This place has absolutely no advantages...

Interview experience: The location was on the 20th floor of Taipei 101.

I arrived five minutes early for the interview. When I pushed open the door, there was no reception desk, only a pink partition with flowers on it, and some cardboard boxes stacked nearby. I went in, explained that I was there for an interview, and stated the position I had applied for. They then gave me a simple aptitude test with very few questions; I finished checking the boxes in about five minutes. After I finished, a staff member took the form and told me to wait because the supervisor was in a meeting! Okay. (No wonder there was hardly anyone at their desks—they were all in a meeting.) I looked around at the work environment. It was very messy: the cabinets were covered with yearbooks, and there were lots of cardboard boxes on the floor. The employees’ workstations were also quite small, and everyone was seated right in the middle. The area by the window seemed to be the supervisor’s spot. Later, I saw quite a few people standing or squatting in the front-right corner—turns out they were having a meeting. (My inner monologue: How strange. Is there no meeting room?)

Okay, I waited over 20 minutes for the interview, sitting there like an idiot.... Then a man saw me and asked, “You are?” I said, “Um, I’m here for the interview...” and asked, “Uh, where’s the supervisor?” The woman who had taken my form said, “The supervisor said to wait a moment!” I really waited a long time = =

Finally, the interview started! The supervisor was sitting at an employee’s workstation, then dragged another chair over beside it, and that was where the interview began. Most importantly, the desk space was messy and tiny.... 🙄️

I interviewed for the position of design assistant.

The supervisor briefly described the job and immediately offered NT$26,000.

They did not ask about my expected salary at all!

(No three holiday bonuses, no year-end bonus, and a responsibility-based position with no overtime pay.)

Me: “Does the NT$26K include the perfect-attendance bonus?”

Supervisor: “Yes!”

Me: “How much is the perfect-attendance bonus?”

Supervisor: “Um... we don’t have a perfect-attendance bonus...”

But they do have performance bonuses: three people in a group, with the bonus shared based on how many projects the group takes on and completes. After the supervisor talked about it for a while, they added, “But our bonus system hasn’t been finalized yet.” 😀 What a joke—just empty talk... They’re very good at painting a rosy picture.

I won’t go into detail about the job duties.

There is a certain amount of work that has to be completed every day, and you can only go home after the team leader reviews it and finds no problems. They don’t pay overtime, and you’re not allowed to take the work home to do!

The supervisor asked when I could start. I said in a week, because I needed time to open a bank account and so on. That was the end of the interview.

Follow-up—

About three days after the interview, at around 8 p.m., there was a missed call from them informing me that I had been hired. Since I didn’t answer, they sent me a notification through 104 saying I had been hired and asking whether I could come in to start work the next day. But I had clearly said a week! I don’t know what they were in such a hurry about. 🤔 Later, after discussing the assistant’s duties with a friend and realizing that they seemed somewhat unrelated to the company’s graduation project work, I was worried that there might be no work after a project was completed. So I called the supervisor to confirm whether this was a full-time position or a contract position.

After confirming that it was indeed full-time, I told them my start date. The supervisor said work began at 9:00 and that I only needed to bring my ID card. That was it; the call ended.

One week later—

On the day I was supposed to report, I arrived at the lobby of Taipei 101 at 8:40. I waited until 8:50, then went to the card-issuing machine and pressed the call button, but no one answered. I called six or seven times in succession, but no one responded. It was already 9:00, and I had practically given up on life... Quite a few people came to the card machine that morning. It’s no exaggeration to say that almost everyone made one phone call and then got a card to go upstairs! I was still on the first floor = =

Then my stomach suddenly started hurting, so I went to the restroom. Afterward, at almost 9:20, I went back to the card machine and called again. Finally, someone answered! I explained that I had come to report for work, received a card, and successfully went upstairs. I was taken to a workstation and asked to fill out a personal information form and an employment contract, which was about five pages, as well as a 21-page job description filled with clauses. After reading them, I was supposed to sign!

After filling out the personal information form, I asked the supervisor whether I could take the job description home to review and bring it back the next day. The supervisor said, “Um... In all the years our company has been hiring hundreds of people, you’re the first person who has wanted to take it home for review! Hmm... I’ll ask.” A few minutes later, I said, “I’ve finished filling out the personal information form, so I’ll give it to you first.” The supervisor looked at the employment-history section of my personal information form and said, “I don’t know—did your previous company really let you take the contract home for review like this?”

I explained that at my previous company, the hiring process involved calling to notify candidates that they had been hired, then telling them that, after a few minutes, an offer letter, contract, and other documents would be sent to them by encrypted email for review. The contract signed on the reporting date had already been reviewed before the person reported for work; they only needed to sign it. They didn’t require so many documents and contract clauses to be signed within such a short time without having been read first.

The supervisor said, “Oh, well, every company has a different process!” Then, after looking at my personal information form again, they said, “I want to find employees who are independent individuals. Sometimes you need to make immediate judgments at work. If you need to take everything home to review or have your parents look at it, I feel that you may not be suitable for the position! Of course, I’m not saying you lack the ability to do the work; I think your judgment is unsuitable. I’ll keep your personal information for now. Go home today, think it over carefully, and give me your answer tomorrow.”

I asked, “So can I take the contract home?” The supervisor immediately said, “I’m sorry, no!” I really don’t know what they were so afraid of.

The job description differed from what was said during the interview in many ways, and many of the clauses and items were problematic!

For example, during the interview they said there were two days off per week, but the contract said every other week off?

They said the perfect-attendance bonus was included in the salary and that there was no additional bonus,

but the contract said there was a NT$2,000 perfect-attendance allowance/bonus.

What was that supposed to mean?

So if I take leave, will they deduct another NT$2,000 from my salary?

Wow, then the salary would only be NT$24K! And that’s before deducting labor insurance—who knows how much would be left after that, haha.

I live in Taipei, too, and this salary is really too low! For someone moving to Taipei from elsewhere, it might not even be enough to live on. It’s even less than what you’d earn working at the 7-Eleven downstairs.... And there are no three holiday bonuses, no year-end bonus, and it’s a responsibility-based position with no overtime pay.

They said I wasn’t suitable 😀 Well, I wasn’t going to grovel for someone’s attention either. Of course, I didn’t go back!

Anyway, anyone who gets hired should think carefully.