Workplace reviews and discussion: 道力實業有限公司

Interview:

　　I applied for the graphic designer position. After a simple Q&A, I took a computer skills test. The test involved removing the background from one of the company's backpacks. I was hired directly after the interview that day.

　　The salary is NT$24,000, or NT$26,000 with perfect attendance; working hours are 9:30–18:30; lunch break is 12:00–13:00; weekends off; labor and health insurance are provided, but there are no holiday bonuses. Overtime is paid.

Work:

　　For a recent graduate proficient in Photoshop and design, this is a good place to gain experience. The work is very simple: photographing products and creating DMs and banners for the online store. Basically, everything can be completed before the end of the workday. The pace is also relaxed—not constantly busy—and the boss's wife is very tolerant of employees.

Interview:

　　The company did not mention beforehand that there would be a computer skills test or a trial workday. After the verbal interview that day, they originally wanted me to choose a day to come in for a trial, but I happened to have set aside time that day, so I took the computer skills test immediately after the interview.

Work:

　　To put it simply, this is a family-run company that rented the second through sixth floors of an old apartment building in an urban renewal area. The office is on the fifth floor of a building without an elevator, and half of the employees are friends or relatives of the family.

　　At the time, I did not know that the interview would be conducted by a senior sales representative rather than the owner or the owner's wife. The information provided was extremely unclear, and many things were not mentioned.

　　For example, in addition to graphic design, the job also included answering the intercom, helping in the warehouse, assisting the owner's wife's older sister with handicrafts, taking turns serving as the duty person to take out the trash and collect registered mail, editing videos, cleaning the office, and so on.

　　I can understand that a family company of around ten people may sometimes need to support one another, but—

　　Even though I was the only person in the entire office who took a lunch break, I was told that I could not sleep during lunch and had to get up to answer the intercom. During a single lunch break, I generally had to get up three times to answer it. The intercom was extremely loud and shrill, and it always startled me. By the fifth month of answering it, I was practically breaking down mentally and physically. Helping in the warehouse often took up entire afternoons for several days in a row, making me wonder whether I had applied for the wrong position. On one occasion, I was even asked to work more than an extra hour to help in the warehouse. I think overtime is acceptable, but it should be for work within my responsibilities. What does work outside my responsibilities have to do with me? If they are short-staffed, they should hire more people, so I immediately refused. The owner's wife's older sister would also dump her own work on me. At first, I was only helping a little, but eventually it became my responsibility.

　　On top of that, it was frustrating to have to climb up and down five floors to collect registered mail when serving as the rotating duty person. Whenever the company had enough non-family employees, we were required to clean the office at the beginning of every month. But the office would immediately become dirty and messy again after we finished cleaning that day, because the owner's friends and relatives never had time to keep their own work areas tidy.

　　I have to mention two people here: the owner's wife and her older sister.

　　The owner's wife was primarily responsible for the graphic design work. She had some problems expressing herself, and she did not explain the abbreviations used internally by the company. Even the previous graphic designer who trained me could not understand them. What she typed often meant something completely different to us from what she intended. Early on, she repeatedly emphasized that previous graphic designers were very good at spiritual insight and mind-reading, and could produce the design she wanted without her having to explain things in detail. At the same time, she was like a classic client from design-industry memes: she had no understanding of how long her requests would take to produce, wanted high-resolution images without buying stock materials, and also expected us to find images matching her requirements without spending too much time. Under those circumstances, it was truly amazing that I was still able to meet her demands.

　　Another issue was that the job description at the interview did not mention video editing. Yet during one meeting, it suddenly became something they had supposedly told me about from the beginning. They even said things like, “We’ll grow together under pressure.”

　　The company is a wholesaler and had recently begun transforming its business by hiring people to sell backpacks through livestreams on commission. Because many people came and went, surveillance cameras were installed throughout the office, and the owner's wife could view the footage on her phone. Once, during a meeting, I suddenly learned from the owner's wife that she knew about private conversations between me and colleagues who were not part of the family group. I was also told that the cameras recorded audio, which made me extremely uncomfortable. In addition to the cameras, the owner's friends and relatives would report minor things to her. I was once told that I used too many hand gestures when speaking, which made my attitude seem poor, even though I might not say a single word all day. I admit that I am not a perfect employee, but I am not an especially outrageous one either. I never failed to submit or complete anything I was supposed to.

　　As for the owner's wife's older sister, a few days after I refused to work overtime to help in the warehouse, she started picking on me at work. I was eating a small snack cake—the kind with a very small portion—while continuing to work, when she arrived and asked me whether I had never read the employee handbook. She said that it stipulated that employees could not eat during working hours. The problem was that I had already been at the company for three months and had never seen any employee handbook, let alone received a copy from her after she mentioned it. She herself happily ate during working hours.

　　From then on, she often tried to find fault with me. The assistance she requested usually involved the warehouse or manually processing packages. But I had applied as a graphic designer, so naturally I was not very fast at warehouse or manual work. Sometimes she would criticize me for being too slow and inefficient, but that was not what I had been hired to do.

　　A few days before writing this review, I was asked to another meeting with the owner's wife, during which I submitted my resignation. I resigned without hesitation. At the end of my last workday, the owner's wife still tried to pressure me into working overtime to handle tasks she had assigned late and failed to explain until late in the day.

　　One more thing: the company sells counterfeit bags imported from China. It has not purchased any copyrighted materials; all the images are cracked or infringing materials found online. The environment is also very dirty—dust, cockroaches, mice, and fleas could practically sit down together for a game of mahjong. Nearly half of the people inside smoke. In particular, the owner smokes in his office, and every time he opens the door, a strong smell of smoke comes out. Unfortunately, the graphic designer's desk is right outside the owner's office door, so there was no way to avoid it.

Conclusion: A training ground for beginners; a dead-end job.