Workplace reviews and discussion: 台灣大洋金幣有限公司

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Chinese boss. At the company, he would occasionally indoctrinate employees with the idea that Taiwanese people are ultimately still Chinese. When managing employees, he treated you directly as if you were a member of the Chinese Communist population. When you joined the company, you were given a notebook and required to handwrite your work-related matters in it. You could not bring or purchase your own notebook; you had to use the one he gave you. He would periodically check what you had written in your notebook, and he also controlled how you wrote: your handwriting could not be sloppy, everything had to be written in a clearly numbered or bulleted format, and there could be no extra notes or drawings. The boss’s (pitiful Communist Party) logic was that, during the time you worked at the company, using the company-provided notebook meant writing in it according to the company’s (pitiful Communist culture) rules. When you resigned, you also had to return the notebook (as if anyone would want to keep it).

The boss hated employees taking leave on Mondays and Fridays. Whether you genuinely had something to attend to or were taking sick leave to see a doctor, even if you provided documentation and had your pay deducted, he would say it was impossible that you just happened to take leave around the weekend. He would say employees were simply too indulgent with their Saturday and Sunday holidays and therefore unable to come to work on Monday (what you do on your days off is none of your damn business).

Most bosses hope employees will not be late, but he would stand at the company reception desk and watch what time you clocked in. If you clocked in at 8:59, he would say at the reception desk that you would be late in another 20 seconds. If you clocked in at 9:00, he would say you were 20 seconds late (with the seconds determined by the time on his phone). In meetings, he would say employees had to go to bed at 10 p.m. at home, and that the first thing they had to do after waking up was check the company’s WeChat and say good morning to their colleagues (actually, to him) in WeChat. He loved suddenly posting an image or link in the company WeChat without any follow-up explanation or stated purpose. After some time, or at the meeting the next day, he would ask employees whether they had seen it. If they had not, he would say their hearts were not with the company; if they had, he would ask what they thought of it. If they had no thoughts, he would say their hearts were not with the company (apparently the Communist Party also expects people to be psychic).

Everyone usually called him Mr. Bi, and whenever you spoke to him, you had to begin by calling him Mr. Bi—and you had to add it to every sentence. You could not call him that once at the beginning and then use “you” afterward. Even when discussing something with a colleague and referring to him, you had to say “Mr. Bi” rather than “him.” If he accidentally heard you, he would scold you, asking why you could never learn. I had only ever heard elders say that you should be respectful toward deities and not refer to them as “it”; I have no idea where he got the sense of superiority that made him demand to be respectfully addressed as “Mr. Bi” in every sentence (I truly do not understand Communist culture).

He had a very bad habit: he was extremely forgetful. Something he told you today might be forgotten by tomorrow, after which he would invent something he had never mentioned and ask why you had not done it. Then he would berate and humiliate you. When he wanted to berate you over something, he would not listen to your explanation. He would endlessly repeat his insults and prevent you from speaking. Even if you tried to explain your reasons, you were not allowed to; he simply had to finish saying everything he wanted to say to berate you. Once, when a colleague was being berated and someone spoke up for them, he entered the same endless-insulting mode. In a moment of anger, the person responded, “Did you understand the Chinese we were speaking?” He exploded, saying that he also spoke Chinese and was Chinese, and asked whether that person’s grandparents and parents were not Chinese (I’m truly sorry, but they were all native-born Taiwanese). He would leave you unable to tell whether he was suffering from memory loss or dementia.

All of the above are just a few of the everyday incidents that happen at this company. No one is born to be humiliated by someone like this, especially in free Taiwan. Think carefully before joining.