Workplace reviews and discussion: 華王大飯店股份有限公司

One meal is provided during work hours. Apparently, it used to be a staff buffet prepared by a chef, but it has now been replaced by outsourced boxed meals. The original cost-cutting boxed meals were awful, but they have improved somewhat. They are still a long way from being tasty, though.

I’ll only talk about the company rules; I won’t say much about the other issues involving “people”:

1. After starting work, leaving the premises for nonessential business is prohibited.

2. After starting work, your mobile phone and bag must be locked in your personal locker (you have the key).

3. After starting work, making phone calls for non-business purposes is prohibited. Of course, using LINE is also prohibited, including the desktop version of LINE.

(You can apply for a company phone. The company will assess whether your work requires you to use a mobile phone. Whether you pass the assessment is another matter, but if you don’t have a company phone and dutifully follow all three rules above, congratulations—you will be completely cut off from the outside world after starting work.)

4. During working hours, eating anything other than lunch is prohibited. The chairman once said that he had set up an all-encompassing surveillance network (I guarantee 100 percent that he really said this). At one meeting, he directly berated someone from a certain department, saying that their performance was poor and they still had the nerve to eat in front of him—he had seen it all on the surveillance cameras.

5. Of course, ordering drinks for delivery and drinking beverages is also prohibited.

6. If sales staff fail to meet their performance targets, they must pay their own parking fees when going out.

7. Employees at the level of manager or above must wait for the company to find a replacement before they can resign. If you leave without waiting for the company to find someone, the company will send you a certified legal notice—even if you have fully complied with the notice period for resignation required by the Labor Standards Act.

8. The USB ports on all computers are disabled, supposedly to prevent information-security leaks.

(But nowadays, you can just transfer files to the cloud or send them by email! If they said it was to prevent viruses, that would make more sense.)

9. During working hours, discussing employees’ personal affairs unrelated to work is prohibited—for example, why someone resigned, how excessively the chairman scolded someone just now, or what kind of work someone used to do. At one meeting, it was announced that this ban would be extended: discussing anything about the company after work is also prohibited, supposedly to prevent rumors from being misreported and spreading outside.

10. After work, you must let the security guard at the entrance inspect your bag, and the chairman has strongly insisted that everything inside the bag be taken out and checked one item at a time.

(I’ve never been able to figure out what there is to steal in a hotel. Leftover food? Towels? Stationery?)

I won’t say much about the other extremely bizarre incidents involving “people.” If I did, many people wouldn’t believe me, and I don’t want to write a declaration that I’m not suicidal.