establishing systems, forever trying to reach a consensus, and forever demanding something today and expecting results tomorrow (a classic example: a person whose name includes “Zong” assigns tasks on Friday and asks on Monday, “Where are the results?”).

Documents can be handled remotely in the cloud, but management can never find your files. Estimates of the production hours required for projects have no flexibility. If you exceed the required hours, you are a money-losing employee because you have no output value (working hours are defined as production time: an engineer is given eight hours to complete a website, and each department (design/IT) is responsible for following up with the client on its own. If the client cannot be reached, that is your problem. But management’s own projects are never subject to this restriction—even if they first make something the client does not want, it does not matter).

Every department is required to have people ready to act, and assigned tasks must be completed as quickly as possible (finding information/finding images/brainstorming copy/finding client examples). All of that is considered a waste of time with no output value. But when you ask management to show the same efficiency, you get some very interesting replies:

(“We hired you to solve problems, not to wait for me to solve problems for you. I have so many things to do...... You should ask your supervisor for resources, not have the supervisor solve things for you.”)

The CEO wants to find partners to strive together with, not employees, so what they offer is a partner’s price, not the employee compensation that the position should receive.

Overall, the CEO has the CEO’s problems, and the VP has the VP’s problems. The company only has two managers......

But reportedly, the VP was brought in by the CEO to solve problems. To quote a famous saying: “We do not solve problems; we solve the people who raise them.”

My friend says that the most capable person at the moment should be the expert recruited by the VP, who can single-handedly handle copywriting/graphic production/vendor negotiations/project management/marketing planning. But the famous “Does copywriting really need to take that long?” supposedly came from this expert. I believe my friend must have misheard.

Startups always need to have opportunities to make mistakes. If your liver is fresh enough and you can sustain yourself on dreams, you are welcome to pay this place a visit.

By the way, reportedly the largest group of employees currently inside the company is interns (Have they signed an agreement with a school? If so, are they paying the full internship stipend stipulated in the agreement?). Management has a famous saying: “Letting them intern here gives them an opportunity to learn. Although the contract says XXXXX dollars, I think they are only worth XXXX. If it exceeds XXXX, we do not want them.”

As for employee salaries, they are completely based on a fantasy benchmark, with most falling between 21,000 and 25,000 in take-home pay (regardless of which department you are in, programmers do not get more). They tell you that you will receive shares in the future, that you are a management trainee...... and so on. I am quite curious whether the VP also uses dreams to pay the bills; if not, that would be rather ironic.

Perhaps after the company goes public on the Emerging Stock Board, management will value shareholders’ rights above employees’ rights. After saying all this, will the overtime pay that is due be paid to my friend?

Otherwise, it would also be good if they paid the expert who is still there. They do not pay anything for voluntary overtime at night or on holidays.

There is not even overtime pay for livestreaming sales at 10 p.m.!!!

At this rate, sooner or later it will become a company that wins the Republic of China’s “Pillar of the Nation” award, defeat Alibaba, and become this century’s GOOGLE!