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I started working at Hi-Life when I was 16 and worked part-time for nearly 10 years. I resigned at the beginning of this year. I originally applied because it was close to home. I knew that full-time employees had to return to Zhongli to take exams and might be transferred far away, so I never tried to move up. Seeing so many store managers and supervisors working more than eight hours without being able to claim overtime, I no longer had the courage to advance.

I originally worked morning shifts, but when the company was short of overnight staff, I transferred to overnight shifts. Once, I worked 40 consecutive days without a day off... There must really have been a staffing shortage. I even went to work with a cold. These nine years had both hardships and laughter, with both friendly and unpleasant store managers and supervisors. Over the nine years, there were around 30 store managers. Whenever a company-owned store became franchised, I had to transfer stores. There were around 10 supervisors, with the shortest serving three months and the longest two years.

There was one good supervisor who would make store rounds at night and buy breakfast for us. There was also one who demanded that I take out and split among all the store employees the excellent-service bonus personally awarded to me by the company through an audit—not the store bonus; they are two separate things. He wanted us to use it to buy mooncakes and cakes for colleagues, about half of the bonus.

I initially refused. That night, he even came to the store to speak with me privately and told me to say it outside as well. I guess there were surveillance cameras at the counter. He said, “We need employees who are loyal to the team. In that case, I’ll consider reducing your hours.” I asked him, “Are you threatening me?” He said no, but that was what he was actually doing. I recorded the conversation. To be honest, it was the first time I had encountered something like this. Later, he pressured me through another store manager who had a good relationship with me. I don’t respond to force, but I do respond to persuasion, so I eventually compromised. This was the supervisor who left the deepest impression on me, Chen O-Ru. I heard that Chen has been promoted to department manager.

There were also some store managers who broke the law: they would report extra overtime and then ask you to hand over the money for their personal use, or add expired or same-day milk to the shelf-stable milk used in coffee. Headquarters said this was not allowed—the coffee machine could only use shelf-stable milk—but each store had limits on how much could be written off. A bottle of milk costs nearly 100, so they would have someone use it. They would soak hot dogs that had been heated all day in hot water; from the outside, they would seem almost freshly cooked, though the texture was obviously different. Before, they would take mala hot pot ingredients and oden that had been cooked too long and demand that we throw them into the mala hot pot. I refused to do any of these things when store managers told me to. After entering the write-off for the milk, I put it in the refrigerator. I threw away the oden and hot dogs as required.

Many store managers would curse me behind my back. When facing me, they would lecture me a little, but behind my back they said extremely nasty things, claiming they were trying to save the company costs and saying that I was not cooperative. Damn it, I really could not bring myself to participate in these unscrupulous food practices. Of course, there were also good store managers. If they saw that you were too tired and couldn’t finish putting away the goods, they would say it was fine and let you leave on time. Normally, you would be required to stay and finish another half hour of stocking before you could leave. The most common thing these managers said was, “You’re not allowed to leave until the work is finished,” while also refusing to pay overtime. They completely disregarded the Labor Standards Act. These store managers knew nothing about labor law—whether they were pretending not to understand or genuinely stupid, I don’t know. They did not even know that under the one-fixed-day-off-and-one-flexible-rest-day system, you work five days and rest two within seven days.

They didn’t know that working six days a week meant one of those days was a rest day on which overtime pay was due. They kept telling me to work five days and rest one, saying that it was fine as long as I did not work six consecutive days. They continued scheduling me this way until my salary at the end of the month was wrong. When I told her I wanted to claim rest-day overtime pay, she seemed to understand and finally submitted my overtime form. O Jin-Ru used to work in auditing.

After these incidents, there were only about six months left before I “automatically” resigned.

Later, the store was franchised again. The whole area was left with only two company-owned stores and more than ten franchised stores. The store manager said we had to get through the difficult times together, and immediately cut our monthly hours in half. More than half of the staff “automatically” resigned.

At my worst, my monthly salary was only 10,000. I still thought I should grit my teeth and hold on because I heard the company would open a new store. It did open one later, and I successfully transferred there. But my hours remained the same. On top of that, I had originally worked overnight shifts. I thought I would be taking over the new store, but the company directly brought someone in from another area, so I could only work other shifts. I roughly understood that the company no longer wanted to keep me. After using up my annual leave, I discovered that because my hours had been very low for six months, my annual leave had been cut by about half. At that point, I became completely disheartened. A new supervisor took over again.

Afterward, the company took back two franchised stores. Without asking me, they directly told me to go to a new store, but each one was farther away than the last. Eventually, I ended up under a store manager with whom I had a very poor relationship. I worked six hours straight without any break. When it was time to eat, I said I was tired and wanted to take a break and have something to eat. He said no because he was in a hurry to finish the accounts and had to go to the bank. I worked myself to death while he spent half the day chatting with the overnight employee he was close to. He even told me, “If you can’t take it, then resign.” So I left the job I had held for 10 years. Store manager: Qiu O-Ting.

The company itself treated me well and even gave me excellent-service bonuses.

But the senior managers expected me to do what they wanted and carry out all the things described above for them.

You have to know how to build a good relationship with them before they will treat you as one of their own.

To be honest, if you worked in the same area and department as me, you probably know who I am.

But all of this is absolutely true, without the slightest bit of fabrication. I have already resigned.

I will never work at a convenience store again. Even if you see me, I have nothing to fear.