Workplace reviews and discussion: 樂購蝦皮有限公司

None

https://www.dcard.tw/f/job/p/235576863?fbclid=IwAR3FwVCHVgsyFPswUKaVijutFhTOcdBzPmPmuYBVOxAKniboVBE7wKvg_xg

Responsible for copying and pasting, creating records, and keeping logs.

A while ago, a widely discussed article about an internship at 蝦x sparked heated debate. It also made me want to share the problems I saw at this company. Since so many of my friends work here, this post brings together the absurd things my friends and I have encountered.

Of course, not everyone who has encountered these things is this bizarre, but they are not isolated cases either.

I’ll start with the company’s own problems.

1. No systems; everything is manual

This is probably one of 蝦x’s most well-known characteristics: everything requires opening a Google Form.

No matter which department it is, everyone is constantly creating forms, filling out forms, or finding people to fill out forms.

That’s why the company hired a bunch of part-time workers to enter or check data. Former colleagues joked that “蝦x is held up by its part-time workers,” and that really isn’t an exaggeration!

Also, because there is no integrated system at all, if a piece of information needs to be changed, it has to be updated in every form containing that information. First, this is extremely time-consuming and ridiculous. Then, sometimes people forget exactly where that information appeared, so there are often situations where “people look at different forms and end up with different understandings.”

In the end, everyone spends a huge amount of time communicating and apologizing. This really is a baffling company.

2. The office is brightly lit at night, with no overtime pay

This is probably also quite well known: 蝦x is notorious as a sweatshop.

At first, I thought it wouldn’t be a regular occurrence or that people wouldn’t work too late. I was completely wrong.

From what I’ve heard, in some departments, the earliest people leave at 9 p.m., and for some, leaving at 10 p.m. is the norm. I’ve even heard of new hires working until 1 a.m.??

The company is so wealthy—can’t it hire more people? Working until 1 a.m. without overtime pay is honestly laughable.

3. Major problems with interdepartmental communication; wasting your life communicating

This is somewhat related to the lack of systems mentioned in the first point, but that concerned data.

Here, I’m referring to the company’s lack of horizontal communication. Departments have no idea what the others are doing, resulting in a lot of duplicated work and wasted resources spent doing the same things.

In addition to duplicated work, another baffling situation is that sometimes when you ask another department to do something, they wonder why you are inexplicably making them deal with it.

It is incredibly frustrating. It would not be an exaggeration to say that you may have to explain the same thing more than a dozen times 🤗

4. Departmental infighting

At this company, Commercial and Marketing do not get along. I find this really childish.

But I’ve heard that some people ask where you are from before deciding whether to help you or make things difficult for you. Hmm… the so-called Singaporean multinational is actually extremely Taiwanese at heart.

5. The senior management is poached with high salaries, while the lower levels are full of…?

Everyone in the industry probably knows that 蝦x poaches many management consultants. That itself is not a problem. The problem is: what is the point of hiring so many highly capable people if the people underneath them don’t have a clear understanding of things?

At this company, someone who has been there for around two years is considered relatively senior. Such people often serve as junior leads, but that is where the problem originates.

Two or three years ago, getting into 蝦x was not as competitive, so anyone with a general understanding would know that quite a few people had weak foundations. But now that the company has recruited many more capable people, how could these newcomers possibly respect or follow them?

Of course, you can’t tar everyone with the same brush. Not every relatively senior employee has a weak background, but many of the people I’ve seen and heard about do.

Now let’s discuss the problems with the work and the colleagues themselves.

1. On call all year round, with no time off

The people at this company are strange. Even when your status says you’re on leave, someone will still message you (regardless of the department). Do they understand what respect means?

It’s bad enough during leave, but supervisors will also keep sending messages over the weekend. If you don’t reply, they keep sending more. I’ve even heard of a friend whose supervisor directly called on a weekend evening to ask whether they could help, and then wanted them to ask people from other departments for help too??

Basically, I think everyone at this company is extremely submissive. It’s rare to see anyone here with work-life balance. If there is one department that does, it is probably the data-related department.

2. Highly segmented work, with lots of miscellaneous tasks

Because the company is so large, everyone is like an assembly-line worker, doing very trivial tasks (such as filling out the forms mentioned above). I genuinely don’t understand the point of hiring so many highly educated people (蝦x particularly likes recruiting graduates from National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University) to fill out forms.

And because the company is so chaotic, completing one task may take twice as long as it would at another company. The process may also involve a lot of arguments and apologies. In the end, you really don’t know why you are wasting your life in a place like this.

3. Disrespecting and bullying employees

This point may be somewhat subjective, but it is something my friends and I unanimously agree on.

It may also be related to the backgrounds of the employees mentioned earlier. In any case, the colleagues you encounter here can give you the feeling of, “Huh, you work here too?”

Because the company has so many different kinds of people, it is definitely not an elitist place. Of course, 蝦x may not need elites.

I’ve also heard friends share some outrageous experiences with supervisors. Here are two of them.

One supervisor would drive wedges between team members, badmouthing them to each other and deliberately trying to create division. Apparently, ten people under that supervisor had left in less than a year. Many people reported the issue, and senior management and HR knew about it, but the problem was never resolved. That supervisor is still enjoying life at 蝦x.

Even more outrageous, one supervisor directly humiliated a team member and said they were unworthy of the position. I really feel that people at this company have no respect at all. What is there to be so arrogant about just because you are a supervisor at 蝦x?

There was also a case where a colleague’s supervisor kept dumping work on them while the other team members enjoyed an easy ride.

Because the other team members were closer to the supervisor, the supervisor kept assigning work to that colleague and would not help even when the colleague complained about having too much work. Shortly before the colleague resigned, the supervisor assigned them yet another report. In the end, my friend had to ask someone else for help. How far do you have to go to bully someone?

4. Tricking young people

I’ve noticed that many people join because they think 蝦x has amazing benefits and is full of young people. In reality, the former is untrue, and the latter is a problem.

Many people assume that 蝦x pays very well, but the company actually has no fixed year-end bonus. Naturally, the monthly salary is inflated to compensate; this is just simple mathematics.

I also originally thought that many young people would be easier to communicate with, but they turned out to be the root of the problem. Young supervisors lack leadership experience and often lack work experience as well, creating chaos.

For example, some do not even know how to manage basic meeting schedules or their team members’ workloads. One colleague had a meeting that lasted 12 hours, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with no output at all. Apparently, the person in charge did not notice anything wrong.

5. A fake multinational with a truly Taiwanese mindset

The many points above should make it obvious that this is an extremely Taiwanese company. Anyone who has worked for a genuine European or American company would probably find this place unbelievably absurd.

But perhaps many people still take pride in working for a multinational company, not realizing that this is simply a sweatshop trying to squeeze every last bit out of you. With so many young people, and new hires coming in every day, there is no fear of running out of recruits ^_^

Finally, this company is truly toxic!

I’ve seen everyone who joins eventually lose their dreams, forget what they want and what they like, and stop caring about anything. It is genuinely frightening!

I’m not exaggerating. So many people eventually become cold, robotic machines, forgetting who they are. How many young people’s dreams has 蝦x ultimately extinguished?

This company is very good at cultivating a cheerful image, but once you go inside and look around, many people are under tremendous pressure and cannot smile.

If you still think after reading this that these are just isolated cases experienced by certain people, that’s fine—good luck to you. In any case, I hope this can help some students who were close to taking the wrong path.

Apparently, people resign every day after the Lunar New Year, while batches of new hires are sent in every week! May all benefactors enjoy a lifetime of peace.

(The above is all something I dreamed about. Nothing to see here, okay?)