Workplace reviews and discussion: 美商磊新科技有限公司台灣分公司

If you want to be worked to death and angered to death, go ahead—you’ll get your wish nine times out of ten! Unless you’re so stupid that you make it impossible!

I honestly don’t know where to begin commenting, because what leaves me speechless is that the review from two years ago is almost exactly what I’m about to say now! This company has made absolutely no progress! The only difference is that the company’s current manager not only has ideas that violate the Labor Standards Act, but has no understanding of it whatsoever. Unless you pressure them with the government or a lawsuit, they will completely disregard their employees. (This company has currently been formally sanctioned by the New Taipei City Government for violating the Employment Service Act, and also came close to crossing the red line under the Labor Standards Act—who knows what other laws they have violated.) The manager has absolutely no understanding of either management or the law and relies on the company’s internal PM to make every decision. Everything is completely absurd. (Just one example: What kind of genius asks whether DTP work requires certified Adobe Creative Suite software?! It’s so ridiculous you can only laugh and cry!) I really don’t know whether this person was hired because they’re too capable or because they’re completely incapable! And the PM doesn’t know how to manage people either, constantly filing reports against the manager who interviewed and hired them. Wow—what exactly is your success based on? It’s truly unbelievable.

This company is generously called a technology company (which is strange—how can it call itself a technology company when it has absolutely no technology R&D capability?!), but judging by the talent and headcount, it probably can’t even handle local marketing. If a foreign startup wanted to expand into Taiwan today, in my view this company simply wouldn’t have the ability to do it. It is nominally the Taipei branch, but in reality it is merely a backup office for the San Diego headquarters and Madrid branch. Whatever those two offices tell it to do, it can only obediently accept, but no one serves as backup for the Taipei office. When the Taipei PM takes annual leave, they still carry their computer around and remain on standby in case something goes wrong.

Just like the review from two years ago, they are still exploiting employees! Project coordinators (I’m not saying it’s only the poor PCs who are exploited!) have to work endless overtime coordinating with overseas translators until they are exhausted, and the company doesn’t even proactively pay overtime. What the hell—WTF! As for the so-called promotion opportunities, just look at the contracts and the office’s operating budget and you’ll know there’s no hope. The entire office is dirt poor. Their software policy says freeware cannot be used, yet their own office software was originally OpenOffice and 7-Zip, and some computers don’t even have SDL or Adobe CS installed! If you happen to—oh, I’m not saying they think new hires are easy to bully and therefore do this, so don’t misunderstand—get assigned one of these computers, you can only work by remotely connecting to the U.S. headquarters. Just imagine what it’s like to use a terrible computer to remotely run SDL and Chrome while also running a bunch of specialized programs. I can’t be bothered to curse about it! Oh, and don’t bother asking your supervisors or their superiors for anything, because they won’t pay any attention to you! Then they still dare to demand high-efficiency work from employees. F***—if I just watched you continue harming people like this, would I even be human!? The hardware and operating systems are also unbelievably terrible. What era is this—why are they still using Windows 7? If a security vulnerability ever appears in Windows 7 and hackers threaten them, no one will be able to save them. The computer towers are so old they’re harder to use than my phone. (Of course, I use a Samsung flagship, haha, sorry—I may actually be richer than your manager! I was wrong to join with the intention of learning project coordination and let you exploit me!) You pay such a miserable salary while demanding high-efficiency work with inadequate equipment. I advise this company that if it intends to continue operating this way, it should stop recruiting people to go in and be harmed and have their moral boundaries forcibly violated. The two of you—a manager and a PM—can just keep singing each other’s praises and do whatever you want. (Oh, I’m not saying you two are so close that if someone accidentally provokes either one of you, you’ll join forces to bully them, so don’t misunderstand.) Just handle things yourselves!

As for the annual leave they love emphasizing, you’ll understand once you join: the workload is so heavy that even if you want to leave, you can’t get away. And that company also has a PM with an unbelievably terrible temper. If they tell you to take on work, would you dare leave??? They brought you in to exploit you. This is the first time I’ve seen a PC also being responsible for proofreading and revising drafts, and then having to ‘wait’ several hours at night for translators in other time zones to respond. And they still don’t proactively pay overtime. Go drink northwest wind, you lousy company!!!

Lei Xin, if you’ve got the guts, sue me. If you still think I’m easy to bully, that is! Let me tell you first: my body has not yet fully recovered, but all the evidence is in the hands of my lawyer and notary. Once I’m fully recovered, I’ll see how sincere you are and decide whether to fight back. I’m completely confident that if you dare to make the first move, you’ll receive an even harsher punishment and end up utterly miserable. Ah, I almost forgot—you’re so ignorant that you don’t know what to fear, so go ahead and come at me!! I only decided to speak up and curse you a few times because I don’t want you to harm anyone else. But if you’ve got the guts, come fight it out. Don’t forget: only if you sue first can I ask the judge to impose a harsher punishment, you bunch of ___!