Workplace reviews and discussion: 大口創意有限公司

The woman from the company next door is very kind.

1. Before the interview, they said they would properly arrange the computer equipment. Later, they changed their story and said employees would initially have to bring their own computers, and that it would be handled on Monday or Tuesday… Two months later, the computer still had never appeared. (This shows how efficiently they handle things…)

2. In addition to requiring employees to use their own personal computers for work and bring them to and from work every day, when a computer breaks down, the company says it is the employee’s own problem and has nothing to do with them. They do not even provide a computer-use allowance, and they are unwilling to pay the cost of recovering company files. (At the beginning, however, the company makes it sound very good, saying they are willing to take responsibility, understand employees’ difficulties, and will absolutely not be stingy about providing compensation.)

P.S. If your own computer breaks down and causes files to be damaged, the boss will repeatedly tell you to take responsibility yourself. They will also baselessly accuse the employee of trying to steal company assets. This cycle continues: if you do not provide the files, they will threaten to bring civil and criminal lawsuits against you, even after you have told the company how to recover its data and how much it will cost. In the company’s view, the people who are not responsible are always the employees.

3. The employment contract and rules are extremely vague:

They will definitely tell you that the working hours are flexible and that you do not need to clock in or out! The company says overtime pay is difficult to define because they do not know the actual value of the output (put bluntly, this means they do not want to pay overtime and want to exploit employees as much as possible). At first, they will say: if you work on designs late, you can come to the company later or see how to make up the time off. But without a contract, all of this eventually becomes a reason for the boss to claim that an employee was absent without permission or late, and to dismiss them. So please think carefully—or make sure the contract is written very clearly.

4. The boss is always right, and whatever the boss says goes.

If you do graphic design, you must be mentally prepared for the style and direction of your work to change at any time because of the boss’s mood or delays in the project schedule. This can result in having to redo everything or being forced to work overtime at home until morning at the last minute. (But they will definitely say it was because you did not discuss it with them.) At first, they may say that A looks good. After you produce it, they may see a B-style design online and say that the B direction is also good… When you ask what is good about it, their answer will be extremely vague. (It is truly a job that greatly trains your logical thinking, communication skills, and ability to withstand pressure.)

P.S. Even if you are right, you must raise questions very tactfully, or you may easily be misunderstood as talking back.

5. The boss is extremely impatient, but much of that urgency comes from their own last-minute preparation, and you are expected to bear the consequences together. Alternatively, when the company wraps up a project carelessly, the boss may ask employees to submit materials on their behalf because they are afraid of being reprimanded, and ask employees to lie to the other party by saying that the boss is away on a business trip and has not returned.

6. Also, during the interview, the company will tell you: “Small companies offer more diverse things to learn.” (I do not deny this.) At the time, I also thought it would be good for me to put myself through some training. But I finally came to realize that if a company cannot even fulfill the small promises it makes during the interview, and cannot arrange even the most basic computer equipment, how can you believe that many of its later promises will actually be fulfilled?

If a company has been operating for a long time, yet there is only the boss present during the interview and you will be its only employee, there must be many questions worth investigating in itself. (The points mentioned above are only the tip of the iceberg.)

This is a warning, so please think carefully. If you decide to join, protect the rights you are entitled to as an employee, and protect all of your own assets.