Meals provided, good benefits

Restaurants with good business are basically always short-staffed, and applicants are generally hired (for back-of-house positions). The salary is NT$1,500 higher than at other branches, so you can imagine that the workload is also heavier. There are morning, afternoon, and evening shifts. When new employees first join, they rotate through shifts for two or three months, including the hellish closing shift. Every time I closed, it took three hours, which was unbelievable. There were tons of miscellaneous tasks, and I was busy from the moment I started work until I got off. I could not even drink the equivalent of one bottle of water. Although chain restaurants offer good benefits, they also have lots of nitpicky requirements (you must take off your chef’s uniform whenever you leave the kitchen, and you also have to wear a chef’s hat and hairnet), making them different from ordinary small restaurants outside. There are unwritten rules about taking leave (on Saturdays, you can only take personal leave or annual leave; on Fridays and Sundays, you can each only take one day off per month). There are also unwritten rules about clocking in (you must be fully dressed before clocking in). Two people share one locker, and you even have to clock in and out for break times. Food preparation during meal periods is also bizarre: you are never allowed to prepare too much. The company deducts money from the employee benefits fund, resulting in employees having to prepare ingredients while serving orders and compete with the stove and grill stations for workspace. Some ingredients and sauces are vacuum-sealed and frozen and should be able to keep for a while, but instead you have to estimate the number of customers and prepare ingredients accordingly every time. When there are many customers during a meal period, there is simply no time to prepare ingredients and then serve orders immediately; all your time is completely taken up. Then cleaning up at closing is another kind of hell.

If you want to make money, come here. If you want to learn something, get lost. If you want to be a kitchen worker, come here. If you want to be a chef, get lost.