Workplace reviews and discussion: 裕美國際有限公司

I officially resigned on August 27. Ever since someone commented here last Saturday, the company has kept suspecting that I was the one who posted the negative review. They even believe that, although I did not write the post, I was involved in it. I think I need to speak up for myself.

1. I am not afraid of being sued, which is why I posted this review under my real name. After all, there are only NT$5,000 in my account, so what would a provisional attachment accomplish? It would have no impact on me. Besides, our company has eight legal staff members.

2. If the comments and reviews are all factual, why worry about being sued? I asked a lawyer, who said that the plaintiff must provide supporting evidence that the defendant defamed them maliciously. If you did not act maliciously, you really do not need to worry.

3. This is a very public platform, and there are plenty of companies that have been harshly criticized here. I have worked at companies with serious issues that were never reviewed. Anyone who comes here to post must have been holding a grudge for a long time.

4. I started working here on July 22, so how could I have written a review from two years ago? And how could I possibly become close enough to former colleagues within one month to encourage them to post something?

I would like to share some of my work experience. Since the company is run by a married couple in their sixties, you have to adjust yourself to their way of thinking. The company rarely holds meetings, so you need to take the initiative to raise issues. When you do, you can get support—for example, with marketing ideas or matters concerning company policies and systems.

The company does not contact employees on holidays. This never happened to me at all, although I cannot speak for the other colleagues. When support is needed on a holiday, the company provides compensatory leave or payment (not calculated according to the overtime-pay formula under the Labor Standards Act). That said, this position rarely encountered such situations, since it was only responsible for the official website.

If you are willing to explore different markets, the older couple will be very happy. They have always wanted to do this, but due to limited staffing, they cannot cover everything. Taiwan is only so big, after all, and having the brand expand beyond Taiwan would be a great opportunity. They would be very supportive of that!

The company has been around for a long time, so it has its own management philosophy. As mentioned above, the owners had always worked as professional managers at large corporations, so their management style leans more toward that of a large enterprise: they do not manage the process in between and only look at the final results. This was one of the things I found difficult to adapt to, since I had previously worked with the Japanese side and was used to paying attention to details throughout the process.

If you have a lot of ideas and are looking for room to grow, this is indeed a suitable place for you. The second reason I resigned was that I had always led teams in the past. After coming here, I had to handle the back-end operations, reconcile accounts, verify invoices, apply for invoices, confirm refunds, and submit reimbursement requests myself for Facebook, SEO, and LINE advertising. At the end of the month, I also had to prepare the gross-margin report myself. It felt like returning to an administrative-assistant role. The gap was very large compared with the past, when I had a team helping me complete everything. If you want to gain more experience and make yourself stronger, this is a good choice. The older couple are very generous about mentoring people.

There is no music at work, so it is somewhat quiet. This is the first company I have worked at like this. It was not a reason for my resignation, but hearing only keyboard sounds—or working in a very quiet environment—can make you feel mentally tense. Everyone experiences this differently, so I am only offering it as a reference.

I will not say much about the products. After all, this is a long-established company, and the product quality really is good. However, there are still many bottlenecks that need to be overcome, and this is where the abilities of the sales staff are tested. My abilities were insufficient, so I could not bring up the sales figures. This was also the third reason I resigned. I actually could not find topics that I could keep developing to maintain momentum for the products; I could only keep relying on discounts to save sales.

Finally, I still want to say that there is no perfect company in the world. Every company must have shortcomings, which is why it needs you to join. The commenter in the previous post mentioned reporting the company over working hours, and personally, I support that. Many companies in Taiwan need to improve. Why are there companies where employees work seven hours a day, yet the company’s performance continues to grow steadily? Only when employees voluntarily strive for the company can it have the possibility of growing. Choose work that you like and that others cannot do. Just because others cannot do it does not mean you cannot.