The work is highly rewarding; seeing your own designs displayed in busy urban areas makes you feel very proud.

The colleagues in the design department are very nice, and whenever you need help, they explain things to you patiently.

(But after reading the employment experiences below, I learned that most of those old-timers seem to have left, leaving mostly fresh recruits to bear the brunt of the workload.)

Sometimes there are too many projects,

and when a regular client suddenly inserts an urgent order, you end up working overtime until very late.

For a while, I worked until three in the morning for several consecutive days.

But being late the next day still resulted in a pay deduction, and there was no overtime pay.

Officially, you can apply for overtime pay, but your application must have a “sufficient” reason.

The design director and HR manager have to sign off before you will receive overtime pay; in reality, no one applies.

What left the deepest impression on me was the Double Tenth long weekend.

The boss came down personally and said that we absolutely had to work overtime to finish the inserted orders, and that we shouldn’t worry about overtime pay.

So while watching my friends go out during the consecutive holidays, I still finished the urgent orders.

But when that month’s salary was paid, I found that for those days of overtime, I had only received a NT$50 meal allowance (per day).

During design reviews, the company selects relatively outstanding designers to provide bonuses to the designers.

But once, even though another designer had been selected in the review,

after the building was completed, it was my own work that I saw displayed.

It felt terrible.

You absolutely must not offend the HR manager; he is a smiling tiger.

If he takes a dislike to you, he will use all kinds of excuses to drive you out.

The chairman also trusts the HR manager 100%.

No matter how absurd the reason, the chairman will believe him.