Workplace reviews and discussion: 台灣大車隊股份有限公司

The only advantage

People in the Southern Development Department who are out doing business are not supervised by anyone. In any case, they are ostracized at the office, so being out alone is actually a chance to breathe.

However, the deputy manager of the Development Department will vent all of his personal emotions, as well as the pressure placed on him by the associate manager above him, onto you.

You may even receive abusive phone calls while you are out. Even when you are genuinely doing company work, you still have to endure workplace bullying.

This company was formerly Taiwan International Telecom (全虹電信), which already had a bad reputation in the telecommunications industry. A group of old employees came here to work in the taxi business. There are many long-time employees in the company with titles such as manager and associate manager, and they still suffer from a huge ego, believing that they are the biggest in the industry. With the mentality of founding veterans, they exploit frontline employees. Internal factional struggles are severe: if you are on the opposing faction's side, they will target you and force you out. The company only wants obedient dogs that will listen and work, so people who know how to cling to those in power and flatter them can survive indefinitely.

There are countless disadvantages:

1. The deputy manager hired for the Southern company office apparently has bipolar disorder and poor emotional control. The first thing he does every morning is clock in and then go buy coffee, returning half an hour later. He immediately starts picking on subordinates and speaks in a cutting, sarcastic manner. However, he chats and laughs with female coworkers, and slavishly obeys the associate manager he wants to curry favor with.

2. Frontline employees in the Development Department earn only NT$30,000. After labor and health insurance, fuel, and scooter maintenance costs are deducted, only a little over NT$20,000 remains. Yet you have to shoulder many performance targets: developing business-hotel systems, signing up 12 convenience Call Car machines per month, developing dispatch points, and developing corporate users. Meanwhile, the deputy manager of the Development Department earns over NT$40,000, but work is distributed extremely unfairly. The deputy manager only needs to stay at the office to train drivers, coordinate dispatch-point matters, and do work for the associate manager. Development of convenience Call Car machines, business-hotel systems, and corporate users is all left to drivers who introduce them while working in the field, and the deputy manager's quota is only half that of subordinates (subordinates: 12 accounts; deputy manager: 6). The deputy manager even reports one physical machine and one web-version account separately, so in practice, a deputy manager only needs to develop three accounts to earn over NT$40,000. Those three accounts are also stores introduced by drivers who regularly pick up passengers while driving. Meanwhile, as a frontline business developer, you work yourself to death every month and have only a little over NT$20,000 left after fuel, labor and health insurance, and maintenance costs.

3. In the taxi industry, companies give out something called a “kickback” or “rebate.” Everyone knows what that means: money is handed out every month. But the deputy manager will never deliver it. There are approximately 30–40 stores that need to be paid. Regardless of wind or rain—even stores open at night—he orders you to go, and there is no overtime pay. The company will only say that this is your job.

4. He tells subordinates to avoid taking leave on Mondays and Fridays because holidays may overlap and customers with problems will be waiting for you, yet he himself frequently takes Mondays and Fridays off and enjoys life.

5. The deputy manager settles customer development by paying kickbacks. When frontline developers encounter stores that will only call for a car if they receive a kickback, the associate manager calls them in for a review.

6. The deputy manager has already driven away four people in succession. He is simply afraid of being replaced, so he keeps bullying subordinates to empty the department, allowing himself to remain there indefinitely.

7. Convenience Call Car machines use a SIM card to locate addresses, creating a monthly rental cost. The company monitors usage and asks for machines to be removed. The Development Department deputy manager refuses to go out. When a store's machine needs to be removed, he leaves it there after bullying the employee away, then, when a new employee arrives, pushes the responsibility onto the newcomer, saying it has been left there because the new employee failed to retrieve it.

8. The deputy manager also tells you that he does not want to stay at the company all the time either—his feet swell every day when he gets home because he sits all day.

9. The deputy manager likes to bully people verbally and then tells you that he is only being harsh because he has high expectations for you. Otherwise, he says, he will abandon you in the future. He brings the associate manager in to deal with you and directly threatens to find an even higher-level supervisor to handle you.

10. When you are at a customer's location repairing a machine, he calls to berate you and ask where you are, saying that the company is taking inventory and you should return immediately because you are affecting your coworkers' work. Yet it is only 3:40 p.m. at the time. He is also part of the Development Department and stays in the office, but refuses to handle the inventory himself.

11. Whenever a store involves gambling, prostitution, or drugs; has gang connections; opens only in the afternoon or evening; or operates at night, the deputy manager will absolutely not handle the service call himself. Subordinates are always sent instead. He simply does not dare face that kind of environment, yet he talks arrogantly and loves bullying people at the company.

12. The company requires you to develop customers at night, but provides mandatory compensatory leave instead of overtime pay. Your original schedule of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. becomes 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. If no one can be found to staff a dispatch point, you also have to work there on Saturdays and Sundays. The company says this is your job, while the deputy manager does absolutely none of it.

13. The deputy manager calls subordinates who have met their targets into the office to scold them, trying to force them to leave. He asks what they are unhappy about and tells them to say it, then orders them to take it back or he will get angry, even though he is angry every day.

14. There are only 16 people in the Southern office, and more than half are members of the so-called “Chuan-Hong faction.” They abuse their power. Even the large taxi fleet bullies people from the 55899 Joint Fleet, deliberately making trouble for drivers from the Joint Fleet. When they return to the company, vehicle inspections are never passed, driving the drivers away. Then they say that the 55899 manager's KPI is insufficient and that the manager is unsuitable, and fire them outright. An associate manager from Taipei will even take the high-speed rail down to scold people, then fire them once he has enjoyed himself. This is because you are not part of the Chuan-Hong faction. Managers at a publicly listed company use shareholders' money to buy train tickets, travel, and abuse people—what a comfortable life.

15. The Fleet Management Department is responsible for coaching drivers. Having the word “management” in its name makes them think they are supervisors. They have never done business in the field or seen the world, and only hide in the office looking for trouble with drivers. They constantly argue and say they will sue this person or that person, but in the end, they are never seen actually suing drivers. They only directly shut off drivers' accounts, leaving them with no assignments and no income. If you make someone unable to put food on the table, of course they will argue with you.

16. The company's general manager said that the Fleet Management Department would be renamed the Fleet Support Department, with “support” being the meaning. The associate manager below him was unhappy because of factional differences, but, being in a lower position and unwilling to argue face-to-face, bought a high-speed rail ticket to come south and berate the managers below him. He said he did not agree with changing it to Fleet Support. Then go talk to the general manager—why berate the people below you?

17. The Fleet Management Department supervisor also orders Development Department sales staff to do tasks. Because you are not part of the Chuan-Hong faction, and because you complained about the deputy manager's workplace bullying, everyone comes to bully you.

18. When you cannot stand the bullying anymore and report it to the Labor Inspection Office, the Kaohsiung associate manager responds by bringing out a “two-sided discussion record” form and arranging interviews with you for two consecutive days. The questions are the same. For more than two hours, he interrogates you in an endless loop. You have already been questioned until you have nothing left to say. The moment you remain silent, the associate manager says: “Now you are the one bullying him in the workplace,” directly accusing you of defamation.

19. At the end of the month, when performance is reported, the associate manager says that because today is the last day, it will not count toward this month and will instead count toward next month. Then, halfway through the following month, he says that you have failed to meet your targets and fires you immediately.

20. The Taipei company's HR department is ignorant of labor law and treats minor authority as a powerful weapon. They say that many company supervisors have evaluated you before firing you and that your performance was poor. It is a complete joke: I received bonuses every month for the preceding months, then, based on one sentence from them, the performance was not counted for that month and was moved to the next month; while I was still working midway through the next month, they fired me immediately.

21. Under the Labor Standards Act, unless an employee's ability is genuinely too poor, operations are poor, the company is downsizing due to losses, or there is no way to place the worker elsewhere, the company cannot lay them off. Yet I met my targets and received bonuses. I was fired simply because I refused to accept workplace bullying. This company was plainly retaliating against an employee. Under the law, an employer cannot take adverse action against a worker because the worker reported illegal conduct. This already meets the elements of unlawful dismissal.

22. The company plays word games. It gives you severance pay and pay for the notice period, but only tells you in the early evening of the day itself that you are being laid off. HR then pretends to know the law and tells you: “Because you did not apply for mediation with the Labor Bureau before today, this does not fall within the period during which dismissal is prohibited.” In other words, the company ambushes you in the evening and tells you to get lost after the Labor Bureau has closed. If you report it afterward, that is supposedly your problem. I think the HR department of this publicly listed company acts as if it is extremely powerful: today, it insists on canceling your insurance, causing losses to your labor and health insurance coverage, seniority, and wages, all of which affect the calculation of severance pay.

23. HR in Taipei also deliberately holds the phone away so that her voice becomes extremely quiet, then sarcastically tells you that her volume is perfectly normal and asks what you are going to do about it.

The disadvantages are endless. Simply put, if you cannot find a job for the time being, need money, or are naturally a sycophant, this is a suitable place for you to work. Otherwise, stay away.