Workplace reviews and discussion: 上聯國際展覽有限公司

1. Capsule coffee and milk

2. The NT$500 daily allowance for working shifts at exhibitions is a nice supplement

3. Willing to give people with no experience a chance (but because of this, a bunch of weird people also joined)

The company's biggest problem is the chairperson herself: capricious, autocratic, and dictatorial. She has even given up on treating her own internal employees and younger brother (the general manager).

Her track record is as follows:

1. She really likes calling people into meetings and then essentially talking at length about her own philosophies, wasting other people's time. She even criticizes other employees during meetings (showing an appalling lack of perspective as a boss), and then tells you that you are the person she wants to cultivate. At present, approximately 99% of the people she has said she wanted to cultivate have already been eliminated from the company.

2. She asks you to use your own compensatory leave to take time off and attend the company's year-end party because the company has no intention of paying you for that day's work. If you have no compensatory leave, it is unpaid leave for the day, deducted from your salary. (Employees with less than one year of service are not eligible for a year-end bonus or the lucky draw, but can receive a piece of honey cake that is about to expire.)

3. She orders the design staff around like movers, causing the entire design department to resign collectively (if you are applying for a design position, think carefully). The requirements for newly hired designers are that they must be fast, good, able to edit videos, and able to drive... Then, three days later, she complains that they are too slow and says, "Thanks, but no thanks."

4. Before the end of the workday, she asks everyone to move their seats. She does not care whether it delays you past your quitting time; just move to the seat she specifies. The reason? Simply because she wants it that way.

5. When the company wanted to downsize and lay off employees, it laid off a 23K intern even if that meant "breaching the contract" (those planning to intern here should also think carefully).

6. Due to the pandemic, the entire company was put on unpaid leave to weather the difficulties together. Employees were forced to take leave directly without their consent. Internal managers tried to negotiate a schedule in which employees could choose their days off, but she insisted that everyone take Tuesdays and Thursdays off, leaving you without even the right to choose which days to take as unpaid leave. Forget about arranging consecutive days off.

5. She lays off employees who are in the middle of carrying out projects because their short tenure makes them cheaper to sever. She does not care which unlucky person takes over next (there is no such thing as a formal handover at this company, because when the chairperson wants you gone, today is your last day).

Additional points:

1. Don't expect overtime pay. Even if you clock out at midnight, the time clock will still record you as having left on time at 6 p.m. Want to submit an overtime request? Don't even think about it. The chairperson will not approve it, and your manager will not advocate for you.

2. You have to learn things by asking questions yourself, because no one will guide you step by step. You may never even know why you are supposed to do something in a particular way.

3. A planner's job is just copy and paste: open last year's file, change the date and name, and you're done! There is no need to do too many unnecessary things, because this company does not need you to be too smart—just obedient.

Summary:

From my first month at the company, I discovered all kinds of absurdities that made it impossible for me to identify with the company. I thought I should at least stick it out for 1.2 years to improve my résumé, so I made myself become someone with a slightly less rigid backbone. To live comfortably in this company, you have to dance to its tune, submit to the absurdity, and endorse the dictatorship. But in the end, when the company no longer needs you, no matter how hard you worked or how well you performed, you are just another disposable pair of chopsticks waiting to be thrown away. Still, this experience opened my eyes. When you are leaving, what others say to you is not "We'll miss you," but "Congratulations." How ironic that is.