Perhaps it’s that most of the employees have a strong sense of unity. Whether full-time or part-time, everyone can work together to get things done well, and they also keep each other in check.

The company seems to pay people based on its mood. Sometimes, when a holiday comes around, they only announce a few days beforehand whether salaries will be paid in the following days or what the arrangement will be. Whenever there is a national holiday, don’t even expect salaries to be paid early; sometimes there isn’t even an announcement informing us. The work atmosphere also feels as though you have to work according to the boss’s and store manager’s moods all day long. (Not all store managers are bad—when I went to support other branches, their store managers were very good and answered questions directly instead of giving irrelevant answers.) If the boss or store manager is in a bad mood, you have to be especially careful at work, because they may pick at your faults in every little detail.

Also, during the first two months after starting, you have to memorize product knowledge intensively. I can only say that I was lucky: when I first joined, the branch I worked at still had the previous store manager. He taught me very carefully and patiently, and I had finished learning everything before the store manager changed. However, when I saw the new employees who joined afterward, the new store manager’s attitude was to have the people below him teach everything. He would keep rushing the progress and check whether we had taught things carefully enough, but when it came to teaching himself, he would often say that certain things didn’t need to be learned or memorized. He was extremely lenient with himself during the training of new employees, while holding us to a different standard.

What surprised me most was that, as store manager, he would sometimes pass tasks down to the employees, whether because he didn’t want to deal with them or genuinely didn’t know how. If the head of a store doesn’t even know how to handle something, then how would the people under him know? Moreover, because I experienced two different generations of store managers, I felt that the company’s SOPs for handling matters were extremely inconsistent. At one point, I handled something according to what the previous store manager had taught me, but was later told that it could not be handled that way. I also told the new store manager that I had handled it that way once before and asked why it had been acceptable then but not now. The new store manager’s response was simply, “That’s impossible. You must be remembering it wrong.”

If the company changed its procedures for handling customer complaints, I could completely understand. But if the company does not announce the change to all employees and then criticizes us for handling something incorrectly, I absolutely cannot understand that. Also, when the company is severely understaffed, whenever headquarters needs people, the boss gives an order and insists that we go help. Even though the branch is already seriously short-staffed, people still get reassigned, forcing everyone’s shifts to be adjusted. Since the branch staff are mostly part-time workers, and everyone has classes to attend, adjusting shifts is extremely difficult.

Then, when you arrive at headquarters, you discover that the staff shortage is usually just an excuse. You can see the online-order packing staff pack a few items and then chat, scroll on their phones, and eat. Employees from other departments would rather sit at their desks pretending to be busy after finishing their own work than come back and help us. The part-time workers transferred there are simply extra manpower for them: while they chat and take breaks, someone else can still help with the work. Meanwhile, while you are working extremely hard and they are working extremely hard at slacking off, the boss will still complain that you are too slow and tell you to finish by a certain time.

Besides salaries often being paid late, their pay slips are also extremely unreliable. There have been cases where they were missing for one or two months, and even cases where a missing pay slip was never provided afterward. There is also often money deducted for purchasing winter or summer uniforms. The boss only says that the money will be deducted from our salaries, but in reality, you have no way of knowing how much was deducted because the pay slip does not clearly state it. Normally, if you change uniforms this month, the cost should be deducted from the next salary payment. However, sometimes, when comparing two people from the same period, you find that one person has already been charged while the other has not. It may only be discovered one or two months later that money was deducted from the salary. Without a pay slip, we cannot even confirm what the deduction was for.

Break time should be our own time. I feel that both the part-time and full-time employees at this company work extremely hard—apart from the new store manager. Sometimes, a full-time employee who arrived relatively late would initially ask a part-time worker some questions, but the boss would interpret it as chatting and start scolding them without understanding the situation. He would only say, “Why didn’t you ask the store manager at another branch? Why ask a part-time worker? Do they even know?” If we don’t know, then truly no one knows. When the new store manager is asked questions, he just says, “Huh? I don’t know either—what should we do?” Whenever we report something to him, he often gives us an extremely bureaucratic response, creating the impression that part-time workers know nothing. Yet he only dares to report things to the boss when the situation becomes very serious and has already reached legal issues. I don’t know whether he has told the boss that part-time workers are insignificant or what, but the impression this gives people is extremely disrespectful.

There is actually a lot more. I could go on at length about the boss and the terrible store manager. If you have any other choice, really, don’t come here. If you absolutely have to, then do not volunteer to take on too many tasks, because eventually they will dump everything on you. You will earn the same money, have deductions made for all sorts of things, and still be expected to do more work.