You can travel abroad. If you have worked there for more than five years, it is free; if you have worked there for more than one year, you have to pay over 20,000. When friends visit, you can treat them to one pot of drinks and one side dish. Once a month, you can get 10% off and bring friends or family. Employees can get 40% off yakiniku, which is indeed a better deal.
Front of house: A terrible establishment that is very good at exploiting part-time workers. There is no lunch break; you get only 30 minutes to eat and rest in the middle of the shift. Whether the employee meals are good also depends on how well the chef cooks. If the food is poorly prepared that day, you just have to be disappointed—it completely depends on who cooks it. If your work is not finished, you cannot leave and may have to stay an extra half hour or hour. There is no overtime pay.
The supervisor always looks sour, and you are also expected to arrive early. If business is doing reasonably well that day, they tell you to get off work; sometimes you are busy until 10 p.m. and still cannot leave, and they make you stay longer before allowing you to clock out. You also have to respond to customer feedback forms. As long as you flatter people, you can become a team leader; without flattering people, there is no way forward. The year-end bonus is also small. As long as you flatter people, getting a year-end bonus of NT$78,000 is no problem.
If you serve the wrong dish once, one day’s wages disappear. Long-time employees can get away with pretending not to know and do not have to pay, while new employees are miserable. The supervisors are basically useless: after scolding you, they simply tell you to pay for it. This is what they call compensation for damages, and all the money you earn disappears. They often force you to work past the scheduled end time; even if you finish at 25 minutes past the hour, they will not report half an hour of overtime for you. Public holidays absolutely do not come with double pay.
Every month there is a monthly meeting, and each group has classes and meetings, all covering largely irrelevant matters. Even unreasonable complaints from customers have to result in everyone being called back for a review meeting. They also use non-working hours without paying overtime. If there are three or more online customer complaints, there is supposedly a review meeting: you have to arrive at the company at 8 a.m., regardless of how late you finished work the previous day. There is no pay and no breakfast provided.
Being late means a NT$500 deduction; being absent means NT$1,500. However, it depends on the person—those who are on good terms with the supervisor do not have money deducted. During the interview, the company says it complies with the Labor Standards Act, but basically, you should take that with a grain of salt. They will tell you to clock in first and then go to work, and they will give you at most half an hour of overtime.
Back of house: The cold station has a chef, and everyone slacks off there; it is also the easiest department. You cannot take holidays during special festivals. Special festivals and Lunar New Year are merely busier, but leave is still prohibited. If the cooked food turns out poorly, you will be criticized. Likewise, you have to finish the work before you can take a break between shifts or leave work. There is no overtime pay.
Bar: Even a minor issue can result in a major demerit and a NT$4,500 deduction. You can work yourself to the bone, but if you put one label on incorrectly, they will deduct NT$4,500.
No mistakes are allowed. Some managers use militaristic training methods and scold you outright; in serious cases, they deduct money: NT$500 for a warning, NT$1,500 for a minor demerit, and NT$4,500 for a major demerit.
More than 30 veteran employees resigned in March 2018. The year-end bonus depends entirely on how close you are to the supervisor; if they dislike you, you receive less. No matter how well you work, making a mistake puts you on the blacklist. Whenever you do anything wrong, senior managers take photos as evidence, and the matter can be brought up for half a year. Employees are not allowed to use their phones, because they are afraid that if a senior manager makes a mistake, you will photograph their shortcomings and use them to fight back.