Workplace reviews and discussion: 竹工凡木設計研究室

A completely designed life

The company’s system is absolute bullshit. There are no real start or end times: the average workday runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. New employees who arrive punctually at 9 a.m. may even be locked outside for two hours. I have never once left work at 6:30 p.m. on time. They require you to live next door to the company in employee housing converted from their own property, with rent deducted from your salary each month based on Taipei rental rates. There is absolutely no distinction between working hours and off-hours, or weekdays and weekends. From the moment you open your eyes until you go to sleep, you work nonstop and have no personal time at all. You are either at the company or in the dormitory—and even when you are in the dormitory, the boss will come straight over to hold a meeting, since it is right next door.

They relentlessly brainwash you with slogans like: “Designers need passion. This is the design life everyone dreams of. Designers are supposed to devote their entire lives to design. We don’t call ourselves office workers; we are designers!” They say they will refine the designs to perfection, and that there is no day when the design is truly finished. Overtime pay, labor laws, and labor and health insurance are all treated as meaningless. Here, they say, we are one big family and everyone shares resources.

The boss’s mother is extremely partial: she only pays people she likes and pretends not to notice those she dislikes. She shares other employees’ private information and gossip with the employees she favors. It is completely her own empire; the outside world is irrelevant to her.